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New Zealand Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 4796, 5 August 1876, Page 2

A Provincial Government Gazette notifies a sale of Crown lands for sth pro*. The laud to bo offered lies in Palmerston, Foxton, Fitzherbert, Featherson, Masterton, Wanganui, and Wellington city. In the Resident Magistrate’s Court yesterday the business on the criminal sheet was confined to two assault cases, which were struck out, the parties concerned not making their appearance.

It was rather remarkable that -when Mr. Reea resumed his speech at 7.30 last evening there were not half the members of the House present. Only one Canterbury member was within the chamber. A meeting of the Board of Governors of the Wellington College will be held on Monday next, when the question introduced by the Mayor, as to whether meetings shall be open to the Press, will come on for discussion. According to the Standard a walking match for a distance of two miles has been arranged in the Wairarapa between Messrs. R. Greeks and W. Hodge. The match is arranged to come off in about a month. Two seaman were arrested yesterday on charges of larceny. It appears that the men had stolen or were alleged to have stolen some delf, which they offered in exchange for value received at a shop in the city. They will be brought up at the Resident Magistrate's Court this morning. There were twenty-three cases against defaulting ratepayers in the Resident Magistrate’s Court yesterday. Twenty of them were settled, the. money having been paid into Court, and in the remaining three, which were contested, judgment was given for the Corporation, with costs. The Education Board have received an answer from the General Government to the protest against granting £SOO to the Catholic schools. The reply is understood to be to the effect that if the grant is improper such will be discovered by the Provincial Auditor, who has power to disallow it. A very pleasant excursion trip is announced to be made to-day, weather permitting. The s.s. Moa will leave the breastwork at 2.30 p.m., returning at about 6 o’clock. We have been requested to draw particular attention to the fact that should the Moa not start in consequence of unfavorable weather the tickets purchased will be accepted for the trip next week, the object being to have weekly excursions of this kind. The last but one of the farewell series of De Murska concerts takes place this evening at the Odd Bellows’ Hall, Mdlle. De Murska having completely recovered from her indisposition. A very fine programme has been prepared, including some of the gems of the season, and by request the celebrated ‘ “ Carnival de Venise,” with vocal variations, which created such a furore at her first concert in Wellington. On Wednesday the company leave in the Rangatira for Napier, and Mdlle. is announced to make her last appearance on the evening previous. The final con- . cert was originally to have taken place on Monday, but the following date being more suitable to his Excellency the Governor and the Marchioness of Normanby, who are to be ' present, it has been altered accordingly. , A paragraph appeared in our issue of Wedi nesday, giving what we have since learned was a quite incorrect account of an occurrence at 1 the railway station, in which a cabman was 1 accused of very improper conduct. The para- ’ graph was inserted accidentally, and in the 1 absence of those responsible for it, and was 1 founded on false information supplied to the writer by one on whom he supposed he might i have relied. We trust that no names having , been mentioned no annoyance has been caused by our informant’s incorrectness ; and whilst , we shall in future refuse to insert any information coming from the like source, we regret I that in this instance we should have permitted his grossly inaccurate version of a very trifling occurrence to appear in our columns. | It was a well-merited compliment to Mr. E. M. Bates that in the face of such uninviting ’ weather so many people turned out last evening to witness his representation of Hamlet, 1 and the treat afforded was a good recompense for their disregard of the elements. We have 1 never seen in Wellington a more finished or l scholarly rendering of the melancholy Dane i than that of Mr. Bates, and the singular thing ! about it is that people are so unanimous in i their appreciation of his performance. On a • former occasion a contributor to the Times . went fully into the merits of Mr. Bates’ ( Hamlet; and it is unnecessary, therefore, to say more than that he again achieved a signal success —the play scene could not have gone ■ more successfully. The applause was alike ' frequent and enthusiastic. Mrs. Bates’ ■ Ophelia was a fair performance; and a word of 1 praise is also due to Mrs. Stoneham for her acting as the Queen; to Mr. H, Stoneham for : his assumption of Laertes, and to Messrs. Deering and Metcalfe for the way in which they acquitted themselves as Polonius and ; Horatio respectively. This evening the two t celebrated comedies of “The Honeymoon” and “ David Garrick,” with an interlude by Miss Lizzie Morgan in her new songs, will make one of the most attractive programmes of the season. A meeting of the parishioners of the combined parishes of St. Mary’s, Karori, and St. Mathias, Makara, was held at Karori on the evening of Wednesday last, the Rev. William Ballachey presiding. The hon. treasurer read the usual statement of accounts for the past ’ year, which showed a highly satisfactory state i of affairs in connection with these parishes, the , receipts from all sources, and particularly the general offertories, being considerably in excess of those for the last year. It was decided that . the vestry be authorised to take immediate steps for providing additional room or rooms to the present parsonage ; also, that the church grounds be securely fenced, so as to secure the young pines which had been planted there, being a donation from Mr. Donald, of the Karori Tea Gardens. Votes of thanks were accorded to the retiring church officers, to Miss Donald and the Sunday - school teachers, to Miss ; Reading and the choir for their services during the past year, and also to Mr. Donald for his liberal gift of trees. The following officers for the ensuing year were elected :—Minister’s churchwarden, Mr. Graham ; parishioners’ churchwarden, Mr. S. Lancaster; vestry— Messrs. J. Donald, jun., J. B. Reading and W. H. Williams. The clergyman made a statement showing the progress made in the district during the past twelve months, as evidenced in the large increase in the number of communicants, the large number who had come up at the last confirmation by the Bishop, amounting to twenty-two ; and also the number of adults, as well as infants, who had undergone baptism. The proceedings terminated with a unanimous vote of thanks to the clergyman for his zeal and energy in attending to the spiritual affairs of the parishes. The following is the Wellington team chosen to play against the Nelson men on Wednesday next : —N. W. Werry, P. Webb, A. Campbell, G. Campbell, John Bishop, Allen Bishop, Johnson Thompson, W. James, R. Lynch, Hugh Pollen, Henry Hickson, A, Smith, Wm, Burnes, R. G. Park, Jas. Wilkin. The Nelson team is ;—T. Nicholson, G. Nicholson, Warnock, Wells, Hodgson, Hale, Modcalfe, Doulton, Tennent, Watts, Gully, Sharp, Speed, and possibly two more, if they can come. The club do not happen to be in a flourishing financial condition, the subscriptions having been exceedingly heavy last 'year, and the expense of entertaining the Auckland team was necessarily heavy. It is to bo hoped therefore that the public will liberally respond to a call, which wo understand the committee have found it necessary to make in order to properly entertain the Nelson team, who will leave Nelson for Wellington to-morrow. The Government yesterday received the following cable message from Sydney ;—August 4.—The Ly-ee-moon left Banjoewangio at 5 p.m. on July 29, and arrived at Port Darwin yesterday afternoon. She has been detained waiting for messages by the French mail, and has also been detained on the passage by a south-east monsoon and exceedingly strong current all the way. The officer in charge of the Ly- oe-moon reports telegraphic communication interrupted via Siberia by floods since July 19, and no probability of its being restored at present. The majority of the telegrams sent by the Ly-ee-moon caught the steamer leaving Penang on July 26 ; the remainder went by the mail on July 20. Do not expect replies from London much under a fortnight. There is no news of importance from Europe. Telegrams per Ly-ee-moon must be forwarded not later than 1 p.m. on Saturday, sth instant.—(Signed) F. J. Borns, Postmaster-General.

The local Press complains of scenes of drunkenness, fighting, &c., which take place on Saturdays at Marton. The steamer Luna returned to port last night on account of the bad weather in the Strait. She will not leave again till Monday, and if the weather should be at all calm to-day will take a number of members of Parliament across to Dowry Bay. Roberts has been beaten for the first time since his arrival in the colonies, in Launceston, Tasmania, by a Mr. Hadley, proprietor of the Criterion Hotel. The victory after all was but comparative, seeing that the champion gave his opponent 600 out of 1000; still the victory is worthy of record. A Victorian Judge seems to believe in the saying that brevity is the soul of wit. He summed up a case the other day in the following terms —“ Well, gentlemen, is this felony or is it folly ? that is what you have to decide.” Such an address as this is an excellent contrast to long-winded orations. We understand that the Odd Fellows Society have determined to lease the hall, Dambtonquay, for a long term of years, and that tenders will be called for early next week. This is perhaps the best thing the society could have done with their property, supposing them to have abandoned the idea of making material alterations and improvements in the halL The Canterbury Press has a correspondent in Wellington who performs his duty in a vicarious manner. The Press of Thursday last had a condensation of the debate on Mr. Whitaker’s land regulations, telegraphed word for word from the New Zealand Times of Wednesday, but without acknowledgment, and placed to the credit of “ Our Own Correspondent.” The Wellington correspondent of the Lyttelton Times and the Otago Daily Times is good enough to say on the land resolutions debate—- “ The debate last night was dreadfully tame. Except Mr. Maoandrew, no one seemed really in earnest. Between Mr. Whitaker and Sir J. Vogel a very good understanding seemed to exist, and neither of them spoke well. The whole affair looked cut and dried.” The election of wardens tor the Wellington and Karori districts will commence on Monday next. The Karori-Makara district, which has at last severed its connection with the Wellington district, is divided into five wards, and we understand that the candidates are as follows :—No. 1 ward—Messrs. Cook and Monk ; No. 2, Mr. Bowler ; No. 3, Messrs. Graham and Monaghan, the former having been warden for the old No. 1 ward before the separation took place) ; No. 4, Mr. J. F. E. Wright; No. 5, Mr. J. R. George. The election for four of the wards in the Karori-Makara district takes place on Monday, and the election of a member for the fifth ward takes place on Saturday next. The election of six wardens for the wards in the Wellington district will extend over the whole of the week, commencing with No. 1 ward on Monday, the day following being devoted to the election of some persons as wardens to the five remaining wards. The rabbit plague is now engaging the attention of the House of Representatives. We hear that the rabbits are becoming very numerous and very destructive in the Wairarapa and away to the East Coast. An idea of the seriousness of the question may be gained when it is known that five thousand rabbits consume the quantity of grass that would feed one thousand sheep, and that on some runs as many as eighty thousand rabbits have been killed in a year. It is to be observed that the fecundity of the hare is beginning to make itself disagreeably perplexing to large estate owners in Victoria. Two gentlemen occupying large station properties in the Ballarat district are (says the Clunes Guardian) already in great plight as they watch their rapidly vanishing grass falling under the mowing teeth of the little depredators, and propose next season taking active steps to exterminate their tormentors. In the Western district they seem to multiply exceedingly, for the other day there were counted sixty-nine of them within a distance of less than two miles and within a few yards of the public road. It has been suggested, we observe, that the steamer Moa on her trip round the harbor this afternoon, should put in at Lowry Bay; and we feel sure that the proposal will be welcomed by all intending excursionists, for it would be difficult to find a more enjoyable spot for a picnic than the Vice-Regal Domain. AVe trust that at the sale on Monday next the estate will fall into the hands of some public-spirited individual, who will render it a summer retreat worthy of the capital.