TELEGRAPHIC NEWS.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 4836, 21 September 1876, Page 4

TELEGRAPHIC NEWS.

(PER PRESS AOENCV.) Dunedin, Wednesday. The Times of to-day says a gentleman in Scotland writing to a Dunedin friend, by last mail, says the Stella and Hinemoa, both of which the newspapers said had been built as yachts for the Marquis of Normanby, have in reality been built for the Colonial Government. It is asserted, he says, that the steamere are regular jobs, flimsily built and exorbitantly charged for. He state that a gentlemen connected with a steamboat company in one of the neighboring colonies remarked of the Stella and Hinemoa that there would bo a fine row about them when they got out to New Zealand. New Plymouth, Wednesday.

The Paraika meeting has terminated. Over a thousand natives were present. Te Witi was tho centre of attraction, and was looked up to with almost adoration by the natives. He says the Maoris were the lost tribes of Israel,

and exhibited maps and plana showing the supposed route by which the present race originally reached New Zealand. His knowledge of scripture, history, and of late researches in Palestine is spoken of as astonishing. He said it was no use educating the Maori regarding the land. He said each man could sell or keep it as he liked. He spoke of the proposed meeting of the Maori King, the Governor, and Mr. McLean.

The Wild Duck, which was on a bank in the Waitara River, has been got off. 134 acres within two miles of New Plymouth has been sold to Burke, of Auckland, for £1650 cash.

The trial smelting at the iron works will commence to-morrow.