SUEZ MAIL NEWS.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5247, 17 January 1878, Page 3

SUEZ MAIL NEWS.

The directors of the Scottish Australian Investment Company propose to pay a dividend on the coosolidated ordinary stock of the company for the half-year at the rate of 10 per cent, per annum, and a bonus at the rate of 6 per cent, per annum, free of income tax (making, with the interim dividend paid in May last, 12J per cent, for the year), and to carry forward £1059 to the credit of the new account. The Queen has been graciously pleased to appoint the Hon. Sir Arthur Hamilton (Jordon, K.0.M.G., Govornorof Fiji, to be her Majesty’s Consul-General in the Western Pacific Islands. At a meeting of the Royal Humane Society, held on November 20, the silver medallion was unanimously voted to Miss Grace Vernon Russell, a young lady only 16 years of age, and the bronze medallion to Samuel Isaacs, her black, servant, for rescuing several persons from drowning at the wreck of the Georgette, near Kaldagup. __ The Hon. MrV and Mrs. Wyndham Stanhope (late Miss Camille Dubois) loft Plymouth on November;!? in the Kent, s.s., for Melbourne. The gold medals founded by the late Sir Gilbert Blane, Bart., have been awarded to Pleot-Surg’oa Adam Bruutdn Messer, M.D., for his journal as staff-surgeon of i H.M.S. Pearl for‘the year 1876; when outlie Australian station and to Fleet-Surgeon Francis William Davis, for ; his journal of H.M.S. Audacious, the flagship on the China station, for; the year 1875.;, .The Presidents of the. Colleges of and Surgeons and;, the Director General *of the Medical Department of the Navy) were the judges. The 'Freemason for November 17 contains an : address delivered .in Lodge Beta, Hamilton, New Zealand. ’, ‘ Mr. E. Wilson has recently, imported some live ants from Australia, and presented them

to Sir John Lubbock,. This., is the first time that ants have been brought over alive from the Antipodes. They are said to be stringless, and as there is no queen, there is no fear that the Australian ants will usurp the functions of the colonial beetle. A new life-boat, called Peep o’ Day, which has been presented to the National Life-boat Institution by a Scotch gentleman residing at Wanganui, New Zealand, was recently launched at Port Erroll, Oruden, Aberdeenshire. A distinguished service reward is vacant by the appointment of Lieut.-General Sir Richard Wadpy, K.C.8., to the colonelcy of the 63rd Regiment. Sir Richard Waddy was given the reward while serving in the New Zealand campaign. Miss Alice May has made a successful debut at the Opera Comique in the new comic opera of “ The Sorcerer.” The Lusitania arrived at Plymouth from Australia on October 30, at 4 p.m., thus making the run from Adelaide in forty days. Tile new iron Clyde-built ship Stirlingshire, 1187 tons, sailed from the tail of. the bank, Greenock, on November 8, bound for Brisbane. The Stirlingshire takes out 130 single men, 100 single women, 74 married people, 55 children between the ages of twelve and one, and 13 infants, making a total of 381 souls. The Stirlingshire also takes out three swans for the Botanic Gardena at Brisbane. Lieut. Thomas J)e Hoghton (1868) has been selected for the command of the schooner Beagle. Lieut. C. G. Horne (1869) has been selected for the command of the schooner Sandfly when those vessels are recommissioned in Australia. Lord Adam, of Glasgow, recently heard evidence in the Court of Session in an action raised by Hanna Bice or Williams, against her husband, Lewis Williams, formerly a blacksmith in Govan, and now in New Zealand. The parties were married in Jarrow, Durham, on May 13, 1865, but several years ago the husband deserted his wife, and on this ground the Lord Ordinary granted decree of divorce. The dividend to be recommended by the directors of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company at the annual meeting, on Decembsr A,, will be per cent, for the half-year ended September 30 last, making, with the interim dividend paid in June, 4J per cent, for the year. The total payment for the year 1876 was 3J- per cent. The opening meeting of the session of 1877-78 of the Royal Colonial Institute was held at the Pall Mall Restaux-ant, on November 20, under the presidency of his Grace the Duke of Manchester, when Mr. R. H. Elliott, who has spent many years wf his life in our Indian Empire as an agriculturist, read a paper on “ Indian Famines and how tc modify the causes that lead to them.” There was very little in the paper of real practical utility, and much that the lecturer did say would have been much better omitted. Erom the commencement it was evident that he was at variance xvith Lord Salisbury’s opinions, but we did,not expect the sneers with which his paper concluded. As was stated by the Hon. Henry Westmoreland, who made some sensible remarks on emigration, which is certainly one of the points that will have to be taken into serious consideration by the Government in dealing with Indian famines, Lord Salisbury is at the head of a very influential and intelligent body of gentlemen in this country who have spent the best years of their life in India, and if any one is in a position to form a correct opinion upon Indian matters it is the Secretary of State for India. Strange to say Mr. Elliott was of opinion that no effectual aid was to be expected from railways, canals, and irrigation works, whereas it is well knoxvn that if famines are to ha mitigated it must be principally if not wholly by those sources. He dwelt on the importance of forests and tree planting, and urged a reform in the native army, also an increase in the import duties ; but these suggestions, with others, did not seem to meet with any support fixxm the meeting, which was composed principally of colonists who had attended on the opening night of the session as a matter of course. Strange to say not a single representative of India of any note was present, but it was 'intimated at the opening of the,proceedings that both Lord Northbrook and Lord Lawrence had “expressed their inability to attend,”