LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Oamaru Mail, Volume I, Issue 101, 17 August 1876, Page 2

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

The boys attending the Grammar School were yesterday put through their usual drill, by Sergeant-Major M'l'hcrson. They mustered about eighty, and were well exercised l>y the Drill Instructor.

A sjiuci.il meeting of the Oamaru Harbour Board took place yesterday afternoon, but as the proceedings were conducted in Committee, we are unable to give a report of the same. The ordinary fortnightly meeting of the Municipal Council will lie held this evening at the usual hour. At the Resident Magistrate's Court this morning. John Morrison, on remand, charged with unlawfully injuring one Elizabeth Campbell, was again brought up, and remanded until to-morrow.

Referring to the £3,000 vote to Dr. Featherston's family, the Povrrdj Bay Standard aays:—"The £3,000 just taken from the public coffers represents a fact of more importance to the settlers of Poverty Bay than to any other district in New 'Zealand, and one which they cannot help employing—with all their Christian fortitude and resignation —in illustration, and possibly augmentation of the many evils under which they continue to lie. This sum is only one more added to the many that, year by year, are being increased, by the resignation or death of some official patriarch, in such a way as to make the burdens of the Colony, from which we receive no earthly benefit whatever, a matter of serious consideration." An extract from a letter of the "Paris Correspondence Company/' published by the H'uHf/aHiti llfiold, declares that M. Gambet ta promises to take in hand the redressing of a shameful nuisance—that by which railway companies increase their tariffs by thirty and fifty per cent, on Sundays and holidays. What a busy life the ex-dictator must have, lie lias no less than ~>32 abuses that he promises to remedy—all he asks for is time. His two journals are very well conducted, save occasionally when a "talented writer seizes the pen." One of these phenomena has just astonished Parisians, and more especially the railway and postal authorities. The text is the Indian Mail. This, we are told, consists of only a locomotive and one carnage, devoted to the transport and sorting of letters ; only two clerks, muffled in furs, and whaler's boots ; no passengers, and no luggage van consequently. The train leaves the Northern railway terminus, and sweeps on to Marseilles, where it joins the Italian line for Brindisi. Great wonders

still! This one carriage" may contain an order, emanating from the East India Company, which consists solely of merchants, ordering their representatives at Calcutta to direct 120 millions of people to "at once cultivate opium, which means famine, instead of rice, which signifies abundance." Also, excursion trains, at nominal fares, run it seems between Manchester and Calcutta, and which are much patronised by the "cutlers " of Manchester desirous of collecting fragments of Indian gods, to hunt elephants, or chase tigers. Mr. Gisborne, one of the "three able Civil servants," was entertained at a dinner by a number of Civil servants previous to his retirement on a pension of £3OO a-year, which he contemplates enjoying in England. A Southern contemporary remarks thereupon : —"Poor Civil Servants ! In 186S they were called upon, one and all, to subscribe so much towards the pui-chase of a testimonial for Mr. Gisborne, who was then leaving the Service to become a Minister of the Crown. Of course few dared refuse, heads of large families in the enjoyment of perhaps £l5O ayear mournfully forwarded their guinea towards the fund. Now, mark the mutability of tilings human, especially when observed through the dim atmosphere of colonial habits. The Minister pocketed the testimonial, voted himself into a depart" mental sinecure of £I,OOO a-year (Commissionership of Annuities) without loss of time, subsequently gave up his seat in the Cabinet to resume his position of Civil servant, and now, he retires on a pension of some £SOO a-year, to which he could not have had any claim had he failed to retain his name on the Civil Service List when holding the political oilice of Colonial Secretary."

Artesian wells appear to be a success in Christchurch. We learn from the Press that it was stated at the meeting of the Drainage Board by the Engineer, that the discharge of water from the city during twenty-four hours reaches the large quantity of 240 gallons per head of the population, the «reater part of which was artesian Water. The Board have decided to add a clause to the proposed amendments in the Act, giving powers to the Board to control the artesian wells throughout the city.

Under 1 * the "heading '' A Murderer Par cloned," the Auckland Star of the 2nd inst. sa y S : —"Our; readers will perhaps recollect that three years'ago when Eppright was condemned to death for the murder of young Oarretty, the third mate of the whaler Rainbow, at the Bay of Islands, he had a companion in his trial and sentence named Fisher, a shipmate, who was said to have urged on Eppright to the deed for which he was hung, and to have actually put into Eppright's hand" Hie knife with which he stabbed his victim. Both prisoners were found guilty and condemned to death, but Fisher, on account of his not being the actual murderer, and also on account of his youth, had his sentence commuted to ten years' penal servitude. We believe that the rule in our prison system is that when convicts behave well they are let oft' with two-thirds of their sentence, but in this case it appears that the prisoner has been released after serving less than a third of his time. Why the exception has been made is not very clear," but it is possible that it may be owing to the statement made by Eppright on the scaffold, to the effect that the evidence against Fisher was wrong, and that he had nothing to do with the murder. Yesterday Fisher, who is an American, made an application to Mr. 11. P. Barber, the American Consul, to be sent home as a distre sod seaman, and that "entleman procured him a passage in the mail steamer City of "New York, in which he left this morning." The insulting tone assumed towards Auckland by the Southern Ministerial Press, is in wonderful harmony with the feelings and conduct of its masters. The Wellington Argus, conspicuous for its lickspitism and servile toadying to Sir Julius Vogel, says in a recent issue :—" Having been existing for some time on the eleemosynary aid doled out by the General Government, Auckland has no other ambition than to support herself by the salaries of Civil servants, having escaped by the piteousness of her appeal, from a fair share of the indebtedness of the Colony. Any change would seem to satisfy her, and as she will be content with the charitable bounty of her neighbor, she will seek no voice in its disposition." And this (says the Star) from a journal published in that miserable apology for a city, which owes all it possesses to a systematic plundering of the Colonial Treasury.

A very good pen and ink sketch of the Hon. George ll'Lean, the new Cabinet Minister, is given by the Grey Hirer.Argus, from the pen, no doubt, of Mr. Harrison, ex M.H.R. The writer remarks: —"Poverty, they say, makes people acquainted with strange bed-fellows, and the adage has received another illustration of its triteness. It seems only the other day that ' Geordie ' used to attack in unmeasured terms the present Premier, denouncing his finance as hollow, and generally holding up the Premier to ridicule in a quiet stolid manner that was quite irresistible. But the old story s repeated; the wilderness and the desert place may not exactly blossom as the rose, but the lion has made a comfortable arrangement with the lamb, and the pair now-repose

"comfortably together. Mr. M'Lean canno by any stretch of the imagination be regarded as a debater, except that on one occasion he managed to weary the House by a strategical speech of some three or four hours' duration, intended to kill time, and which nearly succeeded in carrying its fell purpose further by the untimely slaughter of the few unfortunate members who happened to be present." The following lamentable event is thus narrated by the Taranaki Budget : —"A tragic occurrence took place last night, at the establishment of our esteemed fellow-citizen, Mr. Sansargent, in Devon-street. Mr. S. opened his shop as usual yesterday morning, nothing being observed in his manner to excite the slightest suspicion. At dinner time he complained to his wife about the depression in trade, and his fears that he should not be able to meet some bills Avlrich he told her were due to-day. At tea time he appeared very much dejected, and told her that not a single customer had been in all day. Nothing more is known of him from this time until aboiit nine o'clock, when a neighbour called in to see him in consequence of what he had heard from Mrs. S. He found the unfortunate man in the shop-parlor sitting before an open book, which proved to be a cash book, without a single entry in it, mechanically casting up columns of imaginary figures, and muttering, "fifty from one you can't —you must borrow, but where can I borrow ? where ? where ? where ?" and before his bewildered friend could pi event him, rushed into the shop, and blew out his lights. This event caused a great gloom in the neighbourhood."