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Oamaru Mail, Volume IV, Issue 1226, 22 March 1880, Page 2

Patrick Hendry is the name of the man who fejl icofn tlje train op Saturday afternoon when near Hormanby. He was lighting hia pipe when he met with the accident. Mr. Jones, stationmaster at Tiuianj, fcoolf au engine to the spot, and Inspector Pender sent a policeman on foot. Inquiries elicited the satisfactory information that the man had not' been injured, and had -walked to jVXskikihi, -whence he proceeded in a vehicle to his iwwg !}p Waiho. Mr. Henderson, pi ljakapui, has suffered a rather severe loss .in' the death of his trotting horse Little Dick. The animal was missed over ft fortnight ago, and though search was made, po trq.ce cpuld be found of the horse until a day or two ago, Hp W3. b then found dead in a ditch about two rniles above Maheno. The animal was standing upright with the top of his back and the upper part of his head out of water. The ditch was a very narrow one, and the horse appears to have been unable to get out, and was either starved to death or drowned. Mr. H. Goodman's fine racehorses Titania, York) Chancellor, ajul Tora forwarded to Ghristciiurch by train to r day. It is announced in another column that a lecture will be delivered by the Rev. Henry Dewsbury on the ''Characteristics of Manliness" ■on Wednesday evening next. Apart from the circumstance that thp revepend lecturer, who has won such golden opinions during his sojourn amongst us, is on the eve of bis departure for another sphere of labor, the public will doubtless be constrained to attend the lecture in order that they may hear Mr. Dewsbury's views on a subject fraught with so much interest to us all. In addition to the lecture, which we have every reason to believe will be by no means dry, a number of anthems and sacred songs will be sung by the church choir.

}Ve arc requested to state that a meeting [ of the Cqijinuiteo of the North Otago Agricultual and Pastoral Association will be held on Thursday, 25th inst., at 11,8u a.m., in Mr. Church's office, the usual monthly meeting having lapsed from want of quorum. > The Kakanui Meat-preserving Works will - commence boiling down sheep on the 3rd of Aprjlj after which date the works will be fully engagedOur Inch Valley eorrespcudflnt writes as ' follows, under date March 20th; The ' school broke up for the Easter holidays yes- • terday, when the Committee's annual exami--1 nation was held under the supervision of the chairman. The school had been carefully cleaued and tastefully decorated by the child toil of -p'hom there was a full nnlster. The work of the school was exhibited throughout in the presepoe of the Committee and some of the parents, and surprise • as well as satisfaction was expressed at' the progress towards proficiency made by the scholars during the last Ave aud n half i months. The subjects comprised in the school course are Geography, Grammar, • History, Drill, Recitation, Reading, Spelling, i Arithmetic, Writing, Drawing, and Agricultural Chemistry, After the examination, [ Mr. David Ross, the chairman, on behalf of the Committee, stated the satisfaction he ' had felt with the conduct of the scholars, remarking that he had been at many previous examinations ; and he hoped that as prizes arc to be given next yeer, all will work very hard in the meantime. He concluded by 1 notifying that the .school will be re-opened 1 on Monday, sth April, 188 G. The School ; Committee met after the examination, and • adjourned till 7,30 p.m. on the sth April, when steps will be tftken towards holding a concert for the purpose of raising supplei mentary funds. The settlers have not yet ; finished stacking, and stooke will be seen for over a fortnight yet; some, however, have finished threshing. The weather still holds good. The Timaru Herald asks how it is that, while oats can be purchased at from is to la 6d per bushel, stable keepers- charge two shillings per feed of two quarts, which means 32s per bushel. In consequence of the almost nightly incursions of depredators in Dunedhj, tfie police force of that city will be strengthened J by additions from Wellington, The Daily Times says that this is necessary in the interests of the very timid persons, especially females, whose rest has lately been . disturbed through fear of nocturnal visits of a predatory character. The Auckland JETcr/dd says : —A correspondent, who signs himself " A Thin One," appears to be greatly exercised £bout "Allan's Anti-Fat," He says:—Judging from a whole column in your journal der voted to " Allan's Anti-Fat," there are too many fat billets knocking about now-a-days; and while some are getting too fat, there are others getting too thin. "Allan's Anti-Fat" is a very good thing, no doubt, and "more work and less pay' a very good substitute. "A Thin One" recommends a few weeks of gnm-diggfng during this hot weather as an excellent remedy for obesity. A doctor once advised ''fi,awdust pills " as being very good, provided you made your own sawdust. "A Thin One," however, regards the suggestion as being "too thin !" It may not be generally known that Allan's Antj-fat had a great run in Oamaru, and that a short while ago, po greedily had the specific been swallowed, that the local chemists quite ran out of it, much to the inconvenience and annoyance of several of our worthy citizens who had resolved upon systematically subjecting themselves to its constrain? ing effects. Those upon whom nature in its freakisbness has bestowed immoderate attenuation, are jealous tliat Mr. Allen should have shown so njuch attention to their more ponderous brothers and sisters. -The /act is that the fat would like to be thin and the thin would like to he fat, and

neither Mr. Allen nor any other human creature can satisfy their cravings. Possibly there inay be some good reason (says the Timaru Herald) why the grain buyer at Oamaru is able to give the farmer from threepence to fourpence per bushel of wheat than the, Timarii corn factor. Admitting that the facilities offered by the Breakwater at Oamaru account to . a certain extent for the difference of price, yet the balance of difference remaining, is still large, and requires explanation. Theshipping of wheat at Timaru was last grain season about one penny per bushel, and consequently the difference in price of. grain at the two places should be simply the difference in the shipping charges. This is assuming that at neither port are there any coastal charges, but that the means of getting rid of the grain are similar, i.e., to the English vessel. For some cause or other, the Timaru farmer is heavily handicapped, for if we compare the Timaru with other colonial markets, we find that his brother agriculturists elsewhere get as a rule a higher price for their produce. We hope that these remarks may provoke inquiry, and elicit evidence on both sides of the question. If the Timaru prices will bear investigation, and be proved just and reasonable, so much fc}ip mjrse fop the farther who is compelled to part Vith his grftifl. sut, jf otherwise, and prices mount in consequence, then our agricultural' friends will bp |he gainers. The farmer shpuld inquire into this question himself. A SFritei-.il) ftie Wesleyan Standard says there is a small religious sect near Portland who puts a literal construction upon sqnpe figurative expressions of Scripture, and consequently indulge in some absurd practices. Regarding themselves as the Lord's sheep, they imitate the cries of sheep, and' b-a-a in their religion aggembli^s. Very remarkafajg changes have taken place during the forty»two years' reign of Queen Victoria. She has outlived by several years every Bishop and Judge whom she .found seated on those benches in England, Scotland and Ireland. . She has witnessed the funeral- of every Premier under her, except Lord Beaconsfield and Mr. Gladstone. Not a single Cabinet Minister of her uncle and predecessor's day now survives. Of the mefjibeFS pf ttyp £pjyy Council in June, 1837, tp administer to her the, 03% only fpur suryive.' She has received *the hoijiage of fpur Arghbishpps of Canterbury, four -- Archbishops pf York, and of five Bishops of Chichester, Lichfield, and Dui'ham successively. She has filled each of the Chief Justiceships twice at least; she has received the addresses of four Speakers of the House of Commons. She has entrusted the Great Seal of the Kingdom to no Frofp feceptjy published respecting the position of t]ie publjc debt O.f United States, we'learn that Qn the Ist of Sfpvember, the aetual Indebtedness was 1403,809,000, During the. finanoial year ending 80th June, 1878, the public debt was reduced by L 4,871,000, making a total reduction since March, I 569, of L 100,493,000. In 1860 the entire diebt was less L 12.000.000, equal to not quite! 8s per head of population ; 'in 1565 the civil war had increased the debt to' L 551,286,000. Last year the debt'had been reduced tp about L 8 6s par hpftdr

' A correspondent of the New Zealand Times, writing under date Maroli Btb, makes the following statement: —" The commission concluded its sitting at Waitara to-day. A claim was put in for Teherangi Block, a valuable piece of land, adjoining .Waitara, and now occupied by Europeans. Mr. Parris stated the land belonging to a friendly tribe who had fPHght fOF the Government during the"war, and without apy justification or recompense, it had bepp tafepp away from them apd'given to the military Sir Dillon Bejl stigmatised it as bare-faced robbery, and the worst case on the coast, • Commissioner Brown also said the natives had been very unfairly dealt with. The Commissioners said the settlers could not be removed, as was requested by the natives, but they would recommend the Government to make money compensation." Mr. John Rankin, who rents a portion of the Strathkellar estate, and whose crops havp suffered severely from the grubs, has (states the Hamilton Spectator) taken the trouble to collect specimens of the insect in its various stages of development, and by keeping on hand individual'specimens has been ablg to watph the transition of the grub, chrysalis, apd moth- He ssyg that the insect in its moat destructive form is a small light brown caterpillar, which, after committing depredations upon the oats, changes into a dark brown grub, about an inch and a half long, which is found buried in the earth, and whoso habits are nocturnal. This grub afterwards becomes a chrysalis, which in course of time developes into a handsome-looking red fly, with bright blue wings and a long double-fork tail. The fly as it grows older changes considerably, and eventually comes to resemble a gad-fly or "liorse-stinger." Mr. Rankin is now waiting tq see what sort of eggs the creature will lay,'an<J thep after patching the process gf hactliing he will have' completed his gations into the whole circuit of development.