Untitled

Oamaru Mail, Volume IV, Issue 1248, 17 April 1880, Page 2

The members for this district have received the following message from the Minister for Public Works which looks like business : " Auckland.—April 16.—Messrs. Shrimski and Hislop, M.H.R.s, Oamaru. —I have instructed Mr. Blair to take steps to afford employment in Oamaru district. * — R t Oliver."

Again we impress upon the settlers of this electoral district that- they should lose no time in registering their votes as provided under the new Act, and that witnesses to the signatures of claimants must already be registered voters. We hope that all will feel the necessity of enfranchising themselves, and that they will, with that object, at once apply to the Clerk of the Resident Magistrate's Court of Oamaru for the forms necessary to enable them to do so, as it is desirable that their names should be entered on the new roll on or before the first of next month. It behoves every man to place himself in a position that will enable him to exercise the privilege of having a say in the selection of our rulers. If colonists neglect to take an interest in the government of the country sufficient to induce them to register their names as voters and exercise the privilege of voting, they must expect to be governed by a handful of irresponsible men. We have already seen enough of the evil of such apathy. The first grain ship leaving our port this season cleared to-day for Guam with a cargo of wheat, shipped by the N. Z. L. & M. A. Co., and valued at L 4500. The unemployed of the Windsor-Living-stone railway works are requested to meet at Windsor on Monday next, at noon, for the purpose of making representations as to their necessitous position to the Government Inspector.

The educational reserve of 156 acres, which was purchased by Mr. John Lemon yesterday at Messrs. Fleming and Hedley's sale, was secured by that gentleman for the Waitaki High School Board, and upon it will be erected the new High School. The Rev. S. G. Matthews, it will appear from an advertisement, intends to lecture on the Poet-Laureate Tennyson, on Monday evening next. The rev. gentleman, who is sojourning in the colony for a season for his health's sake, is an able lecturer, and will, ■without doubt, treat his subject in a manner that will prove both interesting and instructive.

It is announced in another column that the opening of the Primitive Methodist Lecture Hall will be further celebrated tomorrow by the conducting of services morning and evening by the Rev. A. J. Smith, of Ashburton, a late arrival from England.

We have often heard the remark made after a fire, when some old house has been burnt down, that another old laud mark had been removed, but in the case now under our notice truly a very old landmark has been removed, and that is the threestalled stable that was converted into the Bank of New Zealand, and occupied by Messrs. H. Drummond, Locke, and Fotheringham, from August, 1862, till the end of July, 18C8, when the present building was entered upon. The old building was erected more than 20 years ago by Mr. Weedon, and afterwards passed into the hands of the M<Msrs. Julius as a training stable, and eventually it was owned by the Messrs. Fenwick, who disposed of the property to the present proprietors. Apropos of the subject upon which we are writing,' it was stated by the Dunedin Manager of the Bank, when the erection of the present building was in contemplation, that it wa3 too large and twenty years in advance of Oamaru; but what is the result? The present building has already been added to; and, if report is correct, the Bank premises will receive still further additions by the pulling down of the present building and widening it to the street line. "We have received the April number of the Illustrated New Zealand Herald. As usual, the chief merit seems to be that it depicts foreign scenes. . Some idea of the magnitude of the rabbit Duisance in South Australia may be imagined when it is stated that thirty-two Government parties are at present engaged in their destruction.

The Waipawa Mail says that the other day a field of oats was to be Been with a linnet perched on every ear, and not a grain was left. The Telegraph tells another tale of a crop was splendid as long as the birds were there; bnt as soon as they left the caterpillars ate everything -up. The result is that the oats must go in any case, and the choics is merely between birds and caterpillars. The Waikato farmers must not talk about heavy crops when anyone from Howick is within hearing. In that district a farmer put in twenty-two acres of wheat. His crop amounted to forty bushels, of which eighteen were dock seed.

The "Waikato Times says :—" Cattle rising has scarcely been a profitable occupation to numbers of onr Waikato settlers since the railway has beeu open. One man, indeed, near Hamilton, has lo3t Ll4O worth, and farming is quite sufficiently handicapped without having this' additional tax put upon the settlers. We trust that Mr. Whyte, the member for Waikato, will move again in the matter in the coming session of the Assembly, and carry it somewhat further this time than the mere asking of a question from the Government, and that

other membets forsthe cpmrfcry district willr assist him to induce the Government to undertake the fencing of the line; through settled districts,' and, at any rate, , where lines Tike that of the. Auckland-Waikato railway are, constructed on a serpentine system of engineering, where often neither cattle nor engine driver can see the danger till too late," The Thames Advertiser says chief of the Ngatihako tribe/some of the members of which shot the young man M'Wilfiams some months £go while surveying near Ohinemuri, was in Shortlahd last week, but said' nothing about delivering up the guilty parties to be tried. The lad who was shot was severely injured, and rendered incapable of doing anything for a long time, but he has received no 'compensation. The whole subject will be brought before Parliament." Quite proper that it should be. We remember that, when the members of the present Government were in opposition, they were not sparing in their denunciations of the Grey Government because they failed to bring Hiroki, the murderer of M'Lean, to justice.'- Now, it was generally acknowledged at the time that there were insuperable difficulties in the way of accomplishing the end which the Opposition professed to believe was desirable, It was all very well in theory. Hiroki was, and is still, we doubt not, a dangerous criminal, but, like all others of his class, it was necessary to catch him before he could be brought to justice—- " aye, there's the rub." The opinions of the objectors to the inaction of the Grey Ministry in regard to this matter, now that they have changed positions with those whom they denounced, have surely undergone e, moat thqrgugh change, Not only have they not arrested Hiroki, but they permit the chief of the tribe that committed the outrage on the unoffending young man M'Wiliiams to mingle with the European population without the slightest interference. Have not the examplary Ministry of the day afforded another instance that they care for nothing bur office, and placed another weapon in the hands of their opponents which we hope will be well used when the proper time arrives ? The New Zealand Herald says The Salt Lake Tribune (the anti-Mormon paper in Utah) is very severe upon the Mormon missionaries, and heads an article upon them, "A Couple of Frauds Doing Dirty Work in New : Zealand." Our contemporary says" The New Zealand Herald has come to our table, containing accounts of the missionary labors of Elijah J. Pearce and John P. Sorenson—two as great frauds as ever left this territory for the purpose of gaining over to the church proselytes. The former is a polygamist, who left one of his dying wives to go abroad and preach the Gospel, The latter is well known here as a lunatic. The Herald devotes considerable space to a pithiless account of Sorenson's life, which any journalist can perceive was written by ; the the bilk himself. By it we learn that Sorenson is a monogamist from choice, but believes polygamy all right. 'Possibly,' he tells us, 'he may see his way clear at some future day to exercise his privileges.' He assures us that ' the Mormons deprecated any person having a plurality of wives who was not of good character but what constitutes ' good character' is of course omitted. Now, as far as Sorenson is ' concerned, his record is well known here. He is a monomaniac, his foible being religion. He was for a long time an apostate, ■and no one villified the church more than he. The turncoat then went back within the pale of the organisation, and has been receiving revelations ever since. For a time he was proprietor of the Valley House, which hotel he all but ruined by his endeavors to hash up Mormonism as a diet for his guests. He was for a time a member of the Masonic order, but the fraternity some time since expelled him from their fellowship. He has been an infidel, a Gentile, a Mormon, an apostate, a Mormon again, and finally a fraud. The last named is his character at present." •