LATEST CABLEGRAMS.

Patea Mail, Volume V, Issue 457, 10 September 1879, Page 2

LATEST CABLEGRAMS.

(Per Press Agency) WELLINGTON. September 9. At the Kutt election —Mason polled 167, ami Jackson 140. Wi Parata and ten of his people left Otaki to-day for Pariliaka, to counsel Te Wliiti to refrain from doing anything that will bo calculated to inflame the minds of his people. ft is understood that Government intend to at once start surveying at Ohinomuri, the scone of recent native outbreak, for the prosecution of a railway. Ship Rakaia, 08 days from Plymouth, arrived this morning, bringing 296 immigrants, all well. AUCKLAND. September 9. Grey’s central committee will despatch voters by special train to Waipa polling. Whyte, in Waikato election, had a majority of 30. Election at Onehunga and Waitemata proceeding. Return of O’Rorkeand Wood is considered certain. Belligerent Northern natives agreed to live at villages, and not go on disputed land. No poll was demanded for Rodney, Farnell agreeing to accept a show of hands as final. Eewi is reported to be much annoyed because, through his late accident, he was unable to record his vote for Te Wheora. NEW PLYMOUTH. September 9. The Harbor Board agreed to send their Engineer to London, to buy plant and confer with Sir John Code. MASTERTON. September 9. At a meeting of settlers held at Gladstone, it was decided to fix the rate to be paid for shearing duringthe coming season at 17s 6d per 100 sheep. DUNEDIN. September 9. Full particulars to hand of Waikaia polling. Ireland (Opposition), 239 ; McKenzie; 168. Another body has been recovered from the scene of the fire —a young man about twenty, not yet identified. A man named Hodgson is also reported missing. All the persona taken to the Hospital are doing well.

people jumped out of the windows at the rear and front. Nearly all of them wcro seriously injured, some being badly burnt as well. One woman, Margaret McCarty, was told by people to jump from the third storey : inker terror, she obeyed. She fell and struck a protection over the main entrance and was carried away bmsed ang insensible. Her moaning told life was not quite extinct. Eventually a long ladder was obtained and a number of people were taken out from the side of the building next the Athenaeum. A large number of boarders who slept on the third floor, were seen wandering about the building for some time utterly bewildered. They luckly broke into a room used for drying clothes, where they found a number of clothes lines. Tne block was almost entirely destroyed, but the sre was confined to one block. There was scarcely any wind blowing, or the damage must have been even more serious. The lire escape did not arrive till it was too late to be of any service. The building is a perfect hive of bedrooms, especially 'flu the top floor. There were in alt forty beds in the Cafe. It is conjectured that about 100 people must have been on the premises. Captain Murphy, of the Fire Brigade, states that eight persons known to have been on the building are not accounted for. A survivor who slept in a bedroom in the side of the building to the rear of the Athencenm, who got down stairs at the cost of a scorched five and hands, says that when he left bis bod along with another who slept in the same room, three men who had wandered from the upper rooms of the Cafe, were left in the passage. They were stupified by the smoke, which was excessive, and one of them attempted to hold him as he was leaving. He tried to direct them to the stairway, but they did not appear able to find it. He himself had very little recollection as to bow he got downstairs. The remains of Mr and Mrs Wilson, their eldest boy, and their other children, were found huddled together near where ho stood. Another hotly was also found near their remains. The building was one mass of flames when the fire escape arrived. During the height of the fire, most exciting scenes occurred. One man, who occupied the third story, escaped through a window on to the parapet, where he con tinned hanging for fkillf ten minutes, whilst ladders wore being found to reach him. The insurances are: —Union, £1,150; Standard. £1,000; National, £1,450; Norwich Union, £1,300; Victoria, £200; Transatlantic, £IOO ; New Zealand, £2OO. LIST OF THK INJURED. David Conway, who jumped from one of the stories of the building, in addition to being burnt severely, was injured by the fall, and was removed to the hospital. Maggie McCarty, who jumped from the top story, was caught in a sheet ; her injuries are not likely to prove fatal. Anothoryonng woman, name unknown, jumping from one of the back windows, fell heavily, and was considerably injured, she having struck against a projecting portion of the building while falling. She was also taken to the hospital.

Two of Robert Wilson’s children are known to be seriously injured. They were badly burnt, and in jumping down sustained further injury ; one of them struck the parapet in falling, and then fell on to the pavement. The extent of their hurts is nnkraown, but it is feared one will prove fatal.

Altogether six persons, including one man who died from injuries, have been taken to the hospital. These include Maggie McCarty, servant of Mrs Wilson, of the Registry office, Conway, Thompson, who got out of the back of the building, and who was greatly injured about the back ; and two ot Mrs Wilson’s daughters, both of the latter being seriously injured. From a comparison of various statements made by survivors it would appear that the whole of the inmates on the lower flat escaped with only sight burns. From the upper stories about seventeen succeeded in effecting an escapo. Of these ten let themselves down by means of clothes lines. Among .his number was Anthony Callan, Charles Frene, and J. Dean, the latter having been cook t > ihi restaurant. Three escaped by a ladder, two were brought down from the exterior of the building. Of the latter, one, a man named son, was kdled by the fall. Mr Walters, proprietor of the Octagon Cafe, states that on the night previous to the fire thirty persons were sleeping in the building, the majority being on the floor. Mr Walters estimates his loss at £BOO, he is unable to assign any reason for the outbreak of the fire.

order to keep the rivers and streams within their respective channels. “ A well-wooded soil,” say these authorities, “is like a sponge, which allows no water to escape until it is comjpletely saturated ; consequently, instead of allowing the rain-water to flow off as it falls, as does a soil bare of trees, it holds the rain, and gives the moisture free play for penetrating the ground on which it falls. We may compare two pieces of ground, one wooded and the other bare, to a roof of slate and a roof of thatch. From the first, the rain, from the very beginning of a shower, flows off tumultuously, and rushes in torrents from the gutters, which become dry almost as soon as the shower has passed. The thatched roof, on the contrary, receives the rain, lots none of it escape until it has become saturated ; and, long after the sky has cleared, continues to send off the superfluous moisture gently drop by drop. “ Wooded soil acts as does the thatched roof. It retains the rain until thoroughly - «©aturatcd, and retains its moisture long the treeless soil has become parched and dry. “Moreover, the rain does not in wooded regions fall to the ground in its totality. A considerable quantity is caught and held by the leaves and branches, and the asperities of the bark, and is restored to the atmosphere by evaporation. The melting of the snow also proceeds more slowly in wooded regions, as the ground is heated less rapidly under trees than where exposed to the full rays of the snri. “ Nor is this all,” say the authorities referred to “ for forests destroy miasmata •and purify the plains.” “A plantation,” says M. Becqnerd, “opposes the passage •of a current of damp air laden with pestilential miasmata, end preserves from •its action the country which lies behind it; while the region traversed by the pestilential current, being devoid of trees, becomes the seat of resulting diseases, as is the case in regard to the treeless Homan Campagna. Trees act as a sie ve, and purify from putrescent particles the air that passes through them.” After the terrible inundations of 18GO and of 18G4, excellent laws were passed by French Chambers for enforcing the planting of trees, with a view of destroying the evil in its source; hut these laws have been allowed to remain inactive, and the danger has consequently remained unabated, notwithstanding the excellent results that have followed the planting of hills with trees, wherever this operation has been carried on. For instance, in the department of Cam, the bed of the little river Caiman was overflowed onehalf the year and dry the other ; .since the old forest of Montont, destroyed for the sake of its timber, has been replanted, the Cannau has regained its ancient proportions, never overflows, and is never dry. The groat company of the mines of Grand Combe, which in 1838, has planted with pines 780 acres of the banks of the fiver Garden, has thereby entirely Ireed that region from the terrible inundations with which it was visited every year. The favourite watering place of Bergecss was formerly ravaged every year by tempests of snow. Since the committee, summoned and presided over by the late Emperor, has re-wooded the sides of the surrounding hills, the little town has enjoyed a perfect immunity from its former disasters. The villiage of Anderwaft, in Switzerland, owes its existence to the forests of pine that clothe the surrounding hills, and that intercept the avalanches that constantly are falling around it every winter and spring. Holloway's Pills . and Ointment Indigestion, Disorder of Liver. —No fact in medical knoledge is better established than that the chief source. of all morbid states, whether of body or mind, is a deranged state of digestion, usually originating in the liver. Holloway’s Pills speedly regulate this function. In cases where delicacy of constitution render it unadvisable to take many Pills, the same healthful effects may be carried out without debilitating, by rubbing Holloway’s Ointment thoroughly over the pit of the stomach and right side at least twice a day No pain or inconvenience attends this treatment. Its merits in vanquishing pain at the stomach, flatulency, and imperfect digestion have been fully appreciated by the public in all parts of the globe for the last thirty-five years.