COUNTY NEWS.

Patea Mail, 12 August 1880, Page 2

COUNTY NEWS.

Our report of the Harbor meeting is held over till Saturday. The business was less important than usual.

Seventy Maori Prisoners taken for fencing across the Government road near Parihaka have been deported to Christchurch, since the fencing began about a month ago.

Port ok Entry. —The Commissioner of Customs has replied to the application of Patea anent bonded stores, that in the present condition of the colony a number of the smaller ports of entry will have to be closed, and the application from Patea cannot be acceded to under these circumstances.

Land Court.— We understand that the Native Lands Court will sit at Waitotara on the Bth September, to finish the inquiry into the Kaitangiwhcnua block, the purchase of which is to be completed by Government, with a view to putting the land into the market at an early date, after the surveyjhas been done.

Now that Milroy’s new hotel at Patea is being painted, the proportions of the structure are seen to better advantage. The well-balanced arrangement of the design produces agreeable relief to the eye; and wherever the enterprising builder obtained his design, it is an admirable example of artistic architecture, a credit to Patea, and an imposing feature in the main street.

We are informed that, it the recent prosecution for alleged embezzlement, the Crown Prosecutor at Now Plymouth did not advise in the matter, the facts not coming before him. It is satisfactory to know that any error of procedure cannot be attributed to the Crown Prosecutor. Our opinion at the time , was that the charge of embezzlement could not he sustained on the facts, so far as they were publicly known ; and that opinion is confirmed by the result of the magisterial inquiry. The case is a proper one to have taken up in the public interest; and we have no maudlin sympathy with an accused person who escapes legal penalties through technical difficulties in proving a particular charge. The merits of that case arc by this time well understood.

State of the Bar. —The Harbor Master reported to the Harbour Board on Monday that “ Since last report the north spit has made considerably, and overlapping the breakwater it lias brought the bar and entrance channel a good distance to the southward of the breakwater. The north spit is lowering great!}' to the northward of groin, and is likely to break through this place. If so, there will be two entrances, north and south, with a middle bank, until the south channel closes up,

..rl.inli will inalso the bar in line WUU lUu breakwater, and be a straight channel. .Depth on bar is 12 feet at spring tides. No alteration has taken place from end of the breakwater inward. Stumps of driftwood have been removed where required. Twenty-three vessels crossed the bar since last report ; one crossed at night.”

The New Church at Waverley, for the Church of England body, is finished, and opening services will be held next Sunday, morning and evening. At Patea, service will be held only in the evening on this occasion, and will be conducted by Archdeacon Thorpe. The Waverley church is a neat structure, good in design, but incomplete. Chancel and vestry remain to be added when funds become available. The structure cost £238, and when the £IOO granted out of the diocese fund is paid over, there will be no debt whatever. This is an excellent beginning, and speaks well for the substantialness and liberality of the Church of England community in the Waverley district. The building willseat 111 worshippers.

The Queen, with womanly sympathy, invited Mr Gladstone to Windsor as soon as recovery from severe conjestion of the lungs enabled him to leave his room. It is well understood that her Majesty’s sympathies had been somewhat estranged from the once popular Premier, through his action at critical stages of the Eastern question. No wonder that it should be so, for it would be a hard task to defend all Mr Gladstone’s actions in that matter. But the moment that sickness smites down the strong man, the Achilles of Britain, our Sovereign lady grieves in quick accord with her people at an affliction which all felt to be a personal concern ; and she seizes the earliest moment to invite him as an honored guest at her table. Victoria is a woman first and a Sovereign after.

Monthly Stock Sales at Patea are being resumed by Mr W. Dale.

Two more fencers were arrested near Parihaka on Tuesday. Messrs Hearn & Kennedy, Kakaramea, have decided to stand their entire horse Patriarch at Smylie’s stables, Wanganui. Another agrarian outrage in Ireland is reported, a Crown solicitor and his two sons being shot by a masked baud. One son is dead, and another death is likely to ensue. Fifty-two unemployed laborers reached Patea last night at a late hour, per the Clyde steamer, having come from Wellington through Wanganui, They will bo put on the Railway woiks in the Patea valley, at subsistence wages, 21s for single men, 28s for married. A Disgraceful Case came before (he E.M, at New Plymouth yesterday. Our correspondent telegraphs that a man named James Fraser Bell, formerley at Patea, married a woman at Auckland, left her at Wanganui, and has since cohabited with her daughter, now aged 18. He was charged yesterday with falsifying the register of birth of a child, representing it to be His legitimate offspring, the girl being its mother. The-girl deposed that her mother had told her she had another husband. The whole case exhibited shocking depravity. Bell was remanded.

The Otago Hounds reached Patea last evening from Wanganui. The pack numbers 15, several slow-going pups having been weeded out. Mr Bradley, the master, is not able to take the field, the injury to his ear requiring rest. Mr Mclvor is in charge of the pack, and the first run in this district will be made this afternoon. The “ meet ” of Patea huntsmen and of ladies who can ride to hounds is fixed at the Albion hotel; and the course of the run has been traced in such a way as to afford a view to spectators of the steeplechase from the Whenuakura road. The dogs will take scent on the top of the rise on the Whenuakura side, keeping in view of the road the whole length of the helter-skelter run, terminating with an imaginary death on Major Turner’s property. The hounds will take off wet or dry. Some horsemen may ‘'take off” wet, and some dry, according to taste. There will be a run at Hawera on Saturday, and a second run near Patea will bo arranged for next week. The pack will not go on to Taranaki, the settlers there having !l renounced the devil and all his works.”