COUNTY NEWS.

Patea Mail, 4 September 1880, Page 2

COUNTY NEWS.

The Weekly Supplement will be issued next Tuesday.

The Patea Fire Brigade’s annual meeting and supper are announced for Monday next.

The Tender of Mr D. M. Warren for the erection of a fire-bell tower in Patea has been accepted, the price being £2l.

Seven Thousand Acres of the Plains are to be offered at the upset price of £4 cash and £5 deferred payment. Our Wellington correspondent says the auction is fixed for October 25th.

Mr Sheehan called attention in the Assembly on Tuesday to a report that a prospector named Moore had produced splendid gold specimens obtained in Marlborough district. He asked the Government to take steps for verifying the genuinesss of the discovery.

Re the Property Tax, Mr Ballance says the Hall Government promised that all the data connected with this extraordinary tax were to be placed before the House early in the session. “ The fulfilment is that the forms have yet to be sent out,”

The Maori Prisoners at Port Lyttelton could so easily break away from confinement if they wished, that the people of that quiet town are puzzled to make out why it is these defiant law-breakers don’t overpower their warders, rush out in a body, and take the town by storm. The only “ fence” between the prisoners and liberty is a plank.

It is reported that Messrs Downes and Proctor have chartered the steamship Puriri to bring a caago of timber from Dunedin to Patea, for use in the harbor railway contract. The Puriri is a larger steamer than has yet visited Patea. The harbor is in a condition to admit much larger craft than is now plying to this port.

Re the Kyeburn murder, the Chinese diggers who are accused of murdering the old woman have been committed for trial.

The programme of the Agricultural and Pastoral Association is not quite ready for publication. Some extra prizes are to be added.

The special wire leased to the Press Association is not to continue, the expense to the Government being more than the rental. This leasing of a wire originated in a political job by which the party then in power sought to bribe a portion of the press. W.e cannot understand how newspapers which profess to censure the illdoings of all and sundry, should have maintained a guilty, silence over this matter. Such honesty is nauseous. Sir George Grey has a theory that the colony could do without taxation by simply renting its unsold lands. In objecting- to the Property Tax, he advocated a tax on land, on incomes, and on wool. Why should wool be taxed ? It is taxing a raw material before sending it to the European market. Grain and gold might be taxed on the same principle for precisely the same reasons. Sir George Grey has lost his old cunning. It is too late to hope that this colony can be again so infatuated as to believe in a political leader whose ideas have run to seed.

The Session produced 156 bills, of which 83 have been passed into Acte. The petitions numbered 883. The Assembly sat 64 days, being an average of 8 hours 20 minutes per daj'. Bills passed include the Deceased Wife’s Sister Marriage Bill (reserved for Queen’s assent), West Coast Settlement and several other Native Bills ; also Taranaki Iron Smelting Works Lands Act Amendment Bill (conferring promised land bonus), the Wanganui Harbor and Conservators Board Grant, Wellington Harbor Board and Corporation Land (a small land endowmeni). Another general store is to be opened at Patea, in the premises just vacated by Mr W. Dixon. The ironmongery portion of Mr Dixon’s business has been purchased on behalf of P. Mahony and Co,, through Mr Foreman, of Manutahi ; and it is intended to commence a grocery business in connection with the ironmongery, and other branches of storekeeping will bo added. Mr Mahony has been in the service of Mr J. Gibson, Mr Foreman will continue his store at Manutahi. The Report of the Lincolnshire delegates who lately visited this colony is published in pamphlet form, , It is sure to be read with intense interest by farmers at Home whose losses during seven bad years have been ruinous in many cases and very severe in most. The report of which only a short summary has reached us at present, is highly favorable to the colony as, a whole. Critical remarks upon various districts are given, with prices of land, extent available, climate, markets, railways, &c. ; and a general summing-up of their impressions concludes the report. They have more to say of farming in Canterbury and Otago than of any other part, because those are grain districts, and these delegates repre* sent grain farmers. Their general opinion of prospects there is that not much land is to be had, but if new-comers choose to rent farms they may expect to make 20 per cent, clear profit. An Accident which might have had serious surgical consequences happened the other day near the County Hospital. It was another of those misadventures which occur to persons who will insist on driving vehicles towards the Hospital over a road which looks nice and straight on the map, but in reality shows how true it is that the way of the sinner is hard. A vehicle was being driven to the Hospital by a professional friend of humanity who, touched with Edison’s ambition, conceived that a light cart might be driven up the hill-side ifhe only started at the bottom with a good run, the impetus carrying him upward with a sort of fling. Having got a cart, and put a lively young horse in the shafts, the experimenter started to “ have his fling” at that hillside, He had heard it was hard to mount, but went at with a run. He and his cart went up and up, he licking the animal to tickle it into a fast trot, until he and the animal got a ticklish spill ; for the horse couldn’t keep its feet on that desperate slope, but zigzagged towards the giddy crest, and there fell. “ What a fall was there, my friends !” The cart, thank goodness! was only three-parts turned over, so that the dashing experimenter was not dashed headlong to the bottom j but only “got a turn,” and saved his bacon (or whatever integument he had) by jumping out uninjured. The great test of a risky experiment is that it shall not kill anybody. The casualties in this case were a compound anathema, a comminuted fracture of the' cart-shaft, and a hors de comhat. The breakages are being made good, under medical supervision.

A batch of unemployed from {Welling- J ton, 23 in number, arrived at Patea last night. These men will be camped on the railway route a little north of Kakaramea. Silver Ore is reported to have been discovered at Kaikoura ; and the prospectors are applying for right to work the ground.

Church of England. — A meeting of Church members is called for Tuesday next, at Patea, to receive a report from the committee appointed a month ago to investigate the unsatisfactory position into which the affairs of the Church of England have been allowed to drift. The funds are so low that the resident minister’s stipend cannot be paid. Those who ought to support the ministry at the several church centres in this, district with proper liberality are lukewarm for some special reason which they hesitate to specify. The position is a difficult one both for the minister and for the several congregations on whose support he depends, It is a position that hardly admits of a forced remedy. The committee intend, we believe, to recommend a change ; and it is desirable that Tuesday’s meeting should -be attended by representatives from the whole district.