COUNTY NEWS.

Patea Mail, 16 October 1880, Page 2

COUNTY NEWS.

The Weekly Supplement is presented with this issue of the Mail.

Entries for the Wanganui Agricultural show close next Wednesday. The lunatic who escaped from the Wellington asylum has been captured. Five Hundred Sheep are required every week for the Auckland market, equal to about 20,000 a year. About £2,500 will bo paid to Waitotara natives in a few days by Major Wilson, of Waikato, on account of the liangitatou block, comprising 40,000 acres.

The Wakatu and Patea steamers left Wellington together on Thursday night) and arrived at this port yesterday afternoon, against a strong head wind. The Wakatu was here a little in advance of the Patea.

The Cabinet may be reconstituted during the recess. Rumor has it that “ the most unpopular member of the Ministry may retire more or less gracefully.” Which is the most unpopular Minister ? Humor might be more explicit. Our experience of Humor is that he is a blockhead. •

The Pay of single men at the railway camps of “unemployed” is reduced to 18s a week. The new contract for rations saves 2s per week, and the men lose on wages, making adiffercnce of os per week. The loss of 2 a week per man is not quite half a drink. Will they grudge half a drink per week to save the colony from bankruptcy ? Pile Driving at Patea wharf will begin next week. The contractor who is carting the piles from Waitotara station has been taken at a disadvantage by the sudden ukase of the County Council, imposing a fine for carrying heavy weights on narrow wheels. The carter had made a' contract, and the whole cost of the fine for each load, or for getting broad-wheeled drays, must fall on him.

A fire broke out at the Royal Hotel, Ouehunga, on Saturday noon. It originated in the roof, and the whole building was consumed in half an hour. The building cost about £1,500, and it was insured ior £4OO, A second insurance of £SOO expired last June. Sparks from a saw-mill across the street had apparently lodged near the roof and ignited the woodwork.

. Nok’westers blow so hard across the Canterbury Plains that loose timber is carried high in the air like paper, and land newly ploughed is blown away in heavy clouds. Gales along this coast are not so strong, though more frequent. Farmers in Canterbury have a remedy which seems the only one fitted to the case. Let them plant trees in belts at suitable intervals. The timber would more than pay for itself in five years. At the same time it is difficult to conceive any single thing that would secure more benefit and comfort along this coast than tree planting on every homestead and along every road. This coast needs shelter more than anything.

Messrs Eyton and Pringle announce that they are cash purchases of wool, or will make advances.

Mr Crosse, dentist,. visits Patea next J Monday, and Waverley on Tuesday. Three thousand trout have been placed in Wanganui river. A nugget weighing 100 ounces has been found at Temora, N.S.W. Nineteen charges are made by Mr W. L. Rees against Sir Julius Vogel and the Continuous Ministry. So many charges ought to produce an explosion. Sixty men are employed on the harbor works at New Plymouth. The ship Adamant is bringing out additional materials, including 8,000 casks of cement and a locomotive.

The burglar who stole jewellery belonging to Lady Robinson, while our exGovernor and family were dining at Government House in Melbourne, is now in custody. Whether all the jewellery has been recovered is not stated.

Frost. —On Saturday night, a sharp hoar frost in the Hutt district did great injury to the potato crops, some patches being utterly destroyed. Many tender floweringplants also suffered greatdamage Sir Julius Vogel has resigned the office o£ Agent-General in liOiidon. TTiis is the result of cutting down the vote for the London agency by £IOOO. This was a hit at Sir Julius, and he accepts it. Who will succeed him ?

Taranaki lately declared that Wellit.gton abounds with snobs. We asked what is the particular abounding virtue at Tara naki. Other journals have repeated the query. Taranaki now replies that its abounding virtue is pretty girls. The answer lacks plainness. It leaves the men out of account. Apparently the less said of them the better. Mr Carrington has been protesting as a member of New Plymouth Harbor Board, against “ some things which have happened in Taranaki,” so that “ when he is in his grave he may not be responsible.” Mr Dingle says : “Yes, you will be responsible unless you clear out of the Board.” It seems to us there is a grave icsponsibility either way.

Gold at Tkrawiiiti.— A strong part}' of men, organised under an experienced leader, have started for the Teraw.hiti district, to give it a fair trial under approved principles of working and saving fine gold. The}' have taken with them materials and tools required for making a fair start, and have made arrangements with an enterprising storekeeper in town to supply them with rations on the ground. Most of the party have been out there previously prospecting, and are satisfied that if able to save all the gold, they will make the experiment a success.

A Strange Story was told at a mooting of the Wellington Benevolent Society. A woman, while in England, learnt her husband had died in this colony, leaving her his property. Borrowing ;Tl5O she came out, only to find, through a clause in the will, she had disinherited herself by her action (the borrowing), and the property passed to other hands. Then she found

ono of the trustees owed her some hundreds for interest, but his affairs being involved she could not get the money, and was reduced to distress, partly relieved by the Benevolent Society. But the trustee dying, his son is putting affairs straight, having done which, he will hand the woman about £4OO, when the value of the aid given by the Benevolent Society will be recouped.

A Ganger at the Manutahi camp of the “ unemployed” has exceeded his duty by striking and ill-using one of the laborers. A ganger who does that is misplaced, and his superior officer becomes responsible for any misbehavior that may follow. A laborer named Hobbins came to Patea on Thursday, and it was shameful to sec how his face had been battered. One arm was in a sling, the shoulder having been hurt. His story is this : I asked the ganger to let me off, as I had rheumatics in one shoulder. He said “ All right; he would give me my time.” I went to him later in the day, having had some drink, and said: “ How is it you give mo my time* when you let other men go half days and quarters.” Ho said “ I’ll give you your time again in a minute ;” and with that he struck me, knocked me down, and held me down while‘ho hammered me. You

can see what my face is like now. He did that, and the doctor thinks a small bone in my shoulder is broken. I did not use abusive or annoying language.—Such is Hobbins’s story, and he says the overseer told the ganger it was not his place to abuse a man. Jt seems to us this ganger has mistaken his , vocation. Whether the man used abusive language or not, it is utterly wrong and illegal for a foreman to inflictgrievousjbodily harm on a servant. The ganger ought to be summoned.

Joe, the Fiji murderer, has lost his appetite, and become timid and reserved. Men who are going to Sydney, read this: 3,000"103808 have been forfeited through arrears of rent.

It is reported that H.MS. Danao will return with Governor Gordon direct to Auckland from Fiji. Moody and San key are coming to Sydney to hold revival meetings. They accepted an invitation from the Young Men’s Christian Association. The rabbiters holding a run in Southland for rabbit breeding state that an epidemic has broken out among the rabbits, hundreds being picked up dead daily. Thrift, —Official returns show that in New Zealand 1 person in every 13 of population is a Savings Bank depositor ; in England and Wales, 1 in 14 ; Victoria, 1 in 18 ; New South Wales, 1 in 38 ; Scotland, 1 in 70 ; and Ireland, 1 in 79.

More compliments! It is not Taranaki this time. Dunedin has heard that Christchurch wants an intercolonial exhibition. Dunedin says it is not necessary. Dunedin says it will be neaessary when Danedin is ready in 1882, but the exhibition must bo held at Dunedin. Now isn’t that like Taranaki ?

Oats. —A Dunedin gentleman writes from London :—“I saw some New Zealand oats in the Mark Lane Corn Exchange, London, the other day : there was nothing at all to compare with them from any other part of the world. They had sold at a very high figure.”

At Hawera, James Mair was arrested on Wednesday, charged with the larceny of furniture, pigs, and fowls, the property of Hugh Hampton, of Wanganui. The owner was undergoing a sentence in Wanganui gaol, and during this time Mair assumed charge of the goods for him, but afterwards left the town. Mair will be tried at Wanganui.

The wild vine of California, a hardy sort and proof against the destructive phylloxera, is to be cultivated in the Botanical Gardens at Taranaki. A parcel of seeds were received on Tuesday. This wild vine is found growing in vineyards where other sorts are all destroyed by the phylloxera insect. The vine is specially suitable for claret wines.

A Walking Machine has been invented by a German in Sydney. With a year’s labor he has built up a mechanical man, with entrails of wheels and springs ; and this new Adam walks with the stiff precision of a young recruit. He carries a flexible pipe for filling his stomach with steam, and this sets the mechanism in motion, and the man walks. But what is the practical value of this Frankenstein ? If the inventor could make a domestic “ help” that would sweep up, and clean windows, and do plain cooking, and wash the baby, that would bo an invention worth having ; especially if the mechanical help could be guaranteed not to make love to the grocer’s young man, nor to tell tales.

The New Governor is being abused in advance. Some fidgetty persons are not content to follow the good old rule of speaking of a man as they find him. They must circulate tattle which is palpably one-sided and malevolent. Many scandalous stories have been set afloat about eminent persons at Home, generally from envy or ignorance. The Queen has been libelled in her domestic character more than any peeress in the realm ; yet what man or woman of honest sympathies would believe slanders of the Queen ? It has been demonstrated over and over again that Mr Gladstone is a Jesuit—or ought to be ; but he remains otherwise. It would bo a fair thing to accept Sir Arthur Gordon as an average administrator and an honorable gentleman ; and it will be time enough to condemn him after we have trid him.

“ Ngaio ” writes to us :— u It is about 29 years since I was in this part of the colony, and the improvements, advance, and difference are to me very striking. It seems to me that with the noble country you have around your port, nothing can prevent Patea from becoming one of the first if not the first of townships on this Coast. If you, Sir, had had as much trouble as Capt. Thos. Good of Taranaki had in making his bargain with the old

ferryman, then the only inhabitant of this district, you could, as I can, appreciate the improvements that have been made.” He goes on to discuss the policy of a certain politician who is trying, as 11 Ngaio ” believes, to keep Patea and Wanganui back until Taranaki has got the game in her own hands. That may be so, but Wanganui and Patea are able to take care that Taranaki shall in future keep her hands to herself.