PATEA COUNTY MAIL PUBLISHED Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 1880.

Patea Mail, 25 November 1880, Page 2

PATEA COUNTY MAIL PUBLISHED Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 1880.

Insurance Companies in Wellington refuse to contribute to the fire brigade funds. The County Revenue has averaged about £IO,OOO a year since the formation of the County Council in January, 1877. The revenue in the current year is not likely to reach £3,000. The County Council have closed the discussion of that vexed question, County V. Road Hoards. They voted yesterday, by 5 to 3, against any farther action. The Patca S.S. Company have decided not to raise additional capital at present for running a second larger steamer. The applications for shares were too few. The Directors hoped to raise £7,000 more capital without spending sixpence on a public advertisement. They failed. At Dunedin, several large buildings are being erected. Hudson’s Coffee Palace is being built by a public company recently floated, with a nominal capital of £5,000. The Bank of New Zealand is erecting new premises at the comer of Princess and Rattray streets, the contract price being £27,000. The Roman Catholic Cathedral will be a very large structure, when finished ; and a Jewish Synagogue is also being built.

Dr Skae reports that the geld quartz found in Manawatn yields nearly half an ounce of gold to the ton, A wire-rope suspension bridge of a simple kind suitable for crossing deep gullies has been patented by Mr G. Aickin, C.E., of Auckland. This bridge is suitable also for wharves where the head has to be carried far into deep water, thus doing away with long lines of piles. A span of 50 to 500 feet may be attained, with moderate strength.

Aitlication was made at the R. M. Court on Tuesday for the defendant’s expenses in connection with the alleged malicious injury to a hoi’se near the Patea bridge. Mr Hamerton, who defended the prisoner Turney, had asked the Magistrates at the close of the case last week to make an order for payment of the expenses which Turney had been put to in the affair. The Bench, in the absence of the E. M., declined to deal with the question of expenses. Mr Hamerton renewed the application on Tuesday, before Mr Wray, R. M., and Mr Christie. He said expenses had been allowed repeatedly in similar cases within his experience, Mr Ward, who appeared for Mr F. O’S, McCarthy, owner of the filly which had been mysteriously hamstrung, opposed the application on the ground that it was not usual, no such order having been made within bis long experience in the South Island. Mr Hamerton said the Courts whose practice he referred to were those of Wellington, Auckland, and New Plymouth. If the matter were adjourned for a week he would undertake to produce precedents. Mr Wray said he understood the prosecution was not a private one, but was instituted by the police. Sergeant Donovan said that was so; that he had taken the suspected person into custody on his own responsibility, after making inquiries on the spot; and that although Mr McCarthy had afterwards laid the information which came before the Magistrates, yet if he had not done so, it would have been the duty of the police to lay an information in the case. Mr Wray said the prosecution w'as a public one, and he was not aware of any precedent for allowing expenses to the defendant in a public prosecution. Mr Hamerton said if the prosecution were a public one he would withdraw the application. Had it been private he could have produced precedents. Mr Wray would be glad to sec the precedents. Mr Hamerton said he would look them up.

A Curious Action was brought iu the R.M. Court at New Plymouth last week. Four persons had formed a partnership to get salvage from the wrecked steamer Rangatira, and one of them sued the other three to recover wages as the price of his labor, claiming £SO, at £5 a day for diving without a proper diving-dress. Denis S. Egcnis was the plaintiff, and W. Humphries, A. .Boswell, and J. Watkin were the defendants. The plaintiff said he was to receive one-seventh profit on wreck and cargo recovered. A diving-dress was got, but it was not water-tight, and he had to recover things by plunge diving. When he asked for money to go on with, Mr Humphries said there were no profits then to divide. A quarrel ensued, and queer language was exchanged. He said be received an order from Humphries and Boswell to burst the boxes of Owen and Graham, of Auckland, because those merchants had withdrawn from a bargain as to salvage. He did not break any of the boxes. Mr Humphries, merchant, deposed that nothing could be paid to the plaintiff as one of the partners because no profit had yet resulted from the salvage. They had paid £122 10s to purchase the wreck, and had expended £l2l 8s 3d towards recovery of wreck; while the gross receipts had been £241 16s 7d, showing a loss of£2 Is7d. He denied that any instruction had been given to burst boxes. Had sent to Melbourne, Auckland, and Wellington for a proper diving-dress, but could not get one. The Court interposed, and dismissed the claim on the ground that the plaintiff could not elect himself out of a partnership without consent of co-partners.

A sawmill is to be erected near Opunaki. Mu Skellev, of Patea, has purchased about 40 bales of wool from Hone Piama and Hakaria, at 8d a pound. The Lord Chief Justice of England, Sir Alex. Cockburn, is dead. He presided at the long Tichborne trial, and delivered the lucid judgment. A serious accident has happened to Father Reignier while driving to the convent at Napier. He was throwm out of a buggy against a wall, and is not expected to recover. Over three huncrod shares have been applied for in the new Patea Land, Building, and Investment Society; and the provisional committee now call a meeting to elect directors, &c. The prospectus of the Caswell Sound Marble, Portland Cement, and Mining Co, limited, is advertised in the Mail, The share list closes December 15th. Mu T, North invites tenders for erecting his new store and dwellinghouse opposite the Albion Hotel. Tenders are called for building two bridges across the Momahaki stream; to be addressed to the chairman of the Wairoa Highway Board, Waverley Post-office.

Eighty-six small whales wore stranded in a shallow bay at Swansea, Tasmania, September 30th. Two men waded in and stabbed the whales with long knives, digging behind the fin, and the bay was dyed with blood. The whales were finbacks or bumpers.

This colony lias sent 5,509 articles to the Melbourne Exhibition, from 643 persons or firms located in the different towns thus:—Auckland 46 exhibitors, Wellington 109, Dunedin 121, Christchurch 108, Thames 39, Gisborne 2, Napier 32, Taranaki 12, Wanganui 9, Blenheim 9, Nelson 47, Greymouth 8, Hokitika 18, Timaru 4, Oamaru 7, Invercargill 55, and Queenstown 17.

Captain Bonniui, of the steamship Clyde, which took the schooner Jane Anderson in tow, requests us to state that he answered the pilot’s signal for a tug t© bring the schooner in ; that there was no attempt to choose between one tug and another, as the Clyde Avas the only tug Avhich answered the signal ; that he considers it Avas not an error of judgment on the part of any person concerned, as there Avas less Avater on the bar than there has been for some time past, the same influence being noticed at all West Coast rivers; that it aatis the Clyde Avhich let go the tow-line because the tug Avas hard against the breakAVater, and had no choice but to save itself; and that Avhile the stranding of the schooner is greatly to be regretted, he does not see that blame can attach to any particular person. Mata’s disqualification by the Victoria Racing Club for foul running appears to be well deserved. It is stated that Bob Ray, the jockey avlio steered Mata at Flemington, admitted he had ridden the horse improperly in the Royal Park Stakes. An eye-Avitness of the Cup race says:—“ The Cup vras a magnificent sight, but I have no doubt in my own mind as big a swindle as Avas ever perpetrated. Whether Mata Avas drugged or pulled, I don’t know. One thing I can swear to, which is that he Avas never ridden out, and came in nowhere. The next race day the same thing occurred, but yesterday he won the V. R.C. Handicap without an effort, in the quickest time on record, against as good horses, Avith one exception (Grand Flaneur) as he ran against in the Cnp. He was on the outside all the way, and Avas never touched Avith Avhip or spur, and simply cantered in. The V.R.C. stewards held a meeting after the race to see if they could do anything, I hear they had Mr Bob Ray, Mr Harry Prince, and Mr Vallance up, and expressed themselves very strongly. One thing is very clear— Mata’s career in Victoria and New South Wales is at an end, for he Avill in future be so AA’cighted that he must be out of everything. Public feeling is very strong on the matter. The horse was in the very pink of condition.

At Somoa Island, two inland tribes have had a sanguinary fight. Masterton Institute was burnt down yesterday. The building was insured. Laycoek and Hanlan’s sculling match for the championship is declared off, as Hanlan will not pull within six weeks. A “ spill ” happened to Mr Eolleston and Mr Bryce, who were thrown out of a buggy in a creek near Parihaka. Neither was hurt, but the journey had to be finished on saddle horses from the camp. The Education Board at Wanganui met yesterday, and resolved that the boundaries of the new school district at Whakaraara be published. A sketch plan of proposed additions to Patea school was referred to the building committee. Wreck. —Tho schooner Jane Anderson, Capt. Ackhoff, stranded near Patea breakwater on Monday forenoon, was abandoned at four o’clock on Tuesday afternoon. The captain reports her as being so far strained that he would not risk taking her to sea if she could be got off. Captain Ackhoff holds a foreign certificate, but took out a master’s certificate in this colony quite recently. Tho cargo of timber is being got out, and drayed to the site of the railway wharf, more than half the cargo being out last evening. A portion of the timber was consigned to Mr Gibson. The schooner is owned by Messrs A. Gibbs & Co., of Dunedin, is 12 years old, and is understood to be half insured. She is 96 tons burden, and the captain states her draught at 7ft lOin. An official enquiry into the cause of the stranding will have to be held, when the question as to error of judgment in employing a small tug will have to be determined. On this point Captain Bonner, of the steamer Clyde, has stated his view in another paragraph. It is desirable to suspend judgment on the causes of this disaster? pending the official inquiry.

Some incidents in the Patea horse case are causing uncomplimentary gossip. It may bo difficult to satisfy everybody that the decision of the Magistrates in dismissing the charge against Turney was right; that they would not have been justified in sending the prisoner for trial on evidence so inconclusive as that laid before them. Some few persons will reason on sentiment rather than on fact. Our opinion is that the evidence, so far as it went, pointed to the prisoner, and to no other person directly; but that the evidence was so defective in fixing guilt on the prisoner, that the justices would have been flying in the face of common sense to send a man before a jury on a charge so loosely made out. It is better that a dozen guilty persons should escape for want of conclusive testimony ; than that one innocent person should suffer by an undue straining of circumstantial evidenceThat is one aspect of the case. Was it right or proper that the owner of the injured horse should have inducements offered to him to withdraw from prosecuting the charge against Turney? If the man were guilty, let him be punished. If not guilty, let the case go to an acquittal. It was morally wrong for any parties to make proposals or suggestions in the nature of inducement to obtain Turney’s acquittal in an irregular manner. It is to be regretted also that there should have been any threat of a prosecution for alleged false imprisonment.

Another Gem Find.— The Thames Star sa3 r s :—“ A gentleman just returned from the Ohinemuri informs us that the good people there are in a state of great excitement over the discovery of a rich reef by Heitman and party, in the vicinity of which rich boulders have been found in the creek, and from the appearance of the reef it is evident that those loose stones have come from the newly dis covered lode. It is about two feet thick and the general dirt is estimated to be worth over 6ozs per ton, besides splendid specimen reef. We understand this is the reef which has been hunted about for years past.” A man in New York state got drunk> turned his family out of doors, set fire to his house, and was burned to death.