PATEA COUNTY MAIL PUBLISHED Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 18, 1880.

Patea Mail, 18 December 1880, Page 2

PATEA COUNTY MAIL PUBLISHED Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 18, 1880.

An Illustrated Supplement is in preparation for presentation with the Maid every week. The first number will be ready next week, instead ot the usual Supplement which was intended to bo given to-day. The publication of the Welling'ton Chronicle is to be discontinued at once. A glass manufactory is being erected at Auckland. .Persimmon trees are being obtained from Japan by the Napier Acclimatisation Society. A flock of 2,000 six-tooth cross-bred wethers at Hawke’s Bay have averaged ton pounds of wool per fleece. The schooner which grounded at the Patea heads is ready for launching over the breakwater, at the first smooth tide. The census in England and Wales for next January will require 85,000 officers to take charge of one district each. The salary of the engineer to the Dunedin Harbor Board is increased from £SOO to £BOO, and his whole time Is required. The Maori who killed his pakcha wife at Chatham Islands, apparently through jealousy, is a relative of Tuhi, the Opunaki murderer. In a mysteriously worded letter, a correspondent calls attention to a scarcity of butcher’s meat “ last week,” and he vows that he will never—hardly ever—eat any more. The Australian cricketing team leave Melbourne for New Zealand on the 11th January. Leave of absence for Slight and Groubc has been obtained. The Dunedin match is fixed for the 20th, 21st, and 22nd of January. Dunedin plays with 52. The breakwater at New Plymouth is to be so far finished in two years that the engineer says coastal steamers will be then able to lie inside, and small craft in eighteen months. Ho does not say what is to become of the steemers or the small craft during a gale. We regard the New Plymouth breakwater as a costly scheme for making a landing stage. It is stated that the execution of Tuhi will take place in Wellington about Thursday next. The date is more likely, according to usage, to be about three weeks after the sentence. While being removed from the CourtJiouse to the prison in a cab, Tuhi kept up bis spirits by shouting boisterously and singing snatches of Maori songs. It is characteristic of savage natures that a man can cheerfully face death under excitement, but shrinks and cows at the prospect of death where excitement is absent. It requires the highest fortitude to face the gallows in a silent highwalled prison-yard, with no spectators but the chaplain, the hangman, three turnkeys, and a reporter. Death in that shape has none of the nerving influence of a public spectacle. It is ghastly, ignominious, and horrifying.

Tenders are invited for building a mortuary church at Patea Cemetery. Our lengthy report of the land sales compels various items of news to be held over. Land Leaguers in Ireland are now preventing landlords from exporting cattle. Madame do Latin ay will bo at Hawera to-day and next week with ladies’ costumes ami millinery. A horse w'as found shot near the rifle butts in Mr Smith’s run, Patea, on Thursday morfling. Information is required. The Hart Family invite the Patea to a public entertainment of ‘“'happy hours” at the Town Hall next Tuesday. They arc a talented family. An asylum for idiots at Chicago took fire in (ho night. Five hundred lunatics were in beds, and about, tw’elvc were roasted alive, some others being injured. The demented creatures ran out in night-clothes, and some buried themselves in the snow through fright of fire.

It is understood that the owner of a Patea hotel has purchased a corner section at Manaia, and that the ow’ner of a Hawera hotel has done ditto. These are opposite corners, and the question is which will run up his new “ pub” first. Perhaps the race is not to the swift.

Thursday’s sale of rural sections realised an average of £0 17s 6d per acre, making a total of £IO.OOO for six thousand acres. Nearly every purchaser is of the settler class. The average of the deferred payment land sold previously was about £G an acre, caused by' private compromises, about which more may bo heard bye and bye.

Prizes at Patea School were distributed yesterday to the pupils who had passed in the annual examination made by Mr Inspector Foulis this week. In standard I. there were 29 scholars presented, and 23 ofm the passed : in standard 11., 30 presented, 25 passed ; in standard 111, 10 presented, 0 passed ; in standard IV., 7 wore presented, G passed; in standard Y., 1 presented, all passed : in standard VI., 2 presented and passed. Total presented 82, and total passed G9. The Viking’s ship, with all its accoutrements, that was recently discovered in Norway', and seized as something invaluable by the arclneologists, was found because a peasant family fell into such distress that they must sell the farm, but decided to first to dig into the Mil, and see if any treasure was hidden there.

An English journal bewails that the world is threatened with a dearth of lions, that the “ king of the forest ” is gradually disappearing in his native wilds. But this grave misfortune lias encouraged a frenchman to establish a regular breeding stud of lions at Bona, where lions will be bred and trained for the market.

Bodaxow Watches —Attention is called to the price-list of the Rodanow Manufacturing Co., of Boston, published in another part of this issue. It will be seen that the prices quoted are immensely' lower than Englishmen arc accustomed to pay' even for inferior watches. The firm was established in 1819, and has gained prize medals at the Exhibitions of London, Paris, Vienna, etc., for excellence of manufacture. An English gentleman slates that his board, which at home was soft and straight, began to curl at Alexandria, became crisp going up the Nile, and after a short stay' in the dry deserts put on a coarse, rough and curly growth, which is interesting to ethnologists who would account for Ethiopian skin and wool. The largest sewing machine in the wot Id has lately been finished. It is of the Singer pattern, and weighs over four tons. It is worked by steam, and has been made for a manufacturing firm in Liverpool.

Mr Mackay, the San Francisco Bonanza millionaire, is said to have become morose and suspicious, so many' adventurers and imposters having practised on him that he has lost faith in human nature.

The Minister for Public Works left Oamaru without giving several deputations an opportunity of interviewing him. This created a good deal of criticism. The annual consumption of oysters in Paris amounts to 50,000,000 a year.

Beethoven’s piano is for sale at Klausenburg, Transylvania.