COUNTY NEWS.

Patea Mail, 12 February 1881, Page 2

COUNTY NEWS.

The Weekly Supplement of the Mail will be presented next Tuesday. The Patea portion of the English mail was delivered yesterday. The|Hon. Major Atkinson sprained his ankle down south, and was thereby compelled to shorten the pleasure trip. Dr Keating has had a visit this week from his brother, the Rev Mr Keating, who has been appointed for three months to the charge of the English church at North Palmerston. The sale of 5,000 acres Parihaka block, and GOO acres Warea Village settlement lots, will be held in New Plymouth.on Monday and Thursday next. Mr McKerrow, Chief Surveyor, arrived at Patea on Thursday, and after a consultation with Mr Wray, passed on with that gentleman on Friday for the Plains. Mr Rolleston, Minister of Lands, also had an interview with the Land Officer at Patea on Thursday, and passed northward. Captain Skeet and a staff of surveyors are now surveying the native reserves, preparatory to Sir William Fox disposing of them to the various tribes and claimants in accordance with the West Coast Settlement Act. The last monthly meeting of the County Council could not be held for want of a quorum. It now appears that certain Hawera members wrote privately to one or more Wavcrley members asking them not to attend, in order that a quorum should not be obtainable. Of course the object was that as members from Hawera district could not attend, they did not want business done in their absence. There is nothing unreasonable in this, having regard to the fact that this incident happened in the thick of harvest, but it would make a bad precedent taken generally. The polling for a member of the Harbor Board for Otoia Riding, the only division in which there is a contest, will take place on Monday. Otoia includes the town of Patea, and the contest is practically local. The three candidates for one seat are Mr H. S. Peacock, Mr F. O’S McCarthy, and Mr Contts. By way of correction, we may state that Mr R. A. Adams was not a nominator of one of the candidates, but that the name should have been printed H. E. P* Adams. Mr G. W. Gane is elected without opposition for Hawera Riding, and Mr G. S. Newland for Waverley, as before. About 600 persons were present at a meeting at Wanganui on Thursday to hear the opinions of the Harbor Board candidates. The chief question to be decided was whether or not works at the Heads should be immediately proceeded with, Messrs Ballance and Carson were the chief speakers. Mr A. C. Campbell expressed the opinion that the training walls were only useless heaps of stones, and that the walls should have been made of concrete blocks. A vote was finally carried, “ That the works for the improvement of the bar should be pushed on with all possible speed, and that the candidates in tavor of progress —Messrs Jackson, Cross, Cornfoot, and Ballance—are deserving of the confidence and support of ratepayers." Messrs Grant and Foster have not yet arranged terms with the Auckland Land Board. Certain concessions made in their favour encouraged them to demand more. They assent to the price fixed, thirty-four shillings per acre, but they require that the portion of the Manuwaru reserve which was withheld shall now be granted them ; that the reservation of royal minerals shall not be insisted on ; and urge that it was understood certain drainage should be done by the Government. The Auckland Herald, commenting unfavourably on their action, concludes : “ It is certainly no encouragement to the Board to endeavour to meet the demands of distant selectors that concessions should only lead to further exactions, and it will probably in future state its terms, and leave them either to be accepted or rejected.”

Mr Murray Thomson will hold a ram sale at Hawera this day. The ship Pleione cleared at Wellington on Thursday with a cargo valued at £90,000. Some Dunedin contractors have disappeared from the big city without settling up with their workmen. “ Deceased died from blood-poisoning caused by the bite of a spider,” was the verdict given at an inquest held on the body of John Walker, civil engineer, at Grahamstown, on Thursday. Messrs Bcetham, of the Wairarapa, have passed 63,000 sheep through the shearers’ hands. The total amount of wool is 910 bales, each weighing about 400 lbs. Mr Aitehison’s proposal to the Town Board that a compromise be made with the County Council to the extent of spending £SO in improving Bedfordstreet was, after an irrelevant discussion, adopted unanimously. At Invercargill, on the sth February, young Scott, the pedestrian, concluded his feat of walking 112 miles in 24 hours. He put on a spurt at the finish, and came in two minutes before the expiration of the stipulated time. Mr Dale will hold a series of important sales this day, commencing at noon with Major Baddeley’s effects on the premises, adjourning to the Town Hall at two o’clock for a sale of furniture, thence to the auction mart at three o’clock, finishing up with the sale of his auction premises. The whole of the natives who were recently released from prison, and taken to Taranaki, have gone again to Parihaka to attend the meeting on the 17th instant. Between fifty and sixty of them passed through New Plymouth on Thursday. A Nelson Citizens’ Match will be added to Rifle Association’s programme, the prizes to be as follows:—First, £26 and a silver challenge cup, to be won two years in succession ; second, £8; third, £6; fourth, £4 ; fifth, £3 ; sixth, £2; and three more of £l. The brewers will also present a prize. Mr Gear, the Wellington butcher, who for several years so perseveringly and successfully carried on the meat preserving industry, is endeavoring to arrange for the export of frozen meat to London. If either the N.Z. Loan and Mercantile Agency, or Shaw, Saville, and Company, will provide a steamer fitted with the necessary freezing apparatus, Mr Gear will undertake to fill her with beef and mutton carcases within a week of the date of her arrival at Wellington. At the meeting of Harbor candidates held at Wanganui, Mr Parkinson said he had no desire to stop the improvement of the Wanganui Harbour, but he maintained that vessels of 400 or 500 tons burthen were quite large enough for the present requirements of the trade, and there was no need of taxing themselves to bring larger vessels into the port than their trade required. Let them first increase the extent of their trade by increasing the producing capabilities of their district, and it would be then time enough to undertake these outside works. The sub-division of the Pouawa special settlement block among native claimants, has been concluded by the Land Court, lately sitting at Gisborne, Poverty Bay, the total amount set apart for the dissentients being 461 acres. An order will be given for a title to immediately issue for the balance of the 19,000 acres, 12,000 of which have been secured by Mr G. M, Reed for his party. The Taranaki Herald of Thursday says—A report reached town to-day that the native village at Parihaka had been destroyed by fire. We have traced the report to Ruakere, of Tuihua, who told Mr W. Bayly. Ruakere states that a bush fire had ignited some of the whares, and the whole of the village with the exception of Te Whiti’s house had been consumed. We give the report as it reaches us, but no doubt it is greatly exaggerated.

At the Wesleyan Sunday school picnic held at Now Plymouth on Tuesday, a son of S. W. Jackson, about six years of age, was crushed to death by the trunk of a tree rolling over him. A little girl named Woolcock was knocked down by the branches and severely hurt, her leg being broken. A boy named Malcolm Clow also had his thigh broken. The tree was 30 feet in length and 7 feet in diameter. The Hawke’s Bay Mercury says— The Hon. Mr Rolleston has signalised his visit to Napier by making himself as intensely unpopular as a Minister well can. His reception of the deputation that waited upon him with regard to the Meanec reserve was of course civil enough, but in firmly declining to take any steps towards the rectification of the stupid blunder committed, by which the town has been deprived of a recreation ground, he has succeeded in sealing the vote of Napier at the next election. An agent of the American Grangers, Mr Bateman, is at present lecturing in Otago, with the object of pointing out to fanners the mode in which they would obtain the best economical advantages for their products. He showed that in America there was established what are there termed “ American Grangers’ Societies.” They are known as the “ National Grangers, or Patrons of Husbandry,” and had been established for the purpose of affording farmers a direct market, and for doing away with the numberless middlemen who extracted a series of profits before the produce reached foreign markets. The high tariff imposed by the privately owned railway companies of America, which some years ago made it more profitable for Western State farmers to burn as fuel portions of their grain than incur the risk of finding a market, gave a great impetus to the Grangers Associations, The following extract from Mr Bateman’s lecture will give some idea of the importance and influence of the Grange movement:—“lt has now 20,500 lodges, and over 1,250.000 members. Their enterprise and importance was first made manifest by the fact that the Californian Grangers have their own fleet, and ship their corn direct to Liverpool, by which they saved 2,000,000 dollars in a single year, their vessels bringing as return cargoes tea, sugar, coffee, silks, and other commodities, which are retailed to members at cost price. The advantage the farmer has in being a member of the Grange is that when he wishes to realise on his crop he can ensure cash for it, whereas if he sells in his own home market he must part with his produce to the speculator, or ‘ middle man,’ who buys simply to sell at a profit.” The Dunedin Star, in an article in defence of Sir Julius Vogel and his public works scheme, says—that those who recollect the condition of the colony in 1868-69, the extent of settlement, the character of the population, the value of property, the rate of wages in proportion to the profits of employers, and the returns from realised property, must of necessity acknowledge that a progress unequalled in the history of any British colonisation has marked in New Zealand the decade which terminated on the 31st December, 1880. Old Paora, the Maori “ prophet ” of Wairarapa, in getting in his crops has had three reaping machines broken. He has therefore called upon the faithful to make good his loss, and has made a demand of £2oofrom the Porangahau natives. Paora has many firm believers in the southern portion of Wellington province, and no doubt the money will be quickly forthcoming. At the office of the Agricultural and Pastoral Association, Christchurch, may be seen a piece of “ conglomerate ” as large as a hen’s egg, composed principally of binding wire, which was voided by a cow recently. It isabout four ounces in weight, and is made up of bits of wire about an inch long, cemented together with a mixture of sand and hair. The correspondent of a Napier journal says —surely Waipawa must be developing a number of Bradlaughites. [Sunday appears to be the genera! day for amusement, all sorts of sporting parties being made up, and nearly every game known indulged in.