COUNTY NEWS.

Patea Mail, 17 May 1881, Page 2

COUNTY NEWS.

The next Homeward mail via ’Frisco will leave this district on Thursday, the Patea box closing at 7 p. m. The attention of jurors summoned for attendance at the District Court to-day is called to a notification in advertising columns. Mr D. M. Warren is the successful tenderer for erecting a new shop and dwelling in the main street for Mr Gower, also an adjoining shop and dwelling for Mr Eyton. Some lines which have the form of poetry without its essence have been written as a skittish jeremiad on the Domain Board. No good purpose can be served by flouting a constituted and necessary authority without sufficient cause. The funeral of the late William Prouse took place on Sunday at the Cemetery. The grave was found to be too narrow to admit the coffin, and the service had to be interrupted till the earth was dug out. The Cemetery Board have no regular gravedigger appointed, and there is no one to see that casual diggers do their work properly.

Tenders for purchasing the Clyde steamship were received from Dunedin, Christchurch and Wanganui. The tenders being below the reserve price, no sale was effected. The Clyde continues to run in the local trade at present. The parade of Patea Rifle Volunteers postponed from the 10th on account of unfavorable weather, will take place this evening. The volunteers will appear in their new uniforms. Patea is to be entertained by the Baby Pompadour Minstrels, announced for Wednesday and Thursday, in Mr Barker’s large room. They have been favorably criticised at Wanganui. A public dance is to follow each performance, and we suppose the “ babies ” will join. Bachelors and Benedicts at Manutahi have been exchanging compliments in the shape of dances. The Benedicts got np a really good return party on Friday evening, the Blockhouse being too small for the company. Winter recreations of this sort are enjoyable. The Simonson Opera Company opened at Wanganui last evening, with that lovely but rather naughty opera “II Trovatore.” At a disturbance in Waverley last December, Patrick Lambert and another seriously injured John Woolston. Lambert managed to elude the police until Saturday, when he was arrested in Nelson, charged with the offence, and remanded to Patea for trial. Professor Haselmayer had a full audience to witness his conjuring on Saturday evening, and his receipts at Patea must have been large. His juggling with the rings was a real puzzle, and his tricks generally were good. The educated birds and mice amused the young folks.

The Napier clergyman who preached that the Tararua disaster was “ a judgment from Heaven” cannot have been speaking from information received. The argument stands thus : The Union company worked their servants on Sunday, therefore one Union steamer has been destroyed as “ a judgment.” It is the company who offend, but it is not the company who are to suffer. The wisdom of the Creator requires that the innocent shall suffer for the guilty—such is this clerical theory. If the Union company were to be punished, why should 120 innocent persons, including clergymen and women and children, be slaughtered for the mere purpose of sinking a ship—which might be overinsured ? When vengeance takes that shape among human beings, it is called murder. Yet it seems quite a comforting doctrine to this clergyman to interpret the Divine motive jas a wholesale destruction of his inoffending creatures, created in his love and destroyed in his hate. Religion is to some professors a gloomy gospel of destruction.

The Patea Coach Factory has changed proprietors, Messrs Williams Brothers having disposed of the business to Messrs Doneghne, Chisholm, and Smith, who have been the principal workmen in the factory during three years. The new firm commenced operations yesterday, and it is to be hoped their success as proprietors will be equal to the high quality of work for which they have already made this factory notable beyond the Patea district. The partners are a body-maker, a painter, and a blacksmith; and better workmen are not to be found in the colony. Williams Brothers have given the firm a favorable start by erecting for them a large new workshop with two floors, and with improved facilities for work. The painting room on the upper floor has a chamber screened off and dust-proof for finishing the fine work. A side-door is constructed to fall outward as a swing platform, raising a vehicle from the ground outside to the painting room, or lowering it finished without a scratch. A cottage is also being erected as a part of the new premises, which are architecturally a good feature in the main street. Williams Brothers will continue to carry on their old business as blacksmiths and wheelwrights .

The Early Closing Association of

Patea held another meeting last night, when the secretary reported that all local storekeepers except two had signed the petition agreeing to close at six o’clock during winter. This agreement is not to be binding unless signed by all employers. The meeting resolved to solicit again the two who had abstained from signing. Domain Board. —An adjourned special meeting was held on Saturday evening ; present, Messrs Taplin (in the chair), Horner, and Dixon. Resolved that the west portion of the Domain, adjoining the lake 1 , be let in two paddocks for five years, the land being over 30 acres. Lessees are to maintain good and sufficient fences, and to leave same in substantial condition ; and not more than one grain and one root crop to be taken off. These conditions were to be forwarded to the Governor for approval. The letter from the Football Club was adjourned to a fuller meeting. The correspondent of a referring to the great native m in the King country says :—The only Europeans here are Mr Tole, of Orakau, and Mr A. McDonald, Ngatiraukawa Chief, as he delights to call himself, of mail coachstopping notoriety. The latter has come to give Tawhiao advice—it is to be hoped for his good—but Ins chance of doing so is doubtful, as His Majesty fights shy of stangers altogether. There is every probability that titles to upwards of 225,000 acres of land at Taupo will be awarded by the land court lately sitting. A correspondent says :—There is now great hope for the future of Taupo, the great drawback hitherto being individualising the title to land. This once done, the lends will be at once taken up, and settlement will follow.

At a Maori feast in Auckland district two portions of a tribe laid claim to the possession of a young woman recently married. . A struggle took place, in which the girl was pulled between both parties, as if they were engaged in a tug-of-war game, and it seemed as if Solomon’s judgment would be carried into effect. No European was present £o interfere.

The annual report of the Alburnia Gold Mining Company, Auckland, showed that the quantity of quartz crashed was 4684 tons of ordinary stone, and 6000 Ibs of specimen stone, producing 83270zs 12dwts of gold, of the value of £21,620 4s 4d. Out of this sura, £II,OOO, or 17s 6d per share, has been paid in dividends. The exertions of the Wanganui Fire Brigade saved some thousands of pounds’ worth of Government property on Thursday night, when the Post Office and Telegraph Offices had a very narrow shave of being burnt to the ground, a fire having been discovered in the store rooms. It has been calculated that there exist in New Zealand, some sixty professional bookmakers. On the estimate that each one spends at the rate of £4OO, the public supply them with the modest little sum of £24,000 per annum ! Crops have turned out well in the Cambridge district, and in Waikato generally, an average of 634 bushels of oats to the acre, and 40 bushels of saleable wheat per acre were obtained by two settlers. The body of an elderly woman who was frozen to death was found near Ross by a man named Stephen Burford, who at the inquest, stated he had no rest all one night through dreaming about deceased. Two large fires occurred in Sydney, New South Wales, on the 12th, on the premises of John Curran, wholesale grocer, who was insured for £12,000, and Harris &• Co., produce merchants, insured for £2,000. The Government have a survey party, in charge of Mr Coom, surveying the West Coast railway from Paikakariki to Horowhenua. The population of Dunedin and is 42,802, as against 35,028 in 1878. A? Port Chalmers it is 2,281, as against 1,872 in 1878 ; while the shipping is 428 as against 632 in 1878. The Government have drafted a Bill for providing for the boarding-out of the destitute and neglected children of the Industrial School at Auckland. At the half-yearly meeting in Melbourne of the National Bank, a dividend of 124 per cent was declared. The net profits for the six months amounted to £52,000. The Hon. John Hall, the Premier, will address Ms constituents at Leeston towards the end of this month.