PATEA COUNTY MAIL

Patea Mail, 19 December 1881, Page 2

PATEA COUNTY MAIL

Published Monday, Wednesday, and Friday evenings ; present Circulation over 620 copies—average of previous quarter 500. Politics, Independent. Monday Evening, December 19. Prompt settlement has been made by the Union Insurance Co. for the amount insured on Mr Salmon’s cottage at Kakaramea. Mr Taplin, local agent, paid a cheque for £IOO. to-day to Mr H. Williamson, as mortgagee of the property. The Mail will be published on Tuesday after Christmas-day, instead of Monday, which is a public holiday. The half-yearly inspection parades of the Patea Rifles and Cadets take place to-morrow evening. Lapsed Votes have been complained of in other districts than Patea, and our friend the Major is not the only sinner.. While in a few favored districts the ; votes have been spent promptly, and sometimes exceeded, the recent electoral discussions have shown that in this district there was delay at times when energy would have been wisdom. It is poor comfort to find that other candidates have “ made a point ” by showing up the negligence of members elsewhere. Mr Dodson at Blenheim was severe on the local member, Mr Seymour (chairman of committees), for neglecting to get votes spent that were put on the railway estimates. A sum of £18,885 was put ou in 1877 for construction and land, Picton to Blenheim, and it was not till 1880 that the expenditure was made, and then not the whole sum that was voted. It is the old story. Votes are put on the estimates as a “ put off,” and the money hangs a long time between heaven and earth before it can be grabbed and spent. Deferred payment applications for the Kaupokonui sections close to-day both here and at Hawera, and the sale for cash of the other sections, with land in block IX. Ngaire, block 111. Waimate, and block I. Hawera, will take place at Hawera on Thursday. . All the banks in Patea will be closed on Monday and Tuesday after Christ-mas-day. Boxing-day will be a general holiday, and the banks claim the privilege of two days at Christmas. The Wellington Waste Lands Board have resolved, “ That on account of the expenditure of opening roads within the Wanganui Harbor Board Endowment ' the same be declared land of special value under Sec. 49 of the Land Act, 1877.”

Aucklanders want to hatch chickens by means of heat obtained from their thermal springs. The new Catholic Church at Patea has been dedicated to St, Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland. We arc informed that a figure of the saint is to be placed in the niche over the entrance door. Will any reader oblige ns by examining the bottom of his rainwater tank, and informing us how many inches of slime, worm-casts, feathers, straw, and other abominations, he discovers ? Several bad cases have turned up lately. It is madness to drink dirty water when a little caro will ensure clean. An exquisite little pink pamphlet, adorned with Japanesque designs, professes to set forth “ What Sir George Grey has done for the working man, etc.” The contents are—blank pages ! Well, the last is not blank, for there we find the Latin phrase, “ Vox et preterea nihil,” and the English equivalent, “ Talk, and nothing more.” Sir George, gave a long answer to this empty pamphlet: and as he detailed what he did on this subject and what he did on that, he asked with an eloquent smirk, “ Was that all talkee-talkee ?” Volunteers and Government.— Mr Walter Johnston, speaking at Wanganui, said with regard to the Volunteers, Parliament last session voted the capitation, and next session, bearing in mind the immense services the Volunteers had rendered to the country, no fear whatever need arise about the capitation. Parliament would only be too eager to make some recognition of their services, not only by a money vote, but by expressing the gratitude the Legislature felt. Proposing the toast of Colonel Roberts, at the banquet at Wanganui, Mr Bryce said he respected that officer from every point of view as a brave and undaunted soldier, who relieved his (Mr Bryce’s) mind by carrying out his orders to the letter. Another Loan is in contemplation by the Government. Speaking at the banquet to Mr Bryce at Wanganui the Hon. Walter Johnston, PostmasterGeneral, said he hoped that the newly elected Parliament would not be behind its predecessors in efforts to promote the welfare of the colony and the settlement of the country. With the latter object they would have to ask for farther borrowing powers, and the only way to meet the money which would have to be remitted out of the Colony in the shape of interest, was to increase the population so far as the legislature could help in the work. They would not see in the North Island a marked progress in settling the country unless the local bodies had funds at their disposal to open up Crown lands. If they thought that that was the way the burdens of the future were to be met, Parliament should act upon it, though it was not a scheme he was particularly wedded to himself. If it was not adopted, he hoped the new Parliament would submit something in the same direction. Mr Inspector Foulis, who recently inspected the schools in this district, speaks in very complimentary terms of the marked improvement in the Waverley and Kakaramea schools, and considers that Patea is distinctly advanced. A special train was to have been inn from Wanganui to Waverley, yesterday, for the opening ceremony at the Catholic church. The railway authorities required £l6 10s guaranteed, and if any sum were obtained over that amount it was still to go to the railway and not a penny of it to those who chartered the train. On these terms it was impracticable to make an arrangement. The railway policy appears stupid in this matter. If private parties are to guarantee a minimum number of passengers, they should be allowed to profit by getting more if they can do it. What other inducement is offered ? Suppose the authorities say, we give the use of an engine and two carriages for £l6 10s, and we charge £2 for each carriage in addition, so that you may get as many passengers as yon can so long as we are paid for the train at that rate. That would be reasonable, whereas the present plan is ridiculous. Mr J. Thomson, lately engineer at Patea harbor, has been chosen out of 12 applicants as engineer to the Waitara Harbor Board, at a salary of £BOO a year, subject to his engagement with the New Plymouth Board. According to a statement made in the New South Wales Parliament it appears that one merchant owns 300 licensed houses in Sydney, another 250, and a third 180. A change is brewing. A Wanganui journal is informed that the Alexandra Cavalry received payment for their services at the same rate only as members of the infantry corps, viz., 6s per day.

The annual fifty miles amateur bicycle race was run at Lillie Bridge in October. 0. E. Lile rode 42 miles in 8 hours 1 minute 56 seconds. At (hat stage the rest had retired, and he received the cup, which was presented by the Sporting Life. How long will it be ere onr young men race along Patea roads on bicycles ? The existing arrangements in the English army by which regiments are known by territorial names is likely to be superseded by the old system of numbers.

Brewing, like most other trades, is being turned upside down by the introduction of “ sucrose ” and “ glucose,” and similar sugars, 141 million pounds of which were used in England last year as against 29 million in 1870. Haw grain, snch as rice and maize, is substituted for malt in great portion, and boiled with the hops under pressure. “ Harvest beer ” used some ten years ago to cost sixpence a gallon. What is its price now ? It would be interesting to know that, and have some samples side by side with our colonial “ tangle-foot,” at 3s.

A Gloucestershire nobleman, owning large estates, is making a novel experiment to render land more remunerative. He has planted 13 acres with gooseberry and currant trees, 11 acres with strawberry plants, and 35 acres with plum trees; while a large portion of park and Avood of 200 acres have been converted into rabbit warrens, and surrounded with iron fencing. The fruitplanting will probably be tried in Ncav Zealand on a large scale before long ; but it seems incredible that rabbits will If only that nobleman would relieve Southland of her surplus stock ! Picture the scene in Drury-lane on the 19th October! The management of that celebrated theatre advertised for a hundred yonng ladies, “ yonng, wellmade, and pretty.” No less than a thousand, of all sorts and sizes, responded ! An immense crowd of “ the public ” assembled, and freely criticised the would-be pantomimists. All the streets were blocked, and the police almost powerless. At last the surging tide of youth and beauty was let in, and as one by one the cruel impresario discarded the least eligible, they slunk out and were received with jeers by the crowd outside. All the disappointed ones have sworn to take that manager’s ife ; and if the fate of Paris, ivho similarly “culled’’out two rivals, was pitilable, what shall we say of the man with nine hundred bitter female foes ?