PATEA DAILY MAIL. Published every Evening, Price 1d. Circulation nearly 600 : average last quarter 510. Politics, Independent. Friday Evening, Feb. 10, 1882.

Patea Mail, 10 February 1882, Page 2

PATEA DAILY MAIL. Published every Evening, Price Id. Circulation nearly 600 : average last quarter 510. Politics, Independent. Friday Evening, Feb. 10, 1882.

The Hawera Town Board passed a vote of thanks to Mr Furlong- for the courteous and efficient manner in which he had duties of chairman. For the Waitotara School Committee thirteen ratepayers were nominated, and the following elected ; J- W. Doric 10 votes, T. W. Fisher 10, W. Fenton 10, J. McKenzie 10, T. Ciark 9, H. Morey 7, and T. Kells 7. Mr Fisher elected chairman. Electricity is extending in nse at New York for lighting streets and public buildings. But the next scientific advance is to be the laying of steam pipes to workshops for driving machinery, and to houses for warmth in winter and

ordinary cooking purposes, thus supplanting fuel and gas. A new theory of the rise and fall of tides is expounded by the Astronomer Royal for Ireland, as reported in yesterday’s issue. He suggests a new relation of the moon, to the earth, namely that at an epoch dating back say.fifty millions of years, the moon was so close that the daily rise of the tides would be 240 feet, or a rise that wonld wash over the whole of England at the same elevation as to-day. This astronomical theory throws a new and surprising light on problems in geology as to the periodically varying height of land and sea.

Mr James Bull has about half an acre of linseed growing on his Sandon farm, the crop being exceedingly abundant. Last year Mr Bull had about one acre under a linseed crop. This year the paddock has been under wheat, and where the linseed had been growing the land is clear of weeds and the wheat on it will yield quite 50 per cent, heavier crop, the straw being longer and the ears fuller.

A profound sensation was recently created in the Municipal Council, Napier, by the sudden assertion of Cr. Cotton that he had got “an idea in his head. ” One Councillor was for extracting the “ idea ” with surgical instruments. Another thought the operation had better be let by contract. A third expected a microscope Would hardly show it. Beer was not thought useful under the circumstances, bnt a con pie of policemen might frighten or shake out the idea.

Oatmeal received in Auckland from Otago has been found to be adulterated with sharps. Oatmeal is worth £lO a ton and sharps £4 a ton.

A meeting to elect school committee at Wanganui was attended by 130 persons. The Napier gaol is full to overflowing, there being now sixty-eight prisoners incarcerated. The Gisborne Artillery Volunteers number over one hundred men, and the only gun they have is a broken down ship’s cannon. The village of Waipawa, Hawke s Bay, is awakening to the fact that it contributes something like £BOO a year to the County Council and Road Board, and does not get anything like that sum expended on its streets. A municipality is to be formed. Commenting on the long delay in bringing Guiteau to trial for the murder President Garfield, and subsequent proceedings, a New Zealand journal asks: Who shall say after this that Judge Lynch is not a necessity in a country like the United States? Tolls on the Wanganui bridge are to reduced by • one half ou receipt from Government of £ 17,000 now expected. Tolls ’to be entirely abolished on £60,000 loan maturing 23 years hence. Mr C. D. Whitcombe, Land Commissioner at Taranakij is on a visit to the hot springs. He says the smell of sulphur is so strong there and everything has such a peculiar taste, that he was led to believe during his first day there that Rotorua is a kind of warning to evil-doers of the place they, will have to reside in hereafter.

The Atlas Engineering Company, of New South Wales, has contracted with the Government of that Colony for the construction of 43 engines. The amount of the contract is £160,000.

There are 361 registered medical practitioners in New Zealand, whose names have been recently gazetted.

During last year the Wellington Benevolent Society expended in various kinds of relief £2,844. Sixteen orphans are being hoarded out at 7s 6d per week each. The Orphan -Fund consists of £1,300 invested in mortgages. The cost of the daily ration is 2|d, and the weekly board and lodging. 14s per head. The av» ■rage monthly ration account for the year was £9l 18s 4d, and the board and lodging Recount; averaged -monthly £3O Iss lid. The hard-labor test is still applied ; to able-bodied applicants for relief with good, effect.

A libel suit with a claim for £20,000 damages is said to be pending in Dunedin. An investor of large sums received from Home capitalists appears to have hod bis honor maligned by some merchant in Dunedin. A letter of a damaging nature is said to be, identified with the handwriting of the jealous merchant; and' on' this evidence the merchant is to be sued civilly for a defamatory libel.