PATEA DAILY MAIL. Tuesday Evening, Feb. 21, 1882.

Patea Mail, 21 February 1882, Page 2

PATEA DAILY MAIL.

Tuesday Evening, Feb. 21, 1882.

Published every Evening, Price Id. Circulation nearly (100 ; average last quarter 510. Politics, Independent.

Captain Johnson, of the Marine Department, has spent some weeks in surveying the bar of Nelson harbor, and took no less than 2000 different soundings. The foreign trade of New Zealand for 1881 amounts to thirteen and a half millions sterling, and the last quarter of the year showed trade at the rate of fourteen and three-quarter millions. Commenting on this, the Taranaki Herald says— The commercial and financial panic of 1879 has evidently subsided. New Zealand is prospering, -< and accordingly puzzles and perplexes the doleful political economists. She ought to have filed her schedule years ago, but, with a perversity which is bewildering, she continues not only to pay her way but to accumulate capital as well.

Last Thursday, the natives at Parihaka attempted to hold a meeting; but on Mr Butler, the interpreter, telling them that if they did not disperse they would be arrested, they at once retired to their whares, and partook of the food that had been prepared.

A Taranaki journal says Mr Barr, C.E. of Dunedin, after a thorough inspection of New Plymouth harbor, said the works were sure to be a success. He was pleased with the work already done, and thought that a contractor could not do the work better.

Mr Corkill, of New Plymouth, is prepared to deal with settlers who have cultivated linseed this year. Now that it has been proved that the soil of Taranaki is well adapted for growing linseed, says the weekly journal, it would be well for the farmers to take steps to secure the profits attached thereto, by importing the necessary machinery for expressing the oil, &c. The assistance of capitalists could be easily obtained for starting such a paying industry.

There is probability of a Ladies’ College soon being established in Nelson. The School Commissioners are prepared to hand over nearly £7OO for the purpose, and farther to endow the College with an income of £l5O a year. The Governors of the Nelson College are also disposed to vote a sum of money for a building as well as an annual endowment, on the condition that the school is hi connection with the college. After a religions address to converts in Nelson, Mrs Harapson is reported to have made a powerful appeal in favor of total abstinence from intoxicating liquors, so powerful, so earnest, and so convincing that before the meeting dispersed no less than 300 of those present signed the pledge.

A telegram from Reefton to Dr Hector of the Colonial Museum, states that a Californian salmon, 21 inches long, had been caught in the New River. The fish was inches in girth, and 41bs in weight, containing spawn about the size of No. 7 shot. The Austrian Minister of Education has ordered that every school-house shall have a small garden patch attached, in which the pupils must work to gain a practical knowledge of agriculture and horticulture. A racecourse has been laid off by natives in one of Hone Pihama’s paddocks at Oeo. About £IO,OOO was paid at the Wellington Property Tax Office Feb. 15 th. It is stated that a strenuous effort is about being made to establish a butter factory among the settlers on the Douglas block, and that the Hon. R, Campbell has promised material assistance to inaugurate the undertaking. Paris is to be the permanent residence of Hobart Pasha, who will visit Turkey

thrice a year.

The libel action brought by the Mayor of Patea came to an end this morning, having been before the Conrt on six different days. The K.M. delivered a lengthy decision, ami dismissed the information on the grounds that the occasion rebutted the presumption of malice, and that direct evidence ol malice was not given. The whole tenor of the decision showed a desire to discourage a resort to ctiminnl procedure where a civil remedy is available. This will appear to most people a proper ami safe line for an investigating Court to adopt. The evidence before the Court failed to show malice in a manifest and unmistakable form. It still remains a matter of opinion as to whether certain other notorious circumstances of the case that could not bo adduced in formal evidence are sufficient to show, in public estimation, that this and other attacks on the Mayor have been prompted by malice. Such a feeling is deplorable ; and we sincerely hope that, whether the feeling be called malice, or spite, or love turned to bitterness, it will be allowed to die out. Patea Rifles parade for inspection this evening. At Hawera, Messrs Nolan will offer for sale to-morrow a farm on the Plains of 268 acres; also 56 building sections in Hawera. Telegraph lines connecting with South Island towns are now repaired and in working order. The original manuscript of the Book of Mormon is said to be in the possession of an old follower of Joseph Smith. He lives in Missouri, and he and his son believe that it is inspired. They do not believe in polygamy, and long ago left the fold. Six thousand acres of bush land inland of Manaia are to be offered tomorrow at Hawera. Nineteen applications have been received for the deferred payment sections, and contested sections will be put up to-morrow. The Wanganui Herald says it is now beyond all question that the water supplied from the Westmere Lake is utterly unfit for human consumption. The Lake at certain times is a shallow, foul-smelling mud pond, offensive and repulsing to the senses. But at all times it contains a large proportion of animal excrement, of decayed and decaying vegetable matter, of a bed of slimy matter deposited in a variety of ways and of a variety of substances. Even in the case of Virginia, the absence of fencing allows any amount of contamination of the Lake. Cattle browse round the margin and pollute the water. These are the two sources of supply at Wanganui.