Untitled

Patea Mail, 18 August 1882, Page 3

A full rehearsal of the programme for the Fire Brigade entertainment is to be held in the Harmonic Hall on Saturday evening. A large attendance of the public is expected at the performance next Tuesday. A solicitor named Thompson has levanted from Christchurch, leaving defalcations to the extent of £20,000, his assets being estimated at £B,OOO. He had embezzled nearly £IO,OOO belonging to clients ; and the remaining sum is in debts. He had not lived in fast style, and only one client got uneasy about his affairs lately, and insisted on security. Thompson got clean away by the ’Frisco steamer before his absence was noticed. A man named James Gavin, a carpenter, residing on Moa Flat Station, Otago, was found dead last week in a creek. It appears from the evidence that he was tipsy, while so he fell into a creek, and was unable to extricate himself, dying from cold and exposure. The coroner said he was sorry that he could not prosecute the man who served him with the liquor. A rather historical photograph is being exhibited just now in Dunedin. It is the picture, of a man’s skull, and presents a somewhat battered appearance. In 1849 the owner of it was wounded twice on the head, also at Christchurch .in 1875 by a saw. He died in the hospital last year, and made arrangements with a wardsraan that if he' kept him in tobacco while he lived, he could have what remained of it when he was done with. The late floods caused much damage at Wellington. Houses have been dislodged, cuttings of 100 tons in weight have fallen down, and minor accidents on every side have occurred. One family just got out of their house in time, for a moment after the building came down with a crash, and nearly made a building on the other side of the street collapse, owing to the force with which it came against it. To show the speed the water rose, a woman was purchasing a loaf of bread at a shop, and when she came out, she was up to the ankles in water. An immense amount of damage has been done. There were present at a banquet given to Sir Henry Parkes, when in England, persons from the colony whose total wealth amounted to the handsome sum of £14,000,000. The .Grovernraent ferrets are well cared for. A large house has been built for them, in the Acclimatisation Grounds, Christchurch, fitted up into 14 cages, capable of holding 20 ferrets. Messrs Savage and Dil worth, the largest exhibitors at the Christchurch Exhibition, were entertained at a dinner by some leading gentlemen, Messrs Savage and Dil worth presented a number of their exhibits to the museum. Diamonds to the value of £IOOO, to be used for diamond drills have been imported from England by the Victorian Mining Department. These scarcely will be a three months’ supply.