The Patea Mail. Established 1875. MONDAY, JULY 23, 1883. NEWS OF THE DAY.

Patea Mail, Volume IX, Issue 1063, 23 July 1883, Page 2

The Patea Mail. Established 1875. MONDAY, JULY 23, 1883. NEWS OF THE DAY.

We remind our readers that the Harmonic Society’s concert will take place to-morrow evening. The programme appears in another column. The tea meeting and open lodge in connection with Star of Patea, 1.0. G.T., took place on Friday evening in St James’ Hall, and passed off most successfully. After tea the chair was taken by Bro H. E. Ensor, SDDGWOT (Opunake), and the following programme was gone through to the satisfaction of the audience ;—Song, Mr G. Gordon Rose ; song, Mr Kendall ; piano duet, Misses Jacomb ; song, Bro Charles, Worthy Secretary ; recitation, Mr Jacomb ; minstrelsy, Messrs Willis and Galbraith ; address, Bro H E Ensor ; trapeze, Messrs Adamson and McCoy. In the House of Commons to-day, Mr Gladstone will make a statement as to the course Government would pursue regarding the agreement concluded with Count de Lesseps for a second Suez Canal. In the Hunt v. Gordon case, the jury brought in a verdict for the plaintiff for £IOO, and added a rider to the effect that they regretted that so many issues had been withdrawn from them, or otherwise they would have awarded much more substantial damages.

A meeting of shareholders in the Colonial Land Settlement and Endowment Association was held at the Central Hotel on Saturday evening when there were present Messrs O’Dea, Nutsford, Collopy, Gilligan, Gregan, Collins, Bartlett and Hurley. Mr OT)ea was voted to the chair and stated that since their last meeting the annual meeting in Wellington had been adjourned for a month—Mr Cook, the director, meanwhile to supply all the shareholders with notice of this adjournment and the articles of association. Mr Cook had not supplied several of the shareholclei's, including tho speaker, with these. Furthermore he (Mr O’Dea) had been insulted by the inserting in the papers along the coast of notices stating that he had no authority to act for the Association while all the time he had a written authority from Mr Cook. All present concurred that Mr O’Dea had been grossly insulted. It was decided to send Mr O’Dea to Wellington to represent the interests of the shareholders here, and to defray his expenses. The general'opinion was that the Association ought to be wound up as soon as possible. In a leading article on the importation of frozen moat into England, tho Times gf May 7 says : — £: The chief objection to the process arises from the almost invincible [repugnance of a large section of our people to refrigerated meat, arising principally from its appearance and the alleged want of savour which effects it. Servants especially view it with a kind of lofty horror, and, as far as they can, leave it to be consumed by their masters and mistresses.”

The Union Steamship Company have chartered a largo steamer, which will bring a cargo of teas from Hong Kong. She is expected to arrive in Port Chalmers in a few weeks’ time, and when her inward freight has been discharged, the remains of something like 300 Chinamen, who have died in the colony, will bo put on hoard her by their relations, and she will return to China.

The San Francisco mail was delivered in town this afternoon.

The Hospital Committee have lost no time in getting to work. Circulars have been printed, and the bon. secretary was busy to-day distributing subscription lists, one of which lies at this office. We hope to see a liberal response to the appeal of the committee.

Mr Cowern will sell twenty cases of oranges to-morrow.

A meeting of shareholders in the Sawmill Company will be hold at Mr Cowern’s office at 7 o’clock this evening.

The musical element is so well developed at Waver!ey that the formation of a Harmonic Society has long been a matter of discussion. We notice, however, that steps in that direction are now being taken, a meeting being called for Friday evening in the Town Hall. Mr D. Fleming, Waverley, invites tenders for about six miles of fence cutting.

Mr Peter Bell, of Victoria House, Wanganui, has a notice in this issue. Patea is to have the luxury of a postal delivery next month. A number of by-law cases are set down for to-morrow, one being against the editor of this journal, for riding on the footpath.

The Waverley took away a large nnm her of passengers for Nelson yesterday. Many of them proceed to the contract which Messrs Mace and Bassett have taken upon the Roundhill line. The annual meeting of the Waver! eyWaitotara Racing Club will be held at the Railway Hotel, Waitotara, on Tuesday, July 31, at 7.30. The business will be to receive the report and balance sheet, elect officers and members, and to arrange the programme. This racing club is a well managed institution, and we hope that its affairs will continue as prosperous in future as they have been in the past. Mr Nutsford has just received some extensive additions to his stock. Amongst other things is a novelty in alarm clocks, the apparatus for awakening the drowsy owner consisting of a musical box in place of the noisy discordant bell. These clocks are nicely got up and very reasonable in price.

The report of the Deaf and Dumb Institution, at Sumner, was laid before Parliament on Wednesday. The institution has been successfully carried on for three years. There are now 15 boys and 16 girls in the institution, the director having two assistants. The buildings, four in number, are detached. The expenditure of the year baa amounted to £1937 Is Bd,. exclusive of payments to the amount of £322 5s lOd. The Government charge for board and education is £4O per annum, but there are several non-paying pupils. The report of the medical officer is favourable. We learn from the Taranaki Herald that the native hapus at Paribaka have been vieing with each other in feasting Te Whiti and Tohu. Te Whiti’s hapu, however, excelled anything that had previously been accomplished. The hapu provided a thousand loaves, which wore baked at Pungarehu, four bullocks were killed, and a largo number of pigs ; besides pastry, puddings and jellies from Opunake, and wine, ale, &c, to wash it all down with. The officers and men of the A.O. Force were asked to attend the feast, and during the repast Te Whiti in a speech said that they were invited to show the world that the natives had no ill-feeling against the Europeans.

We (Waitara Press) regret to learn that Mr Doneghue, surveyor, whilst in the bush near Inglewood on Tuesday, met with a rather serious mishap. It appears that his men were cutting down two trees, and whilst Mr Doneghue was standing by, one of them fell upon him, crushing him severely. His face has received the greatest outward damage, two bones having been broken, and his body is said to be black and blue. Mr Doneghue proceeded to New Plymouth on Wednesday morning to obtain medical advice, and since his return in the afternoon has been confined to his house. Mr Walter Gibson, lessee of the Warden and Tytler runs at Kaikoura, was charged the other day with being the owner of 40,000 sheep infected with scab. The offence was admitted, and the defendant was fined in the minimum penalty of threepence per head, or £SOO. The best and cheapest means of preserving shingles is probably a soaking in a trough or tank of lime wash or strong lime water. The latter is effective and most convenient, as carpenters dislike to lay shingles covered with lime, but the water being drained off for soaking the shingles the lime can be used on the land. Shingles so treated get almost as hard as hornj and are always clean, no raoss growing on them nor dust adhering. They, therefore, dry soon, and are proof against decay. The Takapuna, the Union Company’s fast boat, it is expected (says a Christchurch contemporary) will make her trips between the Manukau, New Plymouth, Wellington, and Lyttelton in the following quick rate of speed :—Leave Manukau, arrive at Taranaki (136 miles) in 9£ hours; stop there one hour ; arrive at Wellington (176 miles) in 12 hours more ; stop at Wellington labours, arrive at Lyttelton (175 miles) in 12 hours—total distance, 582 miles in 36 hours. The steamer will run between Onehunga and Wellington in 22J hours,, She steams at the rate of 14 knots an hour. On Thursday, the infant son of Mr James McMillan, of South Invercargill, was left in charge of its sister, aged 12. The girl lifted a pot of water off the fire and when her back was turned, her brother fell into it, severely scalding himself. He died on Saturday.

During the land mania which prevailed some four years ago a resident in Wellington. invested in a quarter-acre section in a paper township in the Wairarapa, out of which, it is needless to say, he has not yet made his fortune. As a matter of fact, he had almost forgotten its existence, when a day or two ago it was again brought under his notice, in a way not to be trilled with, by a formidable notice from the Featherston Hoad Board. This consisted of a demand for payment, within 14 days, of a year’s rates on the property, amounting to the stupendous sum of £0 Os ]Jd! Having this amount on their boohs, the Hoad Board cannot be said to have been wanting in enterprise in endeavouring to collect it, since, in making the demand, they have expended a penny stamp, and probably more than a pennyworth of paper and envelope. The owner of the “ property ” complains bitterly of the demand as being practically confiscation, seeing that the rates demanded amount to more than the entire revenue derived from the land during the year. However, being a law-abiding citizen he has determined to he ground down and oppressed, and accordingly has remitted to the clerk to the Eoad Board three half-penny stamps. All he asks in return is a receipt for the money, which no doubt will be lavishly accorded by the Board at the cost of another penny stamp and another pennyworth of stationery.— Pont.

Several cases of typhoid fever have occurred in the Invercargill district, and two dca'ln; have already resulted.

The Cosfley bequest to Auckland has brought forward a claimant. The Star's correspondent telegraphs that a young man, reported to be a nephew of the late Mr F. Costley, is on his way to Auckland with a view to take action to set aside Costley’s will. He was at the House on Wednesday making enquiries. The scandal mongers around Gisborne have suffered a heavy disappointment. The Bromley episode has been amicably arranged, and the cases withdrawn from Court. The defendant admitted he was lawfully married to the lady who came here from Sydney to see him. It was stated, in evidence, that Bromley was married to the woman he lived with as his wife in Gisborne, but it appears he had some difficulty in producing the register of such alleged marriage. Mrs Bromley, it is understood, accepts £SO, and returns to her family in Australia. A young man named H A Nicholls, recently arrested in Wellington district for forgery, has succeeded in acquiring the reputation of being a very desperate character indeed. According to the evidence of the police, it usually took three or four men to arrest him, and Chief Detective Browne informed the Bench that when’ Nicholls was required on a previous occasion nearly a hundred men were engaged in searching for him. He was an apprentice to a large mercantile marine firm in London, but left that employ, aridi’arrived in the Colony about 18 months or two years ago as a secondclass passenger in a ship, in which he managed to excite a mutiny amongst the crew, and he was then put in irons for the remainder of the voyage. Immediately on landing he commenced a drinking bout, being well supplied with funds by his friends at Home, and upon these being exhausted he forged a cheque for a small sura ; his excuse upon his trial being that he expected a remittance from England in time to lake up the forgery. A second time he committed a similar offence, find at present he is in custody on a third charge of a like nature. It may be presumed that it is the old experiment tried again of sending a youth to the colonies so that he may reap the crop of the wild oats he sowed at Home.

The Clutha Leader reports the occurrence of a fatal accident near Gatlin’s River on Thursday last week. It appears that on that day two bushraen named Peter Nelson and Thomas Etherall, were engaged felling timber in Glenomaru bush. About half-past 3 o’clock they had sawn through a white pine tree with a crosscut saw. The tree commenced to fall, but caught a small tree, which caused a rebound, altering its course, and it struck Etherall on the back of the head. Nelson at once ran up to him and released him from the branch of the tree, but he never spoke. Blood was flowing from his nose and mouth, and there was a cut on the back of his head about two inches long. He only breathed for a very few minutes, when he expired. The body was conveyed to Vial’s Hotel, where an inquest was held by Dr J. G. Smith, coroner for the district, and a jury, on Monday. The above particulars were then given in evidence, and the jury returned a verdict of “ Accidental death.”

The Rev. A. Fairbrother (Baptist Mis--sionary in the Lake country), in the New Zealand Baptist for this month, complains of the demoralising influence exercised by many of the Lake tourists on the native race. He says ;—“ The visitors whom we ought to be able to rejoice to see, we have learned to dread. Instead of encouraging these poor people to keep the Sabbath, the tourists —some of these members of Christian Churches, and in one instance a clergyman —pay them to break it and to dance the baka, which is jewd in many of its postures, indecent in its langua.se, and demoralising to all. At home, these professors sing, ‘Fly abroad, thou mighty Gospel,’ but when they are abroad, they do all they can to impede its flight. A fortnight ago, a gentleman—l beg bis pardon, a visitor—paid the natives to dance, on a Sunday night, and offered a boy five shillings to take off the blue ribbon and drink beer! No thanks to him that he failed. Some mild excitement was occasioned in the Victorian Legislative Council Chamber the other evening by the fusing-of two of the Edison electric lamps, owing to the shortness of the circuits. In each case there was a noise resembling that produced by a rocket, and an intense heat was produced, which melted the brass brackets. The mol ten metal, dropping on the cushioned seats, burned them slightly, but serious damage was prevented by the prompt action of the officials in turning off the current of electricity. The mishap, fortunately, occurred after the House had risen. Most of the members and strangers hab gone, and those who did remain gave the strange phenomenon a wide birth. Some interesting information respecting the habits and customs of the Samoans (says the Post ) was given 5y Mr W. J. Hunt in the course of his evidence at the Supreme Court on Wednesday afternoon. The witness mentioned, among other things, that one building sufficed for the accommodation of both Houses of Parliament, one body occupying the principal chamber as soon as the other had vacated it. The members did not care for chairs and stools, but preferred to sit down on mats after the fashion of_ the Maoris, and when engaged in transacting the business of the country were usually attired in a shirt and a piece of native cloth round the loins. • Sometimes, however, the weather was so fearfully warm that the firstmentioned garment was dispensed with. The natives were averse to the use of hats and preferred to go about bare-headed, their hair being dyed something like the colour of the lawyers’ wigs by the application of lime.