TELEGRAMS.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume X, Issue 1056, 1 April 1882, Page 2

TELEGRAMS.

[Fault ova own CoaaasroNDßNTs]. Auckland, March 29. Captain Duncan Matheson, of the schooner Matheson, who was terribly injured yesterday by a spar in slings falling on him twenty feet from the deck, died in Hospital this morning. Oamahu, March 19. A fire occurred on Monday night nt Otepopo, by which a threshing mill and two stacks of oats were destroyed. The mill was insured for £400; the oats were also insured. Oamaru Breakwater is expected to be completed in a month's time. Wanganui, March 29. Major Nixon’s house at Sodgbrook, Wanganui, was totally destroyed by firs this morning. The fire originated near the kitchen chimney, and no water being available, spread rapidly. The Fire Brigade came from town, but arrived too late to save the building. A portion of the furniture was saved, but the library, containing many valuable books and Maori curiosities, was lost. The house was insured in the Liverpool and London Office for £lOOO, but the furniture was uninsured. Patea, March 29. Mary O’Sullivan, a widow, whose husband was killed 18 months ago, was arrested last evening for infanticide. The body of the child was found wrapped in an old towel, under the house, by some children. On their alarm she removed it, and when the police arrived sho was in the act of carrying it away in a kit. The inquest was held on Thursday. Rotorua, March 31. Two Native Land Courts were opened at Rotorua yesterday; one under the presidency of Judge Fenton, and the other by Major Mair. Wellington, March 31. Her Majesty’s Assent to the Chinese Immigration Act, 1881, is notified in the Gazette. Notifications fixing the shooting season for imported and Native Game License fees, &c., for the various districts in the Colony are gazetted. Christchurch, MarchSl. The Frozen Meat Company are communicating with various shipping companies trading to New Zealand, in order to obtain a sufficient number of ships fitted with thefreezingapparatus. By next season it is estimated that from five to eight large ships will bo required, and endeavours are being made to get at least one steamer also.

A NEW TORPEDO BOAT. The Americana are bringing out a torpedo boat, wbieh, it is averred, can sink the greatest ironclad afloat. It is the invention of Captain Ericson, and a successful trial of it has lately been made at the Navy Yard. An English paper states “ The strong tide off the Ordnance Dock compelled a change of plan, and the target, a square frame covered with wire netting, was successfully placed in the cove. The Destroyer was made fast to the old Constitution. The target was submerged 300 yards away. Everything being in readiness, Mr. Laroe, the representative of the Delamater Iron Works, the builders of the Destroyer, notified Captain Selfridge and Commanders Phythian and Crownishfield, the board appointed to examine the tests. At 3 o’clock the signal was given and the gun was fired. There was but a slight report, and all that could be noticed from the outside was a trifling disturbance of the waters under the bow of the vessel. Almost instantaneously the portion of the target which was above the water was seen to vibrate, and a second later the projectile, a wooden log, 15 feet long, leaped from the water some 300 yards beyond the target with u motion exactly similar to that

of a porpoise playing under the bow of a •hip at sea. From this point it ricochetted along the surface of the water for some 200 yards farther before it lost its momentum. The target having been raised it waa found that the netting had been pierced almost exactly in the centre, and about five feet under water. The officers pronounced thia trial eminently successful. The Destroyer is an iron boat with hull almost entirely submerged. Upon thia hull, placed well aft, is a deck-house of aheetiron. The hull is 130 feet long, 12 feet wide, 11 feet deep ; she is a double-ender, and ia propelled by an engine of 1000 horsepower. The steering apparatus and the torpedo gun—in fact all of her effective appointments—are below the water level. The armament consists of a single gun placed just above the keelson in the forward part of the boat, its muzzle opening directly into the water, which ia excluded from it by a permanent valve hung by an elbow joint to the stem and opened or closed by a piston operated at the breech of the gun. When the gun is to be fired the valve is raised out of the path of the projectile and its place is taken by a temporary valve of wood and rubber cloth, which fits the muzzle tightly and is placed in the gun after it is loaded. This is shattered when the gun is fired. As the projectile leaves the muzzle the permanent valve again comes in position, the little water that rushes in runs through the breech to the bilge, and is out by a steam syphon. The torpedo which rt is proposed to use in actual warfare is a chamber of iron or copper, large enough to contain pounds of dynamite, and it is claimed thfit against this little vessel the most powerful ironclads will be helpless, as the gun will penetrate them beneath their armour, and her great speed and facility uf mancouvring would enable her to get in her work among a fleet of big ships almost at will and with entire safety.

The first steps have been taken by M‘Pherson, the man injured by t he lion at Albury, in an action against Mr. Wilson, the circus proprietor. Damages are laid at £lOOO. A man up Ararat way has hit upon a plan by which the sparrow nuisance may be abated. He calls it the “ 8-cat-ter Sparrow,” and it is simply this:—When his orchard is blooming and fruit becoming ripe he places in each tree a cage, and in each cage u cat. Sparrows do not like cats, nor do cats like confinement. They chafe against it and raise a row equal to the best double-barrelled outburst of Wagnerian composition. Ths fruit is saved, and when plucked the cats are either liberated or leased to the next orchard.

A billiard match for £lOOO took place recently in London, between the famous players J. Roberts, jun., and W. Cook, the former conceding 500 pointe in a game of 5000. This great contest extended over three nights. At the cluse of the first day’s play the score stood : Cook, 1729; Roberts, 1668. On the second day Cook played well, and, at the interval, the game stood : Cook, 2841 ; Roberts, 2,135. Later, however, Roberts went on in dashing style, and had reached 3335 to Cook’s 3037 when play ceased for the evening. There was still finer play on the tliird day, Roberts making the magnificent break of 432, the largest contribution of the match. He eventually ran out a winner by 1638 points. Play occupied only two hours, and in that time Roberta scored 1665 points, achieving one uf the most brilliant performances recorded in a match of this description.

The champion of the world having engaged -4 ment during the coming season with Boyd, Ross, anfl Trickett, we were afraid that Laycock wifi have some difficulty in satisfying his desire for another spurt with him. Unless Hanlnn possesses as great an appetite for work ns the bushranger himself, we fear thift he will not risk a fourth match. In truth, he could hardly be expected to. He has already on his programme for two month’s work an Englishman, an American, and an Australian, and it must be admitted that he is now more than making up for lost time. However, if Laycock is in the humour, there is little doubt but that he will use his persuasive powers to the ut most. The knowledge that he obtained during his last trip, both in the style of rowing and in boat fitting, has borne such good fruit that he will be a far better man by many lengt s on his return to England. He has during the past nine months proved beyond doubt that, as he now rows and with his present fittings, he can surpass all his previous performances, and it is this knowledge principally which has tempted him to incur the heavy expense of another trip to England with the doubtful chance of being able to arrange some matches when he arrives there.— Sydney Mail.

The Dunedin Morning Herald says :—The Police Court was for three and a-half hours on Saturday, when charges of gambling against twenty eminent citizens, including an M.H.R., the Mayor, a few J.P.’s, and a Chinese merchant, were enquired into, the result being that, despite a well-fought action, the State was made richer by £3B, contributed at the rate of £2 each by nineteen defendants, the twentieth escaping. The heinous infraction of the law for which it was all about was the holding of litttle sweeps of a pound a man on February 23rd, at Forbury. Mr. Denniston prosecuted for the Police ; Mr. James Smith made a very tough fight for the defendants, and was supported by Mr. Solomon ; and last, but by no means least, Mr. Fish, who was his own lawyer, made such a powerful defence that one of the lawyers addressed him as “ My learned friend, Mr. Fish,” and he was once or twice pulled up in his own interest by the Court.”

Sir Charles MacMahon, Mr. Jack, and Mr. Benies, of Melbourne, who came to New Zealand for the purpose of initiating active measures for the development of the petroleum area in the Poverty Bay district held by the Southern Cross Petroleum Company (Limited), have given the Dunedin Morniug Herald a most discouraging accounts of the fruits of their visit. The gentlemen named represented the Melbourne shareholders, who hold 35,000 of the 4.8,000 shares in the Company, and it was their intention to make every effort to immediately develop the field with a view to transporting the paraffin butter to Melbourne for treatment in a manufactory to be established there for the purpose. No later than last month some of the shares on which 4s Id has been paid up were sold in Dunedin for 6s, and us high as 10s was obtained at one time for them in Melbourne. The gentlemen named, however, stated that not only has the Company no satisfactory title to the land, but the Natives hud asserted their rights by stopping works. They moreover asserted, with regard to the prospects of the field, apart from the question of title, that unless the yielding capacity of the place should bo very great, there is little prospect of the undertaking being a financial success. The ground is ninety miles from Gisborne, over very broken country, and eight miles from the nearest point on the coast. The road to the coast presents almost insuperable difficulties to the formation of a tramway. There is one and a-half miles of the bed of a creek to traverse, a mountain to either tunnel or pass round, and a four-chain gully and tenchain river to bridge, while even the flat portion of the road has three levels. When the coast is reached there is no anchorage for sailing ships, and the material would have to be carried out a mile or a mile and a-half in whale-boats to be shipped. The establishment of a factory on the spot is also out of the question, as it would be impossible to land and ( transport inland the ponderous machinery necessary.