NEWS OF THE DAY.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2185, 19 March 1880, Page 2

NEWS OF THE DAY.

Tho monthly inspection parade of the C Battery, N.Z A. took place on Wednesday evening, Lieut. Wardlc in command. There was a good muster. The annual inspection by Major-General Davidson is expected to take place very shortly. A publican is reported to have disappeared from Dunedin, taking with him a lady friend, and £9OO belonging to his creditors' Owing, however, to the accident to the steamer Te Anau, he is not likely to see Melbourne for some time, as a constable is after him with a warrant for his arrest.

An emigrant named Hodkingson was sued on Tuesday, at Ashburton, at the instance of the Government Immigration department for £l6, balance of passagemoney. An order for payment by instalments of 20s per month was issued. It will be remembered, says the Dunedin “Daily Times,” that oneof the victims of the Octagon fire was a man named Swan, who had a wife and family in Scotland. His Worship the Mayor yesterday received the following letter from the Provost of Leith, dated January 7 :—“ I duly received your letter of November 6 last, with its enclosure, and arranged that the British Linen Company should pay over to Mrs Swan, 19, Ferriers street, in small sums, as she might require them, the amount transmitted (£65 10s). She is deeply grateful for this unlooked-for assistance, and desires me to convey to you and the subscribers her heartfelt thanks for the kind consideration shown to her in her forlorn condition. —I am, (&c., John Henderson.”

It is whispered that on the return of the

Premier and other Ministers to Wellington an eighth Minister will be appointed, and rumour says that a Northern member has already intimated his willingness to accept the offered seat.

Our losses in Afghanistan have entailed a very painful duty upon clerks at the War Office. Anxious women come seeking information about relatives and friends, and the task of having to break bad news often proves too much for official decorum. The Afghans claim to be the descendants of the lost tribes of Israel. It is to be regretted that they did not lose themselves more completely. At the suggestion of the Lincolnshire delegates, the Auckland Waste Lands Board have agreed to reserve 10,000 acres of the Tc Aroha block so as to give the delegates a chance of organising a colonising party. A request by Mr Fitzgibbon Louch, (J.E., of Katikati, to be allowed a portion of the same block as a special settlement was declined, the project being supposed to bo purely speculative. Brookes, of Dunedin, united business with pleasure at Oamaru, during the races, by walking 120 miles in 23 hours 48 mins. The Royal Commissioners on Native affairs, have presented an ad interim report to His Excellency the Governor. Its nature has not transpired, but it is said to contain various recommendations which, if given effect to at once, will probably induce a strong reaction against Te Whiti, and produce a marked favorable impression on the native mind.

Joseph Jones, an old man who was arrested at Dunedin the other day on a charge of setting fire to some farm produce,has been found to be a lunatic, and committed from the Dunedin gaol to the Asylum.

An inebriate retreat established in Adelaide a year or two ago has not been an unmixed success. The receipts last year were £BOO less than the expenditure, and although a certain number of drunkards had been kept sober for a limited period, the return under the head of decided cures is very meagre.

On Wednesday, two lads named McAulcy and McTaggart were fined £2 each and costs at the Dunedin Police Court, for cruelty to animals. The evidence showed that the defendants were leading two young dogs by ropes, and when near the railway station they were observed to literally drag the animals for a distance of some 150 yards, thus nearly producing strangulation. Afterwards the dogs were beaten, and one of them lay down on the footpath foaming at the mouth and its tongue hanging out. As an excuse for this treatment it was stated that the dogs would not follow and had to be touched up to make them go at all.

The police in some parts of the Colony where the population is denser than in Timaru, acting the part of moral scavengers, have an easy way of ejecting disreputables from decent neighborhoods. They quietly serve the offenders with summonses for vagrancy and the occupiers accept the documents as notices to quit, and make themselves scarce. We would suggest the expediency of this process being adopted with the occupants of certain lean-tos in Elizabeth street, which up till recently was one of the quietest parts of Timaru.

This is what the “ Dunedin Herald ” says about the boy who was recently sentenced by the police Magistrate there to be flogged in gaol with the cat-’o-nine-tails The boy M’Elhenny, now in the gaol, is a very bright, intelligent fellow; pleasing both in manner and appearance, and just the material likely to develop into a useful man. He must be a courageous boy. There is nothing of the stolidity or downcast expression of the youthful criminal in his appearance. Instead of whipping and coercion, were some kind-hearted person to take him in hand and give him encouragement in the trade he already knows something of —that of a shoemaker —the result would, we think, reward the action.

Referring to the Waimate bush fire case which is now occupying the Supreme Court, Dunedin, the writer of Postscrips in the “ Star ” says Mr Joynt was very great in the case of Theobold v. Studholme. In the course of his opening address, the learned counsel said, while describing the character of the Waimate forest that the “ bush lawyer ” abounded ; he was acquainted with the Latin name of the thing in question, but would say that it “ drew blood freely when young,” and when old was “ very inflamable.” So that is what Mr Joynt thinks of [the “bush lawyer.” It is rather unkind of the polished product of town civilisation to particularise the weaknesses of his country brethren so minutely and, if it must be confessed, so faithfully. A few moments later produced another sensation. Counsel asked that witnesses might be ordered to leave the Court, and Mr Justice Johnston gave directions accordingly. Nothing but Dante’s famous simile of frogs hurrying before the dreaded watersnake could give an idea of the exodus that took place. Man, woman, and everything between these two extremes, as old Aischylus has it, “ skedaddled ” in alarm, and Mr Joynt was left alone with his glory—we mean His Honor. “ The world,” remarked a bystander “ is out of joint;” and certainly his fun may be pardoned.

The writer of Postscripts in the Dunedin “ Evening Star,” tells the following anecdotes:—“ A paragraph went the rounds of the papers a few days ago about the Empress of Austria milking the cows at some place in Hungary with an unpronouncable name. Fired by the Imperial example Mrs H. one of the leaders of the upper ten in a certain metropololitan suburb in this colony, determined to go in for the high rustic busines, and having gathered together an aristocratic party, proceeded to a paddock where everything was produced for display. A beautiful Alderney was bailed up, but unfortunately there had been no rehearsal, dress or otherwise, with this particular animal. Everything was ready. The lady took her seat on the conventional threelegged stool, unhappily on the “ old leg” side of it, and commenced operations. The Alderney gave one side-kick, and the way that imitator of royalty vanished was a caution to behold. The three-legged stool was left with all its legs in the air, and the company adjourned for refreshment.”

The Arethusft s tin ' Dramatic Company close their season in Dunedin to-night, and leave for Timaru by express to-morrow. The company are announced to appear at the Theatre Eoyal to-morrow night, when the sensational play entitled “ The Two Orphans ” will be produced.

The remains of the murdered Dewar family were interred in the Southern cemetery Dunedin, yesterday. The procession was a very large one. Ihc inquest on the bodies was resumed to-day and further adjourned until to-morrow, Se. veral witnesses were examined, but nothing new was dieted connecting Butler with the murder.

An audacious theft has come to light in Dunedin. A young man (says the “Times”) now in custody on a serious charge, being the possessor of a good voice, favored the choir of a certain church in this city on a recent Sunday evening by his presence and assistance. Several pieces of sacred music went amissing that evening, only to turn up again in the possession of the young man upon his arrest. To sing in a church choir for the purpose of stealing the music is surely the acme of criminal impudence.

Preaching the Gospel does not seem to bring large pecuniary reward in Japan at present. We sec it stated that at Thihohu a new Presbyterian church has recently been opened, and a graduate of Kioto, who, in the service of the Government, could command per month fifty or one hundred dollars, has become the pastor of it, at the pitifully small salary of four dollars a month.

An English paper says:—ln reply to those who arc insisting on “ the Tories being an expensive party to the nation,” it may he perhaps worth mentioning that the Tories in 1812 found a deficit in the exchequer of seven and a-half millions. They met that deficit by an income-tax upon the comparatively rich. They then commenced abolishing 1200 taxes, and since 1812 the income-tax has enabled taxes to be reduced to the extent of £1,500,000,000.

Messrs Jonas, Hart and Wildie will sell at their yards to-morrow, at 11am., draught horses, harness, etc.; at their rooms at 2 p.m., race privileges. Messrs Maclean .and Stewart will sell at their rooms to-morrow, three months lease of the Timaru A. and P. Show Grounds ; also, draught mares and geldings, and light harness hacks.

Messrs Collins and Co. will sell at their rooms to-morrow, at 1 p.m., farm produce, and j-acrc section at Kensington ; at Kings yards at 11 a.m., 350 bluegum felloes.