NEWS OF THE DAY.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2748, 13 January 1882, Page 2

NEWS OF THE DAY.

A meeting of St. John’s Masonic Lodge will be held this evening. It is expected that the first portion of the San Francisco mails will arrive at Timaru on Saturday night and the remainder by the express on Monday.

It is rumored in Wellington that Mr Hannay will succeed MrMaxwell as General Manager of Railways.

Litigants in Christchurch are anxiously waiting Mr Beetham’s arrival, their oases having to stand over for lack of a Resident Magistrate to hear them. The Waimate Library Committee have decided to appoint someone to Qanvass the town for subscriptions, giving him a commission upon the receipts. Plagyoers will he pleased to learn that Mr J. 0. Williamson proposes to bring his “ Struck Oil ” Company to Timaru after his season in Christchurch.

A man named Edward Thomas has been committed for trial for personation at the Cheviot election, and a man named Martin for double voting at the Wallace election. The Auckland Presbytery desire the General Assembly of the Church to settle the position of ministers in regard to marriage with deceased wife’s sister. The Presbybery will also ask Parliament to establish a University at Auckland.

In reply to the complaints of the’Auckland Press the Government state that the delay in failing to provide means for the fumigating of the English mail at Auckland is attributable to the negligence of the Auckland Harbor Board. The Board have lull power in the matter as Board ofHealth, and the Government can do nothing without their sanction.

The return of Mr Gerard Fitzgerald for Hokitika, is gazetted. The railway returns for the four weeks ended Dec. 10, show a total of receipts from the railways of both Islands of £07,820 15s Id, of which the HurunuiBluff lines contributed £48,822 9s 7d, of which 57 per cent was expended In the same time. The expenditure on ail the lines was about 00 per cent of the receipts,’ the Christchurch section being worked the cheapest—for 47 per cent of the receipts, expensesj of several of the smaller lines as usual exceeded the receipts’

;It appears that the rumor current some days ago that the return of Mr J. H. Sutter as Member for Gladstone was to be petitioned against, had a basis in truth. A Press Association message from Wellington states that Judges Johnston and Williams have been appointed to try the following election petitions : Robert Rutherford against the return of James Hutchinson Sutter for Gladstone ; Wm. HollU against the return of Henry Allwright for Lyttelton ; and William Grattan Cowlishaw against the return of Walter Hippolite Pilliet for Stanmore. We understand that,the ground of the petition in the case of Mr Sutter is that the polling place at Fairlie Creek was Jclosed before 6 o’clock, the legal hour. '

The annual soiree and concert of the Temuka Presbyterian Church on Wednesday evening was largely attended and was in every way successful, After the tea addresses were given by several ministers, Mr Gordon, pastor of the Church; making a’gratifying statement as to the position of the Church financially and otherwise. The programme of the concert was a very long one, and was gone through very pleasingly, the members of the choir being assisted by a number of friends from Timaru and the neighborhood.