General News

Southern Cross, Volume 1, Issue 5, 29 April 1893, Page 9

General News

In our next issue will be published the first of a series of sketches by “Aurora,” the pen-name of a lady who is journeying to Britain, and who will have something of interest to tell our readers concerning her experiences en route and in the Old Country. The amendments proposed in the Home Buie Bill already number one thousand. Several properties have been added to Mr C-W.-Brown’s register. Mr G. Froggatt holds a sale of educational leaseholds in his rooms on' Monday. A mail for the United Kingdom and Australia closes at Invercargill at 10.15 a.m. to-day. Book-keeping is to be taught by Mr W. .Macalister in connection with the Southland Collegiate Classes. Lord Mayor Stuart Knill, of London, expresses the opinion that the Home Rule Bill will work great mischief; but condemns the idea of offering armed resistance. Sir. William Harcourt states that the National Debt has been lessened bx six and a half millions. He said the Imperial finances were sound, and thafthere was no ground for disquiet. A drought extending over 58 days has been experienced in England—said to be the longest interval without rain ever recorded there. A chance for local wheelmen. A team of New Zealand ’cyclists is to be sent to the Australian amateur championships to be held at Sydney next spring. Wellington has been under a cloud lately. With one brief interval, the sun has not been visible there since Monday week. Gapt, Edwin forecasts bad weather. Victoria intends to reduce the salaries of her Governor, Ministers, judges, and members of Parliament. She is, figuratively speaking, going through a saokcloth and ashes periodjj D. McLeod, of Riverton, is the successful tenderer, at £445, for the construction of a hopper barge to be worked at the Bluff in connection with the dredge leased by the Harbour Board from the Invercargill Borough Council. Anti-crinoline sentiment is strong in the State of Minnesota. The Legislature has before it a bill prohibiting the manufacture of crinolines under a penalty of thirty days’ imprisonment and a fine of 25 dollars. The prison labour-gang, having completed the pathways within the Hospital grounds, are now engaged in improving those east and north of the institution. The work is being done in a very thorough and workmanlike style.

The reported death of Gabriel Bead, the discoverer of the Gabriel’s Gully goldfield, is denied. Some of our contemporaries dispose of Gabriel every time they get short of news. He is a useful man to fall back upon, and the report is bound to come true eventually.

Preaching in St, John’s last Sunday, Bishop- Nevill expressed the opinion that to seek a solution of existing industrial social troubles without bringing the principles of Christianity to bear, was simply to repeat the experiment of the builders of the tower of Babel —the attempt would end in confusion and distress.

Mr W. H. Mathieson, who leaves the Bluff to-day for Britain, and who intends to visit the World’s Fair, was entertained at a farewell social in St. Paul’s Presbyterian Church on Wednesday night. ■ Mr Mathieson has kindly consented to favour us with a series of articles descriptive of his experiences at the great show. The Pomahaka river is at present in a lower state than it has been seen for many years, and the continued dry weather is daily decreasing the flow. The Tapanui Courier states that prospectors on the banks of the river for the precious metal would now have a good opportunity for testing the value of the stream.

At a meeting o£ the University Senate in Dunedin, the reports of the English examiners for the University examinations of 1892 were considered. The following Invercargill candidates were successful: —Master of Arts, J. Smyth, M.A., (now of Waimate), second class honours in Mental Science; Jane B. Jamieson, B.A.

This evening (Saturday) weather permitting, the City Band, under Mr Mohr’s baton, will give the first of a series of open air concerts in the rotunda. The band intends these concerts to be of frequent occurrence, and trusts they may prove a source of enjoyment to the citizens of Invercargill. As a tribute of respect to the memory of the late Premier, the announcement of whose death has cast a gloom over the whole colony, the band will play “ The Dead March in Saul,” after which » choice programme will be submitted.

Sir William Ewart, of Belfast, one of the deputation of Ulster men' to Lord Mayor Knill, declared that one firm was already preparing to remove its plant from Ireland at a cost of £40,000. —All men over sixteen are enrolling in Ulster, in order to elect an assembly of GOO to guide the country through the crisis.—The excitement in Belfast is reported to be decreasing.

A young man named Daniel Murray, whose parents live in Avenal, was found dead in the .Waikiwi bush on Wednesday. Several bottles were found beside him, one containing chlorodyne and the other carbolic acid. He had been suffering from mental weakness for some time,.and had spoken of death by poisoning. The poor fellow, it appears, loved the bush — going there, as he put it, to hear the birds sing.

More “ Land for the people.” The Cabinet has set apart £IO,OOO for an unemployed settlement scheme, and areas for the experiment have been selected in the Auckland, Taranaki and Wellington districts ; Otago—between Catlins River and Waikawa and River Chasland, and 1200 acres in Southland westward of the Waiau and near its mouth. The scheme is to extend over a period of four years. As soon as the necessary arrangements can be effected a start will be made with laying out the blocks, and parties of men will be chosen to take up bush felling contracts. It is estimated that these blocks will be obtained by working men at about three shillings per acre per annum. There was a large attendance at the harvest thanksgiving service held in St. John’s Church on Wednesday evening. The altar and font were decorated with corn, grasses, and fruit, and appropriate anthems were given by the choir under the conductorship of Mr C. Gray. The prayers were read by the Ven. Archdeacon Stocker and the lessons ‘by the Rev. F. W. Martin, the sermon being preached by Bishop Nevill, a summary of whose address, or rather that part of it dealing with the criticism elicited by his recent remarks on the Queensland floods, is given in this ssue.

The question of railway management will receive a good deal of attention at the coming elections. On this point Mr J. G. Wilson, in the Christchurch Press, remarks, in answer to the question as to whether he is favourable to the railways being managed by Commissioners or by the Ministry of the day :—“ Were the Minister to resume control, the same political appointments would be forced upon him (no matter who was in power) as we have seen in the past. The loud-voiced would receive promotion; the unobtrusive, and probably the most deserving, would see others raised above them.”

Mr B. B. Wotton, whose name has been associated for a great many years with not a few entertainments for charitable purposes, is, we regret to hear, in ill-health, and has had to submit to an operation. His friends have rallied round him, and intend to organise an entertainment for his benefit. The compliment is- one that he richly deserves, for both on and off the stage our genial friend has driven dull care away by his histrionic ability. Nothing came amiss to him-—he was equally at home as manager, actor, reciter, or composer and deliverer of stump speeches —imparting to every role a cheeriness that is always welcomed in this work-a-day world. For the sake, therefore, of his many past services we hope to see a bumperhouse on the occasion of Mr Wotton’s benefit. In these days of quick passages, when people can visit the Old Country, and be back again, almost before they are missed, what would be thought of a voyage from the Old World to the New which occupied a year ? Talking the other day to Captain McDonald, signalman at the Bluff, he mentioned that he arrived in the colony in 1842, and was a year on the passage. He sailed from Greenock on New Year’s Day, 1841, in the Brilliant, which had passengers for Australia and New Zealand, and those for the latter colony were landed on New Year’s Day, 1842. The New Zealand contingent were intended for a settlement at Manakau, and when they arrived it was found that two rival bands of Maoris were at war. The long voyage was due to some extent to the fact that the vessel called at a good many places on the way, and in several instances remained a good while in the various ports. An Otautau correspondent writes : —The school committee election took place on Monday evening. The balance-sheet showed the receipts to have been £66 15s sd, and the expenditure £57 Os 7d, which left £9 14s lOd to hand over to the new committee. About twenty-five householders were present, but there was some difficulty to get anyone to stand. Eventually the acting-chairman (Mr Walker) and Messrs Carmichael were reelected, and Mesrs Joseph Swap, T. H. Cupples, and Geo. Morton were also elected This is one less than the required number, and the Board will have to appoint one.—Miss Hamilton, of the Central School, arrived today, and started duty as temporary mistress in our school.—Mr J. Parmenter, saddler, after an absence of five years, has returned from Melbourne, and is about to start business here.

A very old resident of Invercargill passed away on Thursday in the person of Mr Wm. Stead. He arrived here nerely thirty years ago, and was distinguished for a very long period by the interest which he took in political and municipal affairs. No candidate was ever allowed to go unquestioned if Mr Stead happened to be about, and for years he was a regular attender at the meetings of the borough council, of which he had strong claims to conns as the unofficial “father.” Mr Stead, who was in his fifty-ninth year, had not been out and about for some" months.

The following applications were granted at the last meeting of the Land Board : —Lease in perpetuity; Wm. Robertson, 79 to 81, 82 to 92, 93 to 96, 97 to 100, sections 75 and 137, block 1, Paterson district, 533 acres; small grazing runs: section 108 a, Waiau, E. McCaig, 772 acres; section 368, Taringatura, I. Mclntosh, 4411 acres; and section 369, Taringatura, D, Mclntosh, 4970 acres. Twenty-six sections in the township of Cromarty, Wilson’s River, were sold by auction at the Land Office yesterday; There was a good attendance, and all the lots offered were, with one exception, sold —in several cases at more than double the upset. In the majority of cases the upset only was obtained. The fallowing were the purchasers : —F. McKenzie, Cromarty; Robert McOwen, Invercargill ; J. Mclntyre, Thornbury; Gr. Woods, Wilson’s River j J. Dale, Bluff; T. C, Barwell, Otautau; E. Bradshaw,Wilson’s River; J. L. Petrie; Mrs J. Burrows, Bluff; D. McLeish, Dunedin; D. Partington, Puysegur; Gr. E. Tucker, Invercargill, as agent; F. Y. Raymond, Invercargill. In reply to a Balfour correspondent, we may mention that the runs in the Waiau district, formerly occupied by Mr Tapper, further areas from which are about to be thrown open for scttlemed, arc partly pastoral and partly agricultural lands. They, contain, in addition to the ordinary natural grasses, a sprinkling of English grasses. Most of the sections contain a proportion of bush, and arc well watered. The selector can get as far as Otautau by rail, from thence by road to Clifdcn, where the Waiau is crossed by ferry. Some of the land is of first-class quality. Inquiries have also been made' respecting the blocks, to bo opened for seclection in the Mararoa district. They consist of pastoral country, containing fair tussock and other navive vegitation, arc fairly well watered, and rauae from undulating to hilly. A man named James O’Neill and possessing several aliases, was sentenced at the Police Court on Thursday to three months’ imprisonment, for obtaining £2 from one James Mcßain by false pretences. Sergt Macdonell stated that a number of spielers came here last month, and that the accused had worked in conjunction with one of them named White (now serving a sentence of six months) in getting £2 from Mcßain. The accused denied the charge, but after hearing the evidence, the bench (Messrs Sproull and Todd) sentenced him to three months’ hard labour, and complimented the police for bringing to justice such undesirable members of the community. There are in England (Iron says) several coal and metalliferous mines which extend and are worked at a considerable distance out to sea. But perhaps the most remarkable submarine coal mine is that at Nanaimo, on Departute Bay, beyond Victoria, British Columbia. This mine is known as the Wellington, and its galleries are situated six hundred feet below the surface of the occvn, which here encloses an archipelago of islands, very similar to the Thousand Islands at the head of the St. Lawrence River. The galleries of this pit, which are continually developing, extend at present a length of six miles under the bottom of the waters of the Pacific Ocean.