General News

Southern Cross, Volume 1, Issue 11, 10 June 1893, Page 8

General News

A mail for the United Kingdom closes at Invercargill at 3-15 p.m. on Tuesday. The Stout-O'Eegan contest for Inangalma is over. Result:—Stout, 1361; o‘Regan, 750. The foundation stone of the Bluff Presbyterian Church will be laid on Wednesday by the Hon. J: G. Ward. It is stated that the Colonial Treasurer will not address his constituents before the meeting of Parliament. It is understood that Mr J. Hatch has definitely decided to stand for Invercargill at the next elections. John Ayling’s tender for working theWaiau ferry, and that of H. S. Beer for sup—plying a boat, have been accepted. The New Zealand Shipping Company’sAorangj, sails from Lyttelton for London on July 6th. There is money in frozen meat. The Gear (Wellington) Company have declared a dividend of 10 per cent. Further contributions from “ Aurora ” and Mr W. H. Mathieson will probably reach us in time for next issue. The Union Co.’s s.s. Waihora is due at the Bluff from Melbourne on Monday, and the s.s. Mararoa is to leave the Bluff for Melbourne on Friday next. A credit balance of £BS resulted from the Howells’ complimentary race meeting, held on the 24th ult, and this amount was handed to our popular sporting veteran. It is estimated that 100,000 birds were secured this season by the mutton bird parties who lately returned to Colac Bay in the Gratitude. The Wellington City Council has decided to open the public library on Sunday afternoons and evenings; also, to appoint a librarian at a salary of £3OO per annum. The services of Mr Allison Smith, formerly of New Zealand, and more recently acting as locomotive superintendent in Victoria, have been dispensed with. A number of specimens of asbestos, taken from the quarry at Milford Sound, may be seen at the shop of R. L. Begg and Sons, Tay street. The Star of Victoria, which left the Bluff on Thursday, took from the port her coal, a cargo of general merchandise, and 42,387 carcases of frozen mutton. A big freeze. During the first quarter of this year, reported Mr J. Brown, Inspector of Slaughterhouses, to the Southland County Council yesterday, 91,761 sheep and lambs were frozen for export in Southland. Mr Birss, of the Thornbury school, lately obtained leave of absence, and sailed for Melbourne yesterday. His numerous friends hope that he will soon return with his health fully restored. At the annual meeting of the Wairio licensing committee, held on the 7th inst.,, all the existing licenses were renewed for another year The charge for accommodation licenses, of which there are five in the district, was raised from £5 to £lO. A writer in the Taieri Advocate gives Constable Griffith, formerly of this district, great praise for the manner in which he captured a notorious burglar named Charles Miller, recently sentenced in Dunedin to three years’ penal servitude. Katherine Arabella Bakewell, aged 24 years has died in Auckland, from the effect of a dose of “ Rough on Rats.” Deceased was a daughter of Dr Bakewell. She lias been suffering from melancholia, attributed to the fact of having studied too hard to pass the teachers’ examination and having failed. “We’ve got the sheep, we’ve got the works,” and it might with perfect truth be added, “ the weather too ” to supply a big population with frozen sheep. The weath#r yesterday was intensely cold, and during the morning the first snowflakes of the season descended. These couriers were followed in the afternoon by a heavier fall, furnishing enough material for the making of decent-sized snowballs. A local ship-owner got a start the other day. Opening a letter from a Northern town he read “ the vacancy in your firm having been filled by the lamentable death of —: -, you would confer a favour by recommending.” The recipient regards the foregoing as a fine healthy “ bull.” and says that if his vessels are manned by ghosts they draw their pay with unfailing regularity, Mr. C. E. Rawson, sitting as Warden, held the first annual meeting for the district of of Fiord at Invercargill yesterday. He granted licences to Joseph Sherlock and Farquhar McKenzie for houses at Cromarty and Observation Point respectively, and refused those applied for by George Woods and J. McKay for houses at Gates Harbour and the reef at Wilson’s Creek. We are informed that a meeting of gentlemen favourable to the formation of an Orchestral Society in town, was held on Thursday evening. Although the number of members came up to expectations, Mr Mohr informed the meeting that in consequence of the undoubted prejudice existing amongst a certain section of the public against the establishment of a second society, he had decided, contrary to ,the wishes of the meeting, to abandon the idea for the present.

The Phoenix- mine at Skippers has been shut down and all hands paid off until it is finally floated into a new company that is expected to be formed at Home. Business in Queenstown has been very dull since the tourist season closed, and this will not improve matters, as fifty or sixty men have hitherto been steadily employed at the mine. ; Members of the Star Sailing Club and a number of their friends spent a very plcasnnt evening in the Albion hotel on Wednesday night, the occasion being the fourth annual dinner of the club. His Worship the Mayor (Mr D McFarlanc) presided, and under his genial presidency, with plenty of good songs mid speeches, the hours passed all too rapidly. Mr B. B. Wotton received over £3O as the result of the dramatic performances given in his aid a few weeks ago. Pew men were more deserving of ft benefit tbftn our old friend, whose services have, for many years, been available for every worthy purpose. The ladies and gentlemen who organised the entertainments arc to be congratulated on the success which attended their efforts. Evidence has been taken in various parts of the colony, including Invercargill, in the case Hr Ferguson v. Mondy, in which the plaintiff sues for £2l as a fee for an operation performed on Miss Mondy. The operation, which only lasted an hour, consisted of the removal of post nasal growths, and the defendant considered that the amount charged was excessive. The contention of the plaintiff is that specialists arc not limited by any fixed scale of fees, which vary with the nature of the operation. The ranks of the teaching profession in New Zealand have in the past had large accessions from Victoria. It is just possible to have too much of a good thing, however, and in view of the possibility of an influx of teachers from Victoria, where large numbers have been retrenched, the Minister of Education has remodelled the form of reply to applications, pointing out that the number of teachers trained in this colony is yearly increasing, and that applicants from a distance will have little chance, however good their certificates.

A coroner’s jury at Wellington has returned a verdict of wilful incendiarism against Capt. Baldwin, formerly of Otago, and for some time proprietor of the New Zealand Times. The evidence showed that Capt. Baldwin had no interest in the building destroyed (a large unoccupied house at the Lower Hutt known as Trcndcrham), but bald a power of attorney for the owners, his cousins. He admitted having been at the house on the afternoon of the fire, and stated that he had chased some boys away from the place. A correspondent who dates from the Nightcaps district, sends us, under the nom deplume “Johnny Newcomes,” a long account of a dance recently held there. He has clothed his ideas in Boric garb, and used a lead pencil as well, and the combination is too much for our compositors. Johnny appears to have a great dislike to tobacco, and perhaps his purpose will be served by the publication of the following sentence from his letter —he is complaining of some of the young men smoking during the intervals in the dancing ; —“ I pity the puir lasses’ frocks wi‘ the men’s dirty tobacco hauns. Bear Mr Editor, gin ye remedy that social evil posterity will bless ye-” . A painful and exciting incident occurred in one of the churches at Queenstown last Sunday. A young man, whose mother and sister died about a year ago, entered the church while the minister was in the middle of his sermon. He walked right into the pulpit, and elbowing the mystified preacher into a comer, called out in a loud voice “I, the son of God, proclaim (mentioning the names of two of the congregation) to be brother and sister, and I also proclaim them to be man and wife.” He then went quietly out, but afterwards became very excited, and had to be taken into custody. It appeared that he had been suffering from religious mania for about two weeks previously. Owing to the increase in bis business, Mr A, Liddell, saddler, of Winton, has found it necessary to make more room for making-up and showing his stoex, and has now utilised the whole of his building, part of which was formerly used as a dwelling-house. The alteration gives an opportunity for making a splendid display of the imported and locallymanufactured saddlery and various horse appointments. Manufacturing will be carried on more largely on the premises, more hands being employed, and ample room is now afforded for making up not only saddlery but horse-covers and tarpaulins. The improvements affected in the front of the shop have given Mr Liddell convenience and space to make a show second to none in any country establishment of the same kind in Southland, The members of that most useful institution, the Southland Sawmill Workers’ Sick and Accident Relief Society, was held in the Temperance Hall on the evening of the 3rd inst. The balance-sheet submitted showed that the assets amounted to £74. Buring the year |the sum of £34 12s 9d had been received in subscriptions and entrance fees, while the expediture amounted to £37 Us Gd, of which £26 12s was paid on illness and accident account, The balance-sheet having been adopted, the election of office-bearers followed, and resulted in the re-election of Mr J. Fairmaid as president; vice-president, Mi E. O’Neill; secretary, Mr J. Stirling;' committee —Messrs G. Williams, A. Bullman, R. A. Simpson, P. M‘Callum, and J. M'Kenzie. The meeting closed with a vote of thanks to the auditors and the past officebearers.

At the Liberator Building Society inquiry in London, evidence was given that after perpetrating their swindles, the directors recorded on their minutes thanks to God for His blessing on the business. Two of their victims lately committed suicide. An elderly man, named William Casely, a valet, blew out his brains at Brighton, and on him was found a written statement to the effect that he had invested money in the Liberator, to the failure of which society lie attributed the act. —A man named Williams lies dead in Gladstone-street, Modi, from grief and shock following upon the failure of the Liberator Building Society.' The poor fellow invested the savings of a lifetime in the society—£l3oo—and since the crash he has never looked up. Mrs A. M. Longshore-Potts and Dr J. C. Harrison, who have just completed a very successful course of lectures in Dunedin, and concerning ||whose career some particulars are given in another column, having heard that an untruthful and disparaging report had been circulated regarding them sometime ago promptly placed their credentials in the hands of a number of leading citizens in Dunedin, who subsequently subscribed their names to a document testifying to their thorough satisfaction. Highly favourable articles from the leading English and American papers, backed up by letters of endorsement from many distinguished personages, were included in the documentary proofs submitted.

There are various ways of spending a holiday. A correspondent who went to Riverton on the Queen’s birthday informs us that he devoted some hours to an inspection —unofficial and unexpected —of the local hospital. He was most kindly received by the dispenser and the matron (Mr Thomson and Mrs Stewart respectively), and after going through the whole of the building thinks it due to the management to say that he found all in firstclass order—ventilation splendid, and everything beautifully clean, bright and cheerful. The patients, of whom there were nine or ten, expressed themselves as well-satisfied with their treatment and surroundings. The grounds are admirably laid off, and the space devoted to vegetable and poultry raising is so utilised as to yield an ample supply for the establishment.

A friendly societies’ parade, even though it may be lacking in the pomp and circumstance of glorious war, has a charm of its own, symbolising as it does the union of men in the triple bonds of “ friendship, love, and truth.” Judging from the preparations going on, the demonstration of the local societies on Wednesday next, will be quite as exciting, imposing, and picturespue, as the most martially inclined could desire. The gay and festive proceedings will open with a grand procession through the town, in -which music, fireworks, and other enlivening features will serve to stir the pulses of the brethern and the onlookers. A halt will bo colled at Zealandia Hall, where a three-fold attraction in the shape of soiree, concert, and ball, will awai; the visitors, who will, thanks to the energetic management, find the building handsomely decorated. As to the concert, the final rehersal held last evening, gave satisfactory proof that it will be of the very best. Members of the Shamrock, Rose, and Thistle Lodge are elsewhere requested to meet at their hall at 5 p.m. on Wednesday to take part in the procession.