The Southland Times. MONDAY, DECEMBER 10, 1866.

Southland Times, Issue 602, 10 December 1866, Page 2

The Southland Times. MONDAY, DECEMBER 10, 1866.

The Hon. Secretary of the Ladies' Benevolent Society (Mrs Watson) acknowledges the receipt of £17 4s (which added to a previously received sum, makes £27 4s) from Henderson Law, Esq., Treasurer ofthe Hospital Aid Fund. The various contributions which go to make up this amount, were collected at the time when it was expected that the Hospital would have been placed in the handsjof a committee elected by the public. From an advertisement in another column, it will be observed that the Otago, s.s., will leave the Bluff for Northern ports, this dav, at 3 p.m. By the arrival of *he Omeo from Melbourne, we are in possession of files of Victorian papers to the 28th November. The news is not of much importance, the chief items of interest will be found in this and other columns. From the Weekly Age, 23rd November, we learn that the Hon. C. Gavan Duffy arrived in Victoria on Sunday, by the Essex. He is in good health, and was met at Sandridge by several of his friends. The Bishop of New Zealand opened the Synod of the Diocese of Nelson on the the 21st November. In his address he referred to the Queen's supremacy over the Church, and said: —" The resignation of our patents, and the appointment of new Bishops without patents, is thought by some to bo a derogation from the Queen's supremacy. If their 'maximum of operation' was to create a lay corporation, it is evident that the Queen's supremacy in causes ecclesiastical could be in no way conveyed by them. We are not clearly told what is meant by tbe Queen's supremacy. If it means a right of appeal, beneficed clergy have a right of appeal ro the Privy Council; Curates have a right of appeal to the Archbishops; Chaplains and Missionaries, under the Propogation and Church Missionary Societies, have no right of appeal at all. Within which of these classes the colonial clergy can be plpced.it is difficult to say. The laws of our Synod give the same right of appeal to all. If the supremacy of the Crown means the establishment of ecclesiastical courts, there can be no auch courts in this colony. The Crown cannot establish them; our own Colonial Legislature certainly will nofc. Our own tribunals are in no sense courts. Without laws and without courts there can be no ecclesiastical causes in which the supremacy of the Crown can take effect. What then, is the bond of union which connects us with the mother Church? What better bond can there be than the love which children bear to a revered mother? We are bound to her by the fundamental law of our Constitution, that we will make no alteration in her formularies, nor in the authorised version of the Holy Scriptures. Wo hold and maintain the doctrine and sacraments of Christ as the Lord hath commanded in his Holy word, and as the United Church of England and Ireland hath received and explained the same. The petition of the New Zealand Bishops has'been approved by the Archbishop, and by the late Secretary of State for the Colonies. The Archbishop writes thus : —' Mr Cardwell referred the New Zealand memorial to me for my opinion, and I told bim that the scheme proposed seemed to bo the natural corollary from the Privy Council judc« ment.'" From a return presented to both Houses of Parliament in New South Wales ifc appears thafc the lines of electric telegraph iv that colony had, up to the close of 1864, cost £132,025 18s 3d ; that the cash receipts for that year were £29,678 8s 4d, and the working expenses £22,085 ls 7d, leaving a net profit of £7593 63 9d. In the year preceding the cash receipts were £22,599, the working expenses £20,499 3s 9d, and the net profit £9149 16s 3d. The length of the lines in New South Wales was, up to the date mentioned, 3047 miles. To that number 130 miles of line had been added up to June of this year, making a total length of 8117 miles. The cost of construction up to June last was £145,350 5s 4d. The net profit tor last year was £10,051 13s Bd. From the same return we perceive that the length of line in Victoria is 3109 miles ; in South Australia, 1182 miles; and in Queensland, 1131* miles.

Some extraordinary disclosures have been made with regard to tho treatment of the children ia the Auckland City Home, and the conduct of Mr B. Cunningham, tho Superintendent of the Institution. The enquiry arose out of two boys having escaped from the Home and being charged by the Superintendent with having stolen the clothes they wore when they wont away. The Southern Cross took the matteruD, andhas brought to light facts that are scarcely credible in this age of so-called enlightment. The children were treated in a most cruel manner, flosrged, had buckets of cold water thrown over them, were handcuffed, chained to the floor, and, worst of all, imprisoned in a box of such small dimensions that the Spanish Inquisition itself wbuld scarcely have sanctioned it. As the Home is not gazetted as a gaol, it is expected that a magisterial enqn'T will be held into the circumstances under whicii the boys were imprisoned, and both Committee and Superintendent are likely to get into trouble. The dimensions of the box prison aro given by the Cross: — "Measured by our reporer on Wednesday, in presence of a police officer: Ist compartment or" division — Length, 2 feet 4£ inches ; breadth, 2 feet 7$ inches ; height, 4 feet 7 inches. 2nd division or compartment — Length, 3 feet 7-Bths of an inch; breadth, 2 feet 1\ inches ; heisht, 4 feet 7 l-Bth inch. Dimensions as measured by Sergeant Clark ; Left side (lst d ; v : 8'o-i)— 2 feet 4^- inches, by 2 feet 1\ inches; and 4 feet 7 3-16 the inches high. Right side (2nd division)— 3 feet 7-Bths of an inch by 2 feet 7£ inches, and 4 feet 7 3-16ths inches high. In tbe first compartment there was never more than one boy chained and confined ; in the second compartment there were occasionally two ! The cupboard closed with folding doors, padlocked outside ; and to prevent suffocation, about twenty small air-holes in each division. Such was the place of confinement for " naughty " boys at the Auckland City Home, sanctioned by the committee, and approved by the conscience of Mr Benjamin Cunningham." The New Zealand Advertiser, 2oth November, has the following : — "Imagine an escaped convic amusing himself by corresponding with a public journal in the very town from the gaol of which he had escaped, and moreover writing from that town and still not being caught. This has actually taken place in Auckland. A man named Plummer escaped from the Mount Eden Gaol some time ago, is still at large, and has addressed a letter to the Southern Qross, reflecting on the discipline maintained in the gaol. Our contemporary says of this letter : — We desire to draw the attention of the gaol and police authorities to the letter, which will be found in another column, from Frederick Plummer, who so recently escaped from the Mount Eden Gaol. The letter, as written, bears every indication ot having been penned by the escaped prisoner himself, the caligraphy agreeing in every particular with a communication which the prisoner addressed whilst in the unconvicted department j ofthe Stockade to a gentleman in town, and who has kindly permitted us to compare the documents. The envelope bears the Auckland postmark, and is dated November 17, 1866 — the same day on which the epißtle was delivered at our ofEce. There is also the embossed seal of ' T. C. Law, Auckland,' on the envelope. For cool effrontery and impudence we have not seen an equal to the letter." The Estimates of the income and expenditure of the Province of Auckland' were sent down to the Council on the 20th inst., by his Honor the Superintendent, and laid on the table of the Council. We (N.Z. Herald) cannot now enter at length into any discussion upon them. They show that while we can pay our way, we can afford next to nothing for public works. We have to thank the reckless manner in which the borrowed money on which we have to pay interest has been expended on articles of luxury rather than on public repreductive works, for one cause of thia state af things. After paying interest on Loan Account and Superintendent's salary — total, j £27,960, there is £41,340 left for appropriation. A glance at the Estimates reveals the rather startling fact that of this amount no less a sum than £17,212 17s. is spent in the detection and punishment of crime — viz., £8,675 12s. for the jail, and £8,537 ss. for the police. And if we add the amount expended for the Hospital, £2,844 ; the Lunatic Assylum, £2,0 46 ; and for sick and destitute, £4,000 ; total, £9,890, we get a grand total of ho les3 than £27,102 175., being very considerably more than one-half of our income, after p aying the fixed charges referred to above. It is quite evident that a rigid examination into the expenditures on these heads is imperatively demanded. We shall, however, refer more in detail to the whole subject at a future time.