PROVINCIAL MEMS.

Southland Times, Issue 646, 20 March 1867, Page 4

PROVINCIAL MEMS.

<c There is," says the Melbourne Argus, " some controversy in Geelong on the subject of the Scotch thistle. The mayor, a Scot, denies that the ■weed which is such an annoying nuisance to I the farmer ia the emblem of his native country, ! and offers a rewaard of £1 for a specimen of the rentable thistle. On Thursday, an alderman of the town claimed the reward for a plant he had discovered, bnt the claim was not allowed." Miss Dolly Green, a favorite actress at Dunedin, has been presented by some of the play-going public of that city with a gold bracelet, a brooch, and a pair of ear-rings set with pearls. The Border customs difficulty is settled, and settled fairly. Victoria ia to pay £60,000 a-year and there is to be free trade across the Border. New South Wales is to collect duties on goods coining up the river. This decision will probably give general satisfaction. Adelaide telegrams, published in the Melbourne Argus, state that the Government propose sendisg another party to inspect the northern territory, with the view of fixing a new site for the settlement ; and that this site will probably be on the Victoria River. Instructions which have just been issued from the General Post Office state that Clause 74 of the postal regulations has been so far modified as to allow newspapers to be sentJjfrom publishing offices in packets, provided they bear the proper amount of postage ; and that the number in each packet and the publisher's name be marked outside. At periodic intervals reports find their way into the columns of the agricultural press of Great Britain that the guano deposits -of Peru are becoming exhausted ; and that a year or so will find the soil of the Ohinchas as bare of guano as their once formidable rival the Isle of Ichaboe. We have the following on the authority of a correspondent of the "Panama Star," who, writing from the Chinckas, saya : — " The shipping here averages about ninety sail, and guano is disappearing so fast that another two and a-half or three years at most will probably find the Chinchas deserted and guanoless — once again the necropolis for seals and aquatic birds that frequent the Pacific Seas." As a proof of the exceeding richness of some parts of the beach terrace workings^ we (" "West Coast Times,") may mention that the prospectors of (as it is termed) the back Auckland lead are sanguine they will realise from £200 . to £300 each man out of the paddock they are at present employed in lifting. The washdirt looks really magnificent, gold being thickly distributed through every part of it. This fortunate party has already netted over £500 per man, and the. claim promises to continue equally remunerative for at least five months longer. Many other rich claims are in work on this lead, which is gradually being traced southwards to the Arahura, and northwards towards Blake's lead, with which it ■will doubtless form a junction. The Hobarfc Town "Mercury?' of the 6th instant, says : — " We are gratified to learn from residents on the Plenty Eiver that for three or four miles above Bedlands, brown trout of considerable size are frequently seen in numbers. The success of the experiment as regards those fish is now beyond all question, and- in a very short time we may hope to have them swarming in all the rivers of Tasmania." " Mr Charles Torlesse," says the ' Grey Eiver ,Argus,' "' one of the pioneers of the Canterbury settlement, has recently died in England, whither he proceeded about a year ago for the benefit of qis health. The ' Press ' gives an interesting sketch of the deceased gentlemen, and concludes ihus : — ' I'he pioneers of this as of other settlements in 'New Zealard are now rapidly disappearing ; but few have left more lasting memorials of a laborious and useful career than tiio subject of this notice.' " A correspondent of a Queensland newspaper treats of the douger of carelessly handling diseased sheep. He aays : — " Men are continually having their hands poisoned by carelessly handling diseased sheep, and X beliere that were the hospital records of the colony examined the death of many a poor fellow would be traced to this source," A contemporary says :— "One of the rarest sights that could possibly have been seen in the colony before the Ist of the present year would be a printed quarterly return of the expenditure and revenue of any Province in which the latter, exceeded the former. The rule is quite the tfbvewe. An example of the rule, not the excep4ioa, has come under ~ow notice in % return

for the September quarter of the. Province, of Auckland, in which the revenue is only £68^000 and the expenditure £76,000. However, the Provincial Audit Act ck^ngera tout cela," | The recent murder of, four unfortunate special constables by Clarke's Jgang of bushrangers' "has so stirred up popular feeling in New South Wales, that a general cry is raised in favor of abolishing the system of military police that was introduced in that colony in 1862. There are over a thousand police scattered through the colony, and since the above date' they have cost the country £1,100,000. . Yet, during.the .period that the new system, has been in force, there has been more bushranging than there ever was before, commencing with Gardener's gang in the very year in which the military police were first organised. The amount of property lost or destroyed by bushrangers is estimated at about : £50,000 a year, and very many lives have been sacrificed. Many apprentices (says the "Wellington Evening Post") do not understand that strict obedience to their masters is most essential to the utmost letter of the law, and at last a lad in | Auckland has been punished as an example to others. Mr Holdship, a carpenter and builder, 1 tookjone of his apprentices into the Resident I Magistrate's Court for being insolent, and the Bench, not only sent the lad to gaol for 48 hours, but told him that if ever his master" complained : of his disobedience again he would get at least one month's imprisonment. It appears that the Waste Lands Board of Gtago will sell on the 25th inst.. : about 100,000 acres ofunsurveyed land within the Hundreds, of; Dunedin, East and West . Taieri, Waihola, North and South Tokomairiro, and East and West Clutha, at an upset price of 10s. an acre. The sale will take place in the Provincial Government; Buildings, Dunedin. We clip the following from " Notes of the | I Sea," which appeared in the Melbourne Argus \ of the 25th ult : — " A bottle containing a piece of paper, on which was written ' Ship Lord Kaglan on fire, 13th March, 1862, lat. 36 degs. E., long. 28 degs. — rail 'lost,' was picked up at QueensclnT on Thursday, the 14th inst. The Lord Raglan, it i will be remembered, left Liverpool on the 24th: ! Feb., 1863, for this colony, under the command I of Captain Curran, with a large number of cmi- j grants on board. She was spoken near the -line, and letters which were sent home from passengers by the vessel which reported the Lord Eaglan expressed serious fears for the safety of the ship, through fire, many of the passengers being turbulent, and careless of the matches and candles they lighted. Nothing has ever since been, heard of the missing ship. The paper alluded to reported the loss of the ship by fire close off the ! Cape of Good Hope. The bottle had contained ! porter, with which the paper was stained. It was floating near the beach, between Queenscliff jetty and Swan Island, and was picked up at I seven o'clock in the morning by a boy, who, because he could not get the cork out, broke the bottle. The paper, a mere scrap, was similar, to that used in wrapping pickle bottles. The writing was good, but there was no signature. It is impossible to suppose that the paper is anything else than a stupid hoax. The Lord Eaglan, as we have stated, sailed from Liverpool on the 24th of February, 1863, and on the 13th of March could not have been off the Cape of Good Hope ; in fact, it was very late in March when she was spoken near the Equator. If she had been burned in 36 deg. lat., and 28 deg. E. lon., boats from her would in all probability have reached Algoa Bay. A Maori vocabulary, by H. Day Kempt, Esq., entituled " First step in Maori Conversation," has been published in Auckland by Mr G.. T. Chapman. It contains, besides, a useful early primer for beginners in the Maori language, and some interesting romances of Maori life. Judge Hargraves (says the " Sydney Morning Herald") has rather astonished the patrons of the ring, as well as the performers there, by sentencing two pugilists to a twelvemonths' imprisonment. Utterly disregardful of the morals of the muscular school, the learned Judge treated fighting as a breach of the peace, and aa the combatants were warned by the police, and declined to go, the crime of disobedience to authority was added. The Judge did not seem to think that fights were any way more commendable because they were " prize " fights ; on the contrary, he seemed to think they were less so, as they were got up and attended by rowdies. We are inclined to agree with his Honor. A letter received from the Gulf of Carpentaria gives a yery discouraging account of affairs at Burketown. Sickness, in the shape of malignant fever, was very prevalent. The majority of the inhabitants were stricken down, and several deaths had occuned. Mr Landsborough was unwell, and his wife dangerously so j death had bereft them of their children. Mr ; J. P.'Sharkey was also seriously ill and unable to write ; the letter contained a message for MrsSharkey, directing her not to proceed to the place ; the lady, however, started by the Hero. It is rumored that the Government are not yet resolved whether the settlement will ba abandoned or not. There appears to be some negligence on the part of the authorities in not offering inducement to a medical man' to settle in the place. A. clerk in the railway department — a man occupying a good position in society — has just absconded from Sydney— leaving defalcations to a large amount. He took a passage on board the American schooner Woodlan.l, bound from Newcastle to San Francisco, and must have sailed on Friday night or Saturday morning (the 25th or 26th ult). The Empire points out the use of the Panama service in enabling the defaulter to be caught on landing, and says :— lt is obvious that if our costly police display sufficient : diligence and intelligence, this man may be caught by means. of the Panama line, as the telegraph wires were said to have caught John Tawell. The Woodland, being ; loaded with coal, is not likely to make a very : brisk passage to San Francisco. In the meantime, the Kaikoura, which leaves Sydney this evening, may be expected to bo surely at Panama in from thirty to thirty-eight days.' The passage thence by steamer to San Francisco occupies about fourteen days— in all about six or seven weeks: so that, supposing all things to be reasonably favorable, the warrant for the arrest of the defaulter, and duly by the American consul, might be' at San Francisco before the arrival of the collier, or very close upon her heels. Certainly this is not ons of the services which we had anticipated from the Panama line, and it might be very disagreeable to the runaway, but it might be useful, not only to the colony that ho has left, but also to " the land of hia adoption." The escaped and re-captured prisoner Bloomfield is said, by the "New Zealand Herald," to be the son of Hush, the notorious murderer [of Mr Jar dine and his family, at Stanford Hall, Norfolk. He was recognised by a gentleman visiting the Mount Eden Stockade, who had been connected with the Stafford Gaol in England. A recent number of the Brighton Times states, as an illustration of the richness of the ground, that Geordi's claim yielded last week no less than 90 ounces, less 13 dwts., of fine gold, after going through the process of retorting. This was the result of eight days' work of four men, and from ' the nature of the ground, the shareholders anticipate a dividend of no less than £1500 a man. An action for libel has been tried at Hokitika, in which a Mr Bartlett, theatrical manage nought to recover damages from Mr Sbaw, as proprietor of the West Coast Times, for a criticis'n on Mr JBartlett's acting and mode of conducting his theatre. After three hours' deliberation, the jury returned a verdict of £b damages for the plaintiff. As an instance of the decline in the value of properly in some parts in Victoria, the "Argus" mentions that the Lockwood Hotel,*' ami the land on which it is built., 'and on the main road to Sandhurst, were sold a few clays ago for £20. The hotel was built a few years' ago, at a cost of between £6,000 and £7,000, and was owned by Mr G. Dbdson, now of Port Chalmers. A contract has been entered into by the General Government for the erection of telegraph posts between Masterton and. Castle Point. , It ia expected that before Very long communication ynO. be thus opened aa fcr m jfepior, 'rift •&s.■

; The "Grey River Argus " says a rather ' novel match for no less than £iOO a-side came off at Kilgour's -Union "Hotel. It consisted of & real trial of skill in the art of tieirig ginger beer corks, .between one of the employees of Messrs 'Mace and Dixon, of Hokif.ka, and Mr John-Strike, of Greymouth. Considerable interest was taken in the match, and the friends of the respective'competitors backed their favorite freely. - The match was commenced by Mr Strike's opponent who in one hour succeeded in tieing . eighty- two dozen and eight hottles. This was considered such a wonderful work that the betting became decidedly against Mr Strike, but when he set to work, and. the rapidity with which he could perform his task became" evident, tho confidence of the backws of the opposite party considerably 'decreased. Mr Strike signally eclipsed his antagonist, his number being eithty-five^ dozen, and 'two bottles, with fifteen seconds to spare. This shows the most wonderful proficiency, the average being more than seventeen bottles per mmu f e. 1 When it is borne in mind that each cork had to be well tied, and the ends of the twine cut neatly off, the'' remarkable celerity displayed on the occassion may be understood. We had no idea that such a display of manipulation was possible. The Melbourne "Argus" of the 16th ult. says : "The ship Holmsdale is rapidly discharging her cargo at the Sandridge pier. It is expected that the battery of Armstrong artillery, manufactured; expressly for the service of this colony" will be debarked in the course of next week. The guns are twenty-four in number, throw a shell of eighty pounds, and weigh four tons each. They are at the bottom of the hold. Judging from the state of the cargo already removed, it is believed that the artillery will be found to be in excellent condition." ' : The "West Coast Times" gives a fearful picture of the sanitary state of Hpkitika, and says thatwere it not for the prevalence of tho smart sea breezes, Hokitika would speedily become neither more nor less than a huge pest-house, and her population be decimated by epidemics. . The " Press" reports that " considerable changes will be made in the location of Wesleyan ministers in New Zealand in the course of the next six weeks,- pursuant to the orders of the annual conference recently, held in Launceston, Tasmania. The following are the appointments for the Southern district : — Christchurch — Thos Buddie, Alexander Reid, John B. Richardson, Rainsford Bevin j. John Aldred, supernumerary, j Nelson — John Crump, Robert L. Vickers. Dunedin— Alfred R. Fitehett, James W. Wallis. j Marlborough— Wm. Lee. Timaru — Gep. Quilty. ; Invercargill — Robert S. Bunn. Oamaru— William T. Mayne. Hokitika — Wm. Carinell. Greymouth — Joseph T. Shaw. The."Hawkes Bay Herald" complains that the operation of the postage rate upon newspapers has shewn that it is virtually, what it Has often been described to be, a tax upon knowledge— a tax, prohibitory in its effects, upon the dissemination of intelligence, and further remarks — • "Last mail from the south afforded a proof of this in the comparatively small number of exchange papers that reached us. Notably, not a single Wellington journal came to hand by post. By steamer, a few copies of the Advertiser and Evening Post were received, but ho complete files. As for an Independent, have not seen one for a month. Some of the southern journals, for instance, state plainly that what With the cost of telegrams and other expenses, they cannot afford to pay postage upon their exchanges. The consequence is that the circulation of knowledge is greatly restricted, and that.an injnry will be done to the interests of thd colony, for which the additional revenue accruing will do but little to compensate. While injury will result to the public from the imposition of this rate — injury in more ways than one, for it will do much to imperil the success of the Panama line — one thing is evident, that the capital of newspaper proprietors, who a3 a class have worked hard in the public service, is sought to be unduly taxed. For ourselves, the postage upon exchanges, according to the list we keep up to the present day, cannot be less tban £50 per annum ; while, in the case of proprietors of daily journals, it must be much more. We therefore hail with joy the disposition shewn to act upon a suggestion made in these columns, that some kind of organisation should be formed for tho protection of the fourth estate." A statement of the Canterbury provincial accounts for the quarter ending Sept. 30, has just been handed to us. (" Lyttelton Times.") The Government has no doubt: some good reason to advance for this delay, but the public are ignorant of it, and till it is satisfactorily explained have ground for complaint* As usual the statement is divided into the four schedules of Ordinary, Land and Works, Railway and Harbor Works, and West Canterbury Goldfields. The receipts under the first account for the quarter amounted to" £17,052 2s 6d, *and the expenditure to £15,346 15s 2d, leaving a balance in favour of the former of £1,705 7s 4d. Subtracting this credit balance from the debit balance of the former quarter — 2s 4d— we find' that there was still a balance against the account of £11,277 15s, at the end of September. The receipts under the head of land and and works were £23,958 17s Bd, and the expenditure £16,294 4s 4d, which leaves a balance to credit of £7664 13s 4d. But there was a balance against the account of £^061 15s 7d, from the previous quarters, and the difference between ihe two hist sums, namely, 2s 3d, is the balance, standing against the account on Sept. 30. The receipts under the head of railway and harbour works account, amounted to £33,459 13s 6d, and the expenditure to £31,083 19a Id, leavinga credit balance of £1475 14s sd. To this must be added the credit balance of the previous quarter, namely, £44,123 6s sd, and we have a balance in favour of the account at the end of the quarter of £45.599 Os lOd. The receipts under the head of West Canterbury Gold-fields amounted to £38,059 16s sd, and the expenditure to £35,175 14s lid, which leaves a balance to credit of £2883 ba Pd. This sum substracted from the debit lalance of £105,295 5s 7d, from the former quarter, reduces the debt of Westland to £1O2;412 4s Id at the end of September 30. The balance against, the province on Oct. 1, was £64,458 Os 6d. It will be seen from the foregoing analysis, that although there, is still a considerable balance against the province in the aggregate, the receipts for the quarter in each account were in excess of the expenditure. 'I'his excess was applied to reducing former debit balances* and in the case of the land and works account it is cleared off with he exception of some £400.