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Southland Times, Issue 1521, 9 January 1872, Page 2

The thirty-second anniversary of the Colony is to be celebrated at Wellington by a Regatta, to be held January the 22nd. The annual meeting of the Presbyterian Synod of Ofcago and Southland commences in the Firsfc Church, Dunedin, to-morrow. A man named Connor was apprehended last week by the police at Lowther, charged with the theft of £115 in bank notes and cheques. Particulars of the offence have not reached us. The city corporation of Dnnedin has decided upon erecting new gas works, the present company and the municipal authorities having failed to agree upon terms for lighting the city lamps. A telegram from Lyttelton, published in a contemporary, says that the figure-head of the ship mentioned in the Australian news, has been recognised as that of the Blue Jacket. The place should be Rotterrest Island, Swan Kiver. Kereopa was executed in Napier on the sth inst. It is reported that he confessed to the Bishop of Waiapu his complicity iv the murder of Mr Volkner. The Natives generally fully Acknowledged the justice of the sentence. It is said there will in future be no resident Judge in Nelson. Judge Richmond will reside in Wellington, and go on circuit to Nelson and Marlborough, while Judge Gresson will take the West Coast Circuit. Messrs Barton, Hallenstein, and Malaghan are named as probable candidates for the seat in the Assembly vacated by Mr Haughton. Later advices state that Mr Hallenstein will contest the seat; in the Assembly, and Mt* Malagtiau that in the Provincial Council.

Shareholders in the Southland Building, Land, I and Investment Society are reminded that the ) periodical sale of funds takes place to-morrow I evening at 9 o'cloc k. AU the portions of the Clutha line not yet con- | tracted for, (says the DaUy Times of Saturday) are now being pegged off, with a view to being all let in one contract. Ifc is not certain whether Mr Brogden will have the contract. Mr Reeves, fche Resident Minister of Public Works for this Island, ia coming down from Canterbury next week to arrange about railway matters. By the Janet Grey, which has arrived in Auckland from Fiji, intelligeuce has been received that the cotton crop is promising and the weather fine. The Parliament is still sitting. It has arranged the finances, and the Government is now in full working order. The revenue is derived entirely from direct taxation. The Estimates show a surplus of £3000 over , expenditure, and provide £2500 for Ministers, I and £800 for the Speaker and Assembly. The latest phase of the Oreti Railway arbitration case is that the arbitrators and umpire — three in number — refuse to give up their award, which was prepared three weeks ago, untU their fees, amounting to £1500, being at the rate of £500 each, are paid. The information comes to us on reliable authority. Our readers wiU of course understand that the above amount merely I represents the arbitrators' expenses. Witnesses' expenses, counsels' fees, contingent charges, &c , have to be provided for otherwise. The Premier of Victoria (Mr Gavan Duffy) stated in a speech delivered afc Ballarat thafc fche mint wul be opened this month, by which, " after fully paying its annual expenses to the State, we expect to bestow a splendid boon on the mining interest. The quantity of gold exported from Melbourne is aboufc 1,700,000 ozs a year ; and Colonel Ward assures me the mint can afford to purchase it for the future afc a shilling an oz. over the price paid at present, ■whereby miners and reefers, and all those engaged in our main productive industry, will gain between eighty and ninety thousand pounds a year, without the loss of a penny to the State." The new mail contract for the Wakatipu service has, it appears, provoked rather keen competition for the through-traffic. A traveller who arrived in town the end of last week informs us thafc he left Queenstown on Friday morning at 8 a.m., and was lan 'ed at the railway terminus, Invercargill, the following morning afc 9 o'clock. On arriving at Kingston, his patronage was anxiously solicited on behalf of two well-appointed coaching teams, one of which drove right through to Winton the same evening. The other put up for the night at Flint's, but started early enough the foUowing morning — afc 4 a.m., we believe — to make Winton in time for the train. So far as fares are concerned, we are told that that has become a question of secondary consideration. At a season like this when holiday excursions are the order of the day, a trip fco Lake Wakatipu haa claims which ought not to be lost sight cf. No | scenery could be more finely diversified — the material prospects of no district could be better delineated — and as for cheap traveUing, ifc is said to deFy competition. The New York pulpit has afc length opened fire on the municipal thieves of that city. In j a sermon preached afc the " Church of the Messiah," on the 21th of September, the Rev. Mr Hepworth made the following remarks, which are capable of a wider application than was given to them at the time and place of their delivery : — " I impeach the people of the city as the final cause of the whole trouble. If we had done our duty as citizens and as fathers, if we had acted honorably as men, and not shirked the work that must be done by some one, things would not have come to this pass. We have left the work of administration to those who are unworthy of trust ; sometimes by men whDm we would not take socially by the hand ; and if we have nofc voted for thera, we have nofc voted against them ; and then we have sat in our easy chairs and grumbled about the degeneracy of the times. You will not be found at the polls, you will not be found at the primary meetings, you wul nofc be found at the caucuses ; but you are always to be found in your own counting-houses, taking care of your private fortune, and you will always grumble because the public fortune is being stolen." In the course of his remarks at the Ellesmere Agricultural Society's dinner, thi Hon. Mr Reeves said : — ln endeavoring to carry through this grain duty we were all met with repeated charges on the part of the representatives of the North Island — or accusations, I may term them — that a great deal of Canterbury wheat and flour was so indifferent that it was not fair to deprive the Northern people and the gold-miners of the West Coast of the chance of getting better flour elsewhere if they were willing to pay for ifc. As I think it is a very bad thing to wash one's dirty linen in public, and an equally bad thing to cry stinking fish, I, as in duty bound, repudiated this accusation ; but I am bound to acknowledge tbat it is a charge brought forward repeatedly, not only by the people of the North, but by persons in Sydney and Melbourne, who say that a great deal of rubbish is sent to them from Canterbury. I know there are many farmers in this room who are as thoroughly conversant with their business as farmers in any other part of the world, but if it is the case that a number in this province are so ignorant or careless as to produce a very inferior article, it should then become your duty to instruct them how to carry on their business better, in order that their produce may not damage your own. I think that the farmers' clubs cannot undertake a better task than to teach these persons how to do their business, by publishing useful information on the subject of farming, and by teaching them not only how to grow good wheat, but how fco make butter and cheese fit to travel to England, and to produce hams and bacon which will compare with York hams and the best bacon at home. There can be no reason why theße articles should not be produced here at least, equal to those in England. Certainly your climate and soil are as good, and ifc must; be want of knowledge or inattention which prevents the production of an equally marketable article. The General Government is anxious to promote the advancement of agriculture, and proposes as soon as possible, if they can see their way, to establish a Board of Agriculture, and I wish to say here that if any gentlemen qualified for the task wiU confer with me and make any suggestions in this direction, they will be received by me with thankfulness, and will obtain my best attention.

The Provincial Council of Canterbury was opened on the 3rd inst. In his speech, the Superintendent said that only pressing business would be submitted to the CouncU until the autumn session came on. The railway to Kaiapoi, a distance of 12 miles, would be opened in February. For branch lines the Province would have to find £42,000, and the General Government £150,350, and their construction would be commenced immediately. He considered the alteration in tha mode of conducting immigration a questionable one. Endowments and grants for an observatory and for education would be asked for. Increased accommodation was necessary in fche hospital and lunatic and orphan asylums. The expenditure on these objects and charitable aid would amount to £ 1 36,000 for the year, for a population of j 46,000. Surveys made proved that the project for the irrigation of the plains between the Waimakiriri and fche Selwyn was quite feasible. Altogether fche position ofthe Province was a subject for congratulation. The Provincial Secretary, in the Council, corrected an error in the Superintendent's speech. He said fche sum of £150,350 for branch railways was the total contribution of fche Provincial and General Governments together, and nofc thafc of the latter only. The Treasurer's Estimates make the revenue for the ensuing nine months £243,738, and the expenditure for the same period £207,046. The former amount includes £76,468, balance in hand ; £28,738 anticipated from the released sinking fund ; and £19,716, railway refund from the General Government. The expenditure includes £25,475 for public works, £8330 for education, £12,250 for road boards, and £89,750 for rail, ways. Last year the railways yielded a profit of £17,856, and the Crown lands receipts during the same period amounted fco aboufc £25,000. A Wellington correspondent writes as follows : — " During the meeting of Parliament, the good people of Wellington found it rather difficult at times to distinguish fche grade of strangers temporarily residing in the Empire City, but after a little experience it was found fco be a very simple matter. As a general rule, strangers could be identified as belonging fco one of three classes, and dealt wifch accordingly — viz., members of the General Assembly, members of the Constabulary or CivU Service, and commercial traveUers. The grand discovery was made by a local tailor, and fche greater credit is due to his discrimination, because it was nofc the result of accident or inspiration, but the product of patient investigation, founded on a large experience in the way of trade with numerous specimens of the various grades of character on which his classification was based. He found that aa a general rule our legislators were rather shabbily dressed, did not pay sufficient attention to the style of the period, and wore shockingly bad hats. That on the contrary, our gallant defenders of the Constabulary force and those spoilers of foolscap — the junior members of the Civil Service — were distinguished by a well-got-up and fashionable exterior, and their movements marked by a jaunty and swaggering gait. The commercial traveller is a milder type of the constabulary, with greater tendency to jewellery, and a more cool and undeniable assurance of manner — by some mistaken for impudence — and fche usual trait of the inseparable striped parcel wonderfully folded. Armed with this knowledge — thanks fco fche tailor's researches — the knowing Wellin Estonians seldom made the m- stake of being misled by appearances." The following letter, addressed by Mr Edward Wilson (one of the proprietors of the Melbourne Argus) to the editor of The Times, giving the true conditions of fche competition between Australian preserved meat and fresh butchers' meat, is stated to have had aa important effect on the meat market in England : — " Sir, — The other day I sent to one of your contemporaries the results of a little experiment I had made in a matter of considerable domestic interest ; and from the comments made to me upon the calculation therein contained I feel sure that benefit might accrue in many households if you would allow me to bring tho figures under the notice of your readers as well. In a comparison between the cost of butchers' meat purchas -d at fche shops and preserved meat imported from Australia, your contemporary had quote 1 the difference at about two-thirds ofthe English price. Mv little experiment seemed to show that the difference was more nearly twice thafc amount. Wishing to know exactly what was the loss in cooking and what the proportion of bone in an oriinary joint, I had a leg of mutton weighed as it came from the butcher's, weighed again when roasted fit lor the table, and I then had the meat accurately pared off, and it and the bone weighed separately, with the following results : — Leg of mutton before roasting, 91b lOoz ; do after roa fcing, 61b l:ioz • weight of cooked me;it, 4lb 13oz ; bones, lib 15oz ; gravy, lOoz. By this calculation we find, what probably our thrifty housekeepers know, but very many of us do not know, that if we pay the butcher di 1 per pound for a leg of mutton, the cooked slice mutton on our plate costs us about 19d per pound j and that we must compare English meat afc that rate with Australian meat, cooked and without bone, at fid or 7d, to judge justly between them. It is delightful to reflect that your journal enters thousands of establishments in which it is a matter of indifference whether meat is eateD at 19d per lb, but ifc enters thousands of other houseß where such a consideration as this is of very serious importance, and ib is in tho hope of doing a Uttle good there that I tuke the liberty of addressing you on the subject,"