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Southland Times, Issue 1556, 26 March 1872, Page 2

The San Francisco mail was due at Auckland yesterday. If any degree of punctuality has been observed, the telegrams of the news should be received to-day. The last Provincial Government (Gazette to hand contains a list of Crown Grants which are now ready for delivery to the persons interested at the Land Office, Invercargill. The number of sheep shorn in the Southland district during the season that is just nov about to close, amounts to 679,400, which is an .ncrease of 52,440 over that of the previous year. We observe from the Otago Gazette that a number of sections in the township at Long Bush are to be sold on the 25th April. The allotments vary in size from an acre and a-half to nearly 15 acres. The upset price is £3 per acre. The anniversary of the settlement of tte province of Otago, which fell on Saturday lsst, did not obtain much recognition from the piople of Invercargill, the closing of the Government offices and the banks being the only token of * holiday. The Hon. Treasurer to the Hospital requests us to acknowledge his receipt of tlu following items, namely, from Messrs Hanknson, their subscription and collection on station, £7 10s ; from Mr G. Cowan, the like, £5 2s C.I ; collected at Divine service at Ling Bush on Sunday last, £2 7s j and from Mr J. 11. Kerr, Union Bank, £1. The Registrar of the Supreme Court held a sitting in Bankruptcy at the Cimmben in Kelvin street, on Friday, at 11 o'clock. Ohanes Edward Price, shipbuilder, applied by Mr Wade for order of discharge. The provisional trustee's report being favorable, in the absence of opposition, the order of discharge was granted. The first practice by the newly-organised Fire Brigade was held last night, at which there was a full muster of members. The two engines were hauled out into Tay-street, and charged with water. Although they had not boon in use for some months past, the result of last night's trial proved that they were both iv good working order. The state of the fire wells was afterwards inspected by the Captain of the Brigade. A meeting of the Provisional Directors of the Old Wakatipu deep-sinking project was held in the Club Hotel on the evening of Saturday. Mr William Wood acted as chairman. The sharelist was submitted, ani explanations made tending to show that the entire number of shares would be applied for early this week. It was accordingly arranged tha*" a mooting of shareholders should be called for Thursday evening, to elect a board of directors, and make other arrangements for the work being prosecuted. The subscribers to the Hospital are requested to note that the annual meeting will be held this evening, at the Council Chambers, at eight o'clock. It may be well to mention that to entitle subscribers to lake part in the business of the evening, the subscripti his for the current year must be paid. The committee to be elected, will, in view of the reduced Government subsidy, have in all probability a somewhat arduous term of office. We hope subscribers to the institution will muster strongly at the appointed hour, that the new committee may receive every encouragement at entry on their work. A meeting of the committee of the Agricultural and Pastoral Society was hell in the Prince of Wales Hotel on Saturday. The members present were — Messrs Wood (President) Coupland, Morrison, Weir, Waddell, and M'Leod. The principal business transacted was a motion tabled by Mr Morrison — " That application be made to the Superintendent for an extra lease of ground in terms of the Ordinance." On this an amendment was moved by Mr M'Leod — " That, previous to such application being ma !e, the secretary be instructed to write to the Ciiledonian Society, inquiring if they were desirous of becoming joint proprietors in such lease." Eventually the amendment was carried. An iiifluontially-signed requisition has, or at all events is about to bo, presented to the Mayor, asking him to convene a public meeting for promoting the ball-holiday movement in Invercargill. Judging from the names appended to the requisition, we should say that no great difficulty will be experienced in carrying the point. Presuming — as indeed we can see no reason why it should not be taken fur grantel, that all will be agreed on the general import of the question — a point arises as to the day of the week which should be set apart for the purpose. In dealing with this view, a correspondent writes — " I am most decidedly in favor of Saturday. That day will be objected to on the ground that it would interfere with the country business. My answer is that Saturday is the worst day of the week for that business, and to no one would it be a greater boon than to country customers themselves if it could be changed. Banking business and office business generally is suspended at mid-day on Saturdays, whereas on other days the ordinary hours of labor are observed. That fact alone should reconcile our country cousins to a change being made in the recognised day for them transacting their . business in town."

Edward Simpson, E35., has been appointed Clerk of the .Resident Magistrate's Court at Eiverton. The great extension in the use of gas in Wellington, has enabled the Gas Company to reduce the price of that commodity from 20s to 16s per thousand feet. The erection of the telegraph to New Plymouth is progressing. The telegraph poles are now erected as far as Taitaraimaka block, and the work is being proceeded with towards the Stony River with every speed. The total number of acres under crop in the province ®t Canterbury, aa ascertained by the recent census, is 282,268. The gross acreage under crop in 1871 was 217,527, being thus an increase of 65,741 acres in 1872. The railway employes have been kept very busy for some time back. On Friday and Saturday last, for instance, 220 tons of preserved meat, tallow, wool, and timber — the produce of the | district — were despatched per rail for shipment at the Bluff. A bankrupt in Auckland recently informed the Supreme Court authorities that he could not appear to pas 3 an examination as he was " off to Japan." A contemporary suggests that instead of the term " whitewashed " being applied to those who find it necessary to go through the Court, that process for the future may not inappropriately be designated " Japanned." The audience which Mr Ralph Richardson, M.H.R. for Nelson suburbs, addressed on the occasion of his giving an account of his actions in the Assembly, counted only seven persons, including, says the Colonist, " three representatives of the press from Nelson, the local policeman, and keeper o£ the Hotel." It is satisfactory to learn that, according to the report, Mr Richardson " sat down amidst cheers." The people of Tuapeka seem desirious of having the district formed into a Road Board, with the view apparently of getting a share of the £50,000 subsidy, to be apportioned amongst the Road Boards of the Colony. The Mayor, Mr Bastings, thought it would be the means of hastening the inauguration of the County system in Otago. A petition has been drawn up requesting that Tuapeka be formed into a road district, and signatures are being obtained. We have received from Mr Charles Hursthouse, the well-known author of " New Zealand : The Biitain of the South," a copy of an introductory chapter of a new work on which he is engaged, entitled " New Zealand as a HomePlanting Emigration Field." As it is proposed to embrace in the publication a variety of useful information to intending emigrants, we fully anticipate that, from Mr Hursthouse's intimate acquaintance with the subject, a work of reference will be produce 1 which will materially assist the efforts of those who are engaged in the home country in making known the advantages which this colony offers as a field for emigration. At a meeting of the Education Board, held in Dunedin on the 21st inst., the Secretary submitted educational statistics for the year 1871, compiled from the returns forwarded by the , teachers and School Committees. The returns showed that the total number of pupils enrolled at the elementary and grammar schools during that year was 8546, the average attendance being 562(5, and the attendance at the close of the year 6645. The amount contributed by the Provincial Government towards the schools for salaries, repairs, rents of school premises, poor scholars' fees, and pupil teachers was £14,802. The payment by the districts amounted to £9361, of which £7693 were raised from school foes, and ' £1668 from subscriptions, donations, &c. In reply to an enquiry by Mr Orinond (Minister of Public Works) as to the expediency of the introduction of Chinese labor in the execution of railways and other public works, the Superintendent of Nelson says : — " With respect to the Fox Hill Railway, for which the working survey has now been authorised, I believe there will be no difficulty in obtaining a full supply of labor on the spot, at reasonable rates. Indeed, the settlers of the district have been so impoverished by the failure of their crops, occasioned by the long drought, together with the low prices obtainable for produce, that a large number of them are looking forward with the utmost anxiety to the opportunity which they hope will be afforded to them of getting employment upon this work, to enable them to support their families." The Neio Zealand Eerald of the 16th inst. says : — A gentleman who returned from the Thames last night, and who has, within the last few daya, traversed the country near Hikutaia, across which the line of telegraph is being constructed, informs us that the work is being proceeded with in a most satisfactory manner # There are at present about one hundred and fifty men employed in cutting the line of road, fixing the telegraph wires, posts, &c. They have already cut a track in the forest twenty-eight miles long, by two chains wide ; and at the rate 1 at which the work is now being pushed forward, it will probably bo completed in about a monthOur informant speaks in the very highest terms of the country through which the lino is passing, and states that it cannot fail to become a very popnlous and prosperous part of tho country at 1 no distant date. A slight amount of irritation has been felt at what is conceived to be the unnecessary delay taking place in commencing the llataura Railway. We are happy to be in a position to report that • the matter has not been so neglected by the 1 Government as some are disposed to think. Tho • telegram received by the Mayor, as chairman of . the Railway Committee, intimating that the engineers had been sont for from Wellington, was i generally accepted as evidence that the negotia- ; tions with Brogden and Sons would take place in !■ Wellington, without, as was at one time mll tended, Mr Brogden visiting the line. We have '' further information on the point which leads us ' to believe that there can be no doubt that such 1 is correct. Acting under instructions from the 1 Government, workmen have sunk shafts down 1 through the two deep cuttings on the line, and a • detailed schedule of the different sections and ' str-ita through which they had to pass was sent off by wire to Wellington. It will be observed » from our telegraphic column that the Messrs > Brunton left Dunedin on Saturday, taking 1 all the plans and specifications along with tiiein, 1 go that the probability is the negotiation for con- ' struction is now proceeding. We also > understaud that the Hon. Dillion Bell 1 has proceeded to Wellington, and it is not at all unlikely that hie mission has some connection : with the present state of the railway project. -

The first trial crushing at the Inangahua reefs has resulted in the yield of over four ounces of ; gold to the ton of quartz. Ten tons of stone were 1 crushed. The Southland trade in preserved meats ' appears now to have resumed its wonted activity. ' Yesterday no less than 220,3021b5, representing * a declared value of £2,444, were entered at the ' Customs for shipment coastwise." ' An announcement appeared in one of the Northern papers that the timber growths of • Southland had been so far ignored as to induce the G-overnment to prefer Wellington timber for ' the construction of telegraph poles in this distriot. As a set off to that, we find that since the beginning of February, 203,784 feet of sawn timber have : been exported from the Bluff to Melbourne, and at the present moment either one or two vessels are on the berth waiting to be loaded for the same port. A short time ago, we called attention to the fact that Messrs Gh F. Martin & 00. had imported some sheep of the Hampshire Down breed from Wanganai. The following paragraph from a local paper shows what this class of sheep is capable of producing : — Last week the Messrs Morgan, of Manutahi, Patea district, killed a wether two years and four montha old, that, when cleaned, weighed 135 lbs, and an additional 16 lbs of loose fat was taken from the inside. This sheep was of the Hampshire Down breed, and bred at Newtonlees. It had been grazing about eleven months at Manntahi. This speaks well for the richness of the soil in that district, as well as for the excellence of the Hampshire Down breed. At the special meeting of the subscribers to the Athenseum, at the Society's Booms, on Friday evening last, the attendance was barely large enough to enable the business to be proceeded with. The alterations proposed in the rules were however such, as on the face of them, commended themselves, and therefore little discussion was needed. In the experience of the committee, a difficulty had been found in obtaining a quorum at committee meetings. It was therefore decided to reduce the quorum to three, instead of five, as previously. The committee was also empowered to declare the office of any member of the committee vacant, on account of absence, without leave, from three consecutive regular meetings ; and to fill vacancies thus, or in any way, arising without an appeal to the subscribers. The accumulated ,(unfiled) provincial newspapers were disposed of by Mr Osborne, under the hammer, at per pound. Four- pence per pound was the general selling price, one lot realising fivepence, and the Dunedin JScho sixpence. The whaling ship Adventurer, 13 months out from Sydney, and with only 10 tuns of oil on board, has arrived at Auckland in a sinking condition. Of£ the island of Espiritu Santo, in the New Hebrides, Captain Pearce sent a boat's crew on shore. Turnbull, the mate, who was in command of the boat, was attacked by the natives, who split his head ODen with a tomahawk. They then threw a shower of spears at the other men in the boat, seriously wounding three of them. The captain reports seeing the wreck of a large ship on Woodlark Island, and also that a white woman and child, probably two of the survivors from the wreck, were kept in captivity by the natives there. The Canterbury Press comments as follows on the new House of Representatives : — A review of the session supplies abundant evidence that the present House is distinctly inferior to its predecessors. It contains a smaller proportion of men of high education and culture than at any former period — a fact quoted with exultation by ignoramuses who style themselves democrats, as affording hopes that persons of that description will soon be altogether excluded from public life. The style of the proceedings shows that its intellectual standard has been considerably lowered. The debates, never more copious, have been as a rule, btlow mediocrity, unworthy of an average debating club. The most interesting subjects, questions of finance or policy, or of constitutional changes, even the great question of popular education, with a few eminent exceptions, yielded scarcely a speech worth reporting. Of two bulky volumes of Hansard, two-thirds consist of a mass of verbiage, unenlivened by a sparkle of wit or a gleam of intelligence — flat, stale, and unprofitable. " We read wonderful things," says the New York Tribune, " of the talking machine of Protesaor Faber, lately exhibited in Philadelphia. You see a highly ornamental table, and upon it is a lifeless head which pronounces ail the letters and elementary sounds of the English language, with phrases of six and eight words in French, German, and English. Several years ago we advocated in these columns the adoption of one or more machines to do the talking in the national Congress, and now, just as we were congratulating ourselves upon a device which appeared, at first blush, to meet the case exactly, we are told, to our bitter disappointment, that the Faber contrivance is defective in its sounding of the letter ' I.' This is fatal (unless it can be improved) to its use by our representatives, who would be nothing if not capable of sounding the personal pronoun in a rotund and fortissimo way. As the machine speaks with a fine German accent, it might be found useful on the stump in Pennsylvania, and we do not see why, for city purposes, it might not be arranged to discourse with a beautiful brogue." Mr Forster gives the following account of Dickens's personal appearance in the days of his prime: — "Very different was his face in those days from that which photography has made familiar to the present generation. A look of youthfulness first attracted you, and then a candour and openness of expression which made you sure of the qualities within. The features were good. He had a capital forehead, a fine nose, with full, wide nostril, eyes wonderfully beaming with intellect, and running over with humor and cheeriness. The head was altogether well formed and symmetrical, and the air and carriage of it extremely spirited. ..... The hair, so scant and grizzled in later days, was then of a rich brown, and most luxuriant abundance, and the bearded face of his last two decades had hardly a vestige or trace of whisker. But there was something in the face as I first saw it which no time could change, and which remained implanted on it unalterably to the last. This was the quickness, keenness, and practical power, the eager, restless, energetic outlook, that seemed to tell so little of a student or a writer of books, and so much of a man of action and business in the world. Mr Carlyle described the face aa one ' made of steel ;' and Leigh Hunt said of it that it had ' tiie life and »oul of fifty human beings. 1 "

An entertainment o{ a novel description took place at the Nokomai on tlie evening of Saturday last. It consisted of a challenge singing match between two residents there, named respectively Samuel Bladen and G-eorge Douglas. The amount of the stakes was £2, and the terms M follows : — " The singer of five eongs embracing the finest sentiment, and rendered in the beat manner, to win the bet." The following judges were chosen : — Bv Bladen, Messrs T. Aoton, D. Kingsland, and P. Duncan ; by Douglas, Messrs L. , Longuet, Rowe, and Harris. The songs selected by each competitor were the following -. — By Bladen—" The voice of her I love," " The veteran," " Human life is a busy scene," " Have faith in one another," and "Oh fly from th« world, dear Bessie, tome;" by Douglas — " Burke and Wills," " Erin, my country," " Little Nell," " Other lips and other hearts," and " Wilt thou be my bride, Kathleen." Bladen was declared the winner, the services of the referee, Mr Seehof, not having been called into requisition. The winner presented one-half the stakes to the school fund ; and the proceedings were terminated by a dance. A meeting of the committee connected with the Grey mouth Relief Fund, is convened for this day, at the Council Hall, at 4 p.m. The monthly meeting of the members of the Southern Cross Lodge of Freemasons takes place to-morrow evening, at the Masonic Hall, Prinoo of Wales Hotel, at 7.30.