ANGLO-COLONIAL NOTES. (From Our London Correspondent.) London, August 13.

Te Aroha News, Volume III, Issue 121, 26 September 1885, Page 3

ANGLO-COLONIAL NOTES. (From Our London Correspondent. ) London, August 13.

Town Dull. Life in town is very dull just now. The majority of the Anglo-Colonial set who went away for the bank holiday last week are still either at the seaside or in the country, and the few left to look after business do little save groan at their unhappy fate.

The Enabling BUI. The passing of the Enabling Bill attracted no attention whatever. The " Daily News " was the only paper which referred to the discussion in the Commons, and all it said was that as the provisions cf the bill presumedly represented the wishes of the colonies, there was no use carpingjat them, The antipodeans must know their own business best. Tho " British Australasian " considers the bill a compromise. No colony has ob tamed precisely what it wanted, not even South Australia, which is indifferent whatever its fate may be. But it is worthy of remark that Victoria would at the last moment have yielded even her strong objection to the repealing provision if thereby she could have induced New South Wales to express her contentment with the measure. But at this point it was Queensland which held most rigidly to its expulsion, and aa we see she has carried her point in this particular. New South Wales at the last endeavoured to obtain the postponment ot the bill, but New South Walos put on an appearance of indifference so long that when she awoke to the fact that the bill was about to pass she was too late to accomplish anything. There will no doubt be a soreness on the subject in Sydney, but it will wear off, and in the meantime here tho Act stands, and it will be too powerful, and we will say attractive, for the colony to preserve an isolated attitude. Victoria and Queensland must give Now South Wales assurances that they will not attempt to force protection upon her uor to outwit her on other points and these assurances given, the mother country will sooner or later be drawn into the Australasian Confederacy And New Zealand also, we hope, will join hands with the rest of the Australias in due time.

An Eccentric Colonist, I wonder if any of your readers know anything about the young man Charles Boydell, "who was arrested at Vienna last week for sending threatening letters to Mr Gladstone. According to report he quite recently arrived from New Zaaland, and had in his possession a certificate of deposit issued by a New Zealand Bank for £2,779 9s 6d. It was this certificate of deposit got him into trouble. He had negotiated it to a waiter at one of the hotels for 600 florins, and the latter, making inquiry at the English. Consulate, discovered his security to be waste paper. Boydell was arrested, when his handwriting was found to correspond with that of the threatening letters to Mr Gladstone. He had written two — one signed • " By Order of the Parnell Foreign League," threatening death unless a request for £300 was promptly complied with, and another Bigned " Irish Tim," advising the Grand Old Man not to court his doom for the sake of a trifling sum like £300. The curiouß part of the business is that Boydell turns out to be by no means destitute. After all he has some money in a New Zealand bank, though whore and how much has not been stated. C. Boydell, the eccentric New Zealand colonist, charged at Vienna v>ith writing threatening .letters to Mr Gladstone, was tried on Saturday last and sentenced to six months' hard labour. On being examined by the President, Boydell pleaded nob guilty to the charge of intention to extort money, but admitted that he had written the threatening letters. In answer to the questions put to him, he stated his father died nine years ago, leaving a fortune of £40,000, his share being £2,400. He was advised to go to New Zealand, where he could invest hi.s money at high interest and live cheaply. The colony didn't come up to hia expectations in these respects, so he presently returned, and went to Berlin, where, according to what a friend had told him, he could live on the interest of his remaining capital, £1,800. Be did not like Berlin, so went on to Vienna. Here be got into debt, and was not able to secure at once the residue of his capital of £400 from th« New Zealand bank. Pressed for payment by his creditors (the waiter and porterat the Hotel Kreuz), Boydell ponceived the idea of writing the threatening letters that got him into trouble. He declared he was in such a frame of mind that ne was not responsible for his actions. At one time he had suspected his mother of conniving at the detention of his funds, but bad discovered, while in prison, that his suspicious were groundless. The President read a touching letter which the prisoner's mother had addressed to the investigating magistrate, saying that as soon as her son's money arrived from New Zealand her eon's creditors would he paid. He had been taken in, and had no intention of duping others. Finally she pointed out he had always been of weak intellect, and he had caused her great anxiety. The Judge also read letters from the prisoner's two creditors, stating they were convinced he had no intention of defrauding them of their money. Boydell said he had written the threatening letters, but had never been to fetch the answers, and this was confirmed. The counsel for the defence made a very impressive speech, which had great effect on the jury, who only found the prisoner partially guilty. Boydell entreated the Court to deal leniently with him, and not make him an outcast by inflicting a degrading sentence. He was committed to six months' hard labour, with one day bread and wator diet ,every month. This, everything, considered, was a very lenient sentence. Persona threatening Mr Gladstone haven't often got off so lightly.

Mr J. A. Fronde on New Zealand. Mr J. A. Froude has returned to England wonderfully impressed by New Zealand. He tells everybody he thinks it will be eventually the finest and most prosperous colony of all the Australias, and that a great race of people will presently grow up there. ' Your politicians may be flattered to know that he thinks them, a touch above their ' Victorian and New South Wales brethren— abler, less assertive, and better bred. He .seems to have been" very muoh pestered by the genus interviewer, Keporters turned up at a,ll hours, , a, rid-in the' most unlikely places, * Mr ITroudfkdoesh't think! muoh of the colonial press. '.With one oi* two exceptions, the <• men he -met weiß inferior' tQ ( the average irorking\iour<

National Bank of New Zealand. An extraordinary general meeting of tbe shareholders of this Company was held at the Cannon -Btreet Hotel. on Friday last, for the purpose of submitting a resolution to alter the Articles of Association and to reduce the capital of the Company. Mr K. B. floare presided, and moved the following resolution :— ■" That the regulations of the Company contained in the Articles of Association be, and the same are hereby, altered by adding thereto a new article as follows : That the Company may from time to time reduce its capital in acccordance with the provisions of the Company's Act 1862 to 1883 or other acts in force at the time being.'' He stated that the articles in alteration in the articles did not give the directors any power to deal with the capital, except with the knovvleige and consent of the shareholders. It simply enabled the Company to do what more recently formed Companies could do b> actof Parliament." Mr Dudley Smith seconded the motion, which was carried. The Chairman next moved :— " That the conditions contained in Memorandum of Association of the Company be so far modified as to reduce the capital of the Company, and that the capital of the Company do henceforth consist of £1,900,000, divided into 100,000 shares of £9 each, being the shares already issued, and 100,000 snares of £10 each, being the shares unissued, the sum of £100,000 being cancelled as lost capital, and the paid-up capital being reduced by such sum as of £100,000 without extinguishing or reducing the liability of £6 10s per share remaining on the issued shares of the Company, He stated that in the opinion of the Board it was' necessary that £100,000 should be transferred from the capital account and placed at their disposal under the head of bad debt account, to pro vide for contingencies which were likely to arise fron 1 a number of accounts in the colony. He added that from recent advices they had received, the Bank had tided over its difficulties for the present with remarkable ease and comfort. There had been an absence of all pressure on their resources, and they might fairly hope to get through now without calling out the shareholders for further capital. But certainly the Board were not going to wind up the business, as had been proposed. Mr Dudley Smith seconded the resolution, which was agreed to

Personal and General. At the High Moveable Conference of the Independent Order ef Rechabites held at Exeter last week, Bros. Cunliffe, Past High Chief Ruler of Bolton, editor of the "x<echabite Magazine," and John Dimond, Past High Chief Kuler of Southport, were appointed delegates of a deputation from the Home districts to the brethren in Australia, hew Zealand, and Tasmania in connection with the Jubilee. Mr and Mrs R. Hopkins are through pasaengers to Auckland per Orient liner John Elder, which sailed for Australia on the sth in3t. A curious and almost comic romance in real life has recently come under my notice. A young man not long ago married. Soon after his wedding he and his uife had a quarrel, which led to hia searching her boxes, and there he found a marriage certificate— not his own. Inquiry elicited the fact that his bride had been married a year previously to a man in New Zealand. As the second husband does not agree with his wife he is now advertising in the Australasian papers lor No. 1, the lawful spouse, to come and take her off his hands. No. 2 promises No. 1 that if he will communicate with the advertiser, he will learn of " something to his advantage." Imagine No. l's feelings when he learna what the advantage is. j The 22nd general meeting of the New Zealand Trust and Loan Company was held at the offices, Cornhill, the other day, Sir Charles Clifford presiding. In moving the adoption of the ropovt, the Chairman stated despite the bad times and evil reports of all sorts, they were still enabled to pay a dividend of 20 per cent per annum. The frozen mutton market continues in a depressed condition. Supplies are not excessive, as was the case last summer, but the heat has been almost tropically in its intensity, and meat of all kinds at a dis count. V"cry little improvement can reasonably be expected in rates till well on in September. Tinned meats are also remarkably quiet just now. Neither our own Government nor those on the Continent have been operating for some little time past, and this, in the face of the mammoth supplies ordered by speculators in view of a great war, has made buyers very nervous. Quotations all show weakness. Boiled mutton of the finest quality can be easily obtained below fourpence-halfpenny. Boiled beef has not yet come down, but there is so little doing that the prices are quite nominal. The growing inclination of Australasian tourists and Anglo- Australian residents to settle down in the neighbourhood of South Kensington and Earlscourt has suggested to a syndicate of gentlemen interested in the colonies the idea of building or starting a large private hotel (similar to Bailey's, in Gloucester Koad), specially for colonists visiting England. A block of the large family mansions known as Cromwell Houses (Cromwell Road) has been secured for the purpose, and the hotel will be ready in plenty of time to accommodate visitors to the Indian and Colonial Exhibition next year. ' Cromwell Houses are within not more than two minutes' walk of the main entrance to the Exhibition, and quite close to the South Kensington Underground Station. Busses to all parts of London pass Mr Horace West is a passenger for Auckland per P. and 0. steamer Ballarat, sailing September 10th, and the Rev. and Mrs Surtees leave per P. and 0. steamer Kaisar-I Hind, sailing October Bth.