THE CROWN LANDS. TRANSACTIONS FOR THE YEAR, Wellington, August 3.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 391, 7 August 1889, Page 5

THE CROWN LANDS. TRANSACTIONS FOR THE YEAR, Wellington, August 3.

The Minister for Lands furnishes the following return of lands disposed of during the quarter ending 30th June, 1889 :— l6O selectors took up 12,300 acres ; 87 deferred payment selectors took up 10,200 acres ; 202 perpetual lease selectors took up 57,400 acres ; 14 small grazing runs absorbed 34,000 acres : 82 in other classes took up 2,067 acres ; 110 pastoral leases 2,875,000 acres. The total is 655 selectors of 2,990,967 acres.

The Wadsall " Observer and South Staffordshire Gazette " is responsible for the following: — "Two curiosities of natural history are reported from the North. In Falkirk a cat is nursing a brood of chickens ; but this is eclipsed at a farm at Trinity Gask, in Perthshire. There a cat which had been deprived of her kittens caught a mouse, which she has now adopted, and is nursing with apparent success." The other day, says a Melbourne paper, a unique deputation waited upon Mr Dow, the Victorian Minister for Lands. It consisted of Thomas Dunolly, one of the aboriginals from the Coranderrk aborigine station. The blacks had heard that there was some idea of turning the station into a dairy farm school, and sent in a petition against it, of which the following is the substance : — "-Whito fellows ought to leave us alone. White fellows would not like us to come down and see you, Mr Dow, to take their land from them and move them out of their homes. We are in a Christian land, and we ought to love one another with brotherly love. Please, Mr Dow, don't break our homes from us till we are dead and gone. We won't be very long in this world. We are, your most obedient servants." This would be funny bub for the pathos of helplessness in it. ,It is touching to see the last remnant of the race who a few years ago were sole lords ot Victorian soil pleading for enough of it to live on j until they become quite extinct, and making a conciliatory promise not to be long in this world, and it is pleasing to note that Mr Dow promised tnat nothing would be done without consulting the blacks on the station.