LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Temuka Leader, Issue 706, 6 December 1881, Page 2

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Temcka. .Road Board.—The usual monthly meeting of the Board will take place this morning. To Contkactors.— We would remind contractors that, tenders for works adver. tisui for by the Temuka Road Board must be posted before 10 o'clock this morning. Shock of Earthquake.—-A smart shock of earthquake was felt hi Temuka about halfpast seven o'cbok yesterday morning. It lasted about 15 seconds, the directions being due north and south. Another Tusxel Project.—A project is being mooted to cut a tunnel through the Py-frenees with the object of connecting France and Sp"in by railway. The Spanish Cortes has a Bdl authorising the Government to undertake such work in conjunction with France. Saved by an Albatkoss.—An extraordinary occurrence happen d on board the barque Gladstone during her voyage from London to Sydney. Captain Jackson reports that on October 22nd a man fell overboa'd. Tne life-boit was lowered, and four men and the mate went in search of the castaway, and eventually rescued him, He was clinging to an albatioss. which he had seized as flew past Mm. Desecration. —A despatch received at Paris from Ragu3i announces that a number of Mussulmans having desecrated the Church of St. Andrew, at Alessio, a body of SOO Catholic mountaineers entered the town fully armed, and obliged the authorities to hand over the authors of the outrage to them, and then carried them off to the mountains. Cetewayo,—Cetewayo costs the British nation £OO a month, or more than a thousand a year, for his board alone. Already he has cost us on this head nearly £I7OO. The Small African colonists, who made wa" upon him. ought to piy for him, and have been asked to do their duty ; but no arrangement can be made without the money, and ParPament. will have to pay the captive chief's heavy bills. Nor is it nere maintenance that is asked for. The 'arm upon he has been placed, the house n which 1:8 resides, the stock by which nmself and his wives and followers are supplied, ail have to bo j:aid for from jritish pockets, making a total of nearly

; Mr and Mrs Hay hurst, jum. ! Returned from their Wedding tour- from I south yesterday to Model Farm, Milford, j which is to be their future home. The j tenants on the Milfoid estate, and a large j circle of friends, were entertained by Mr | Hayhurst, sen., in honor of his sou's attain- | ing his majority, The services of the Te_ mukaPi-ass Bantl wore . brought into mpiI sition, and a vqa-sv enjoyable afternoon was j spent. t Seuveu Him Right.—The peopl' of South Australia are wis-} in their generation, ar.d deal ivith the contributors to the so-called '' society joarnals" in a summary manner. The Adelaide correspondent of the Melbourne Argus telegraphs that considerable excitement was occasioned recently at Hahnlorf, a town about 17 lui'c en a of Adelaide, by the public casdgation of the reputed author of some alloged scurrilous paragraphs which re-. I oenlly appeared in the Adelaide Bulletin 'affecting certain of the residents of t be !.•>•.'. :i. The person concerned, after careful inquiry, believed they had discovered who was the corre-pondent of the Bulletin, and accordingly they seized him and having tk 1 him, publicly flogged him. Hot For the Pkemier.—The Hon M? Hall's recent remarks on the Native question are referred to by a Christchurch contemporary thus: Prem'er of this colony seek to convey by the disingenuous language that what Te Whiti asked for had actually been offered to him and rejected 1 This is a sample of how truth >s perverted by a man who hopes to be considered a statesman and a leader of the people. This is, we are sony to say, the kind of thing the Honorable John Hall is almost constantly guilty of. On this occasion the whole speech is so closely of a piece that we at a loss what end of the tangled thiead to seize for a begi ming. Where there is no: suppression, perveision, and blinking, thee is sophistry, special pleading, and small, cunning worthy only of the taleuts of a f iiti'ih rate lawyer in a police Court. For any attempt to rise to the height of a great occa-ion, there is not the least evi-» dewe. The effort is as destitute of policy and statesmanship as it is full of conclusive proof of the smallest—the most contemptible nature " A Curious Traffic. —A man of enter, prise, one M. Wahl, has been sentenced tos ; x month's imprisonment by the Cor. rect'onal Couit of Paris, for carrying on a traffic iu decoration. He was so imprudent as to write to M. Rousoan, the French Cotisul-General at Tunis, saying he wo'.ild dispose of any number of orders of the ihe rate of 45C3 francs each, and obeying M. Ronscan £6O for every brevet of appointment which the latter might procure for his M. Roust an sent this letter to the Prefect of Police., and a seizure was then made of M. Wahl's books. It, was discovered that for some time past he had been condecaug a very lucrative little business as Cluist of Portimal, Isabella the CathoPc of Spain, Sfc Maurice and St Lazarus of Italy and the Saviour of Greece. These were the orders of which he sold most, but he seems lo have acquired the power of obtaining a good many others, and the letters-patent which he retailed were always genuine. By what influence he managed to do this has not been made public, for M. Wahl took to flight and allowed himself to be sentenced in contumaciam. Some of his official friends are not very anxious tc see him caught, perhaps.