TELEGRAPHIC NEWS.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1432, 24 November 1885, Page 3

TELEGRAPHIC NEWS.

The Gazette notifies that the sittings for 1886 for the trial of criminal and civil cases, and of causes under the Divorce and Matrimonial Causes Act, will be held at the Courthouse, Timaru, to commence on the following days, at 11 a.m. :—Tuesday 15th June, and Tuesday 14th December. The business in Chambers may be disposed of in the course of these sittings on such days and at such hours as the Judge may appoint. The following tenders have been received for the Hurunui-Pahu section (Culverdine permanent way contract) • Accepted—Stocks and Wallace, Christchurch, £3976. Declined—Jesse Coats, Palmerston South, £4057: Andrew Swanstou, Christchurch, £4058. The remains of Private Curtin, of the Sydenham Rifles, who died suddenly of heart disease at the parade on Thursday night, were interred in the Catholic Cemetery, Christchurch, with military honors on Sunday afternoon. 600 Volunteers attended the funeral. The entries for the Dunedin A. and P. Society’s show are slightly in excese of last year. The merino class show up well this year. Two men appeared at the Police Court, Dunedin, on Saturday charged with having defrauded a Chinese storekeeper of £4O by an ingenious form of confidence trickThe affairs of the New Zealand Rifle Association do not at present appear to be in a very happy position, and it hangs in the balance whether the meetings will be held next year at all. At the last annual meeting of the Association it was decided that the next competition should take place at Wanganui, but little or no information is to be obtained from the Secretary, although Volunteers at Wanganui are anxious to know as to what they are to do in the way of making arrangements. Rumors have been current that the association is defunct, and that the Government have agreed to pay its liabilities and take over its assets, Theie are strong grounds for believing that the questions in dispute will be settled satisfactorily, and that the Association will be placed on a sound basis. Captain Soramervillo, of the Alexandra Cavalry, is working hard in the interests of the A ssociation, and in a reply to a letter from him, the following has been despatched, from the Defence Department: —“J, R. Somerville, Wanganui. —ln reply to yours of the 15th inst., addressed to the Defence Minister, I am instructed to inform you that he considers it is not desirable in future that there should be any responsibility or control in regard to the management of the Rifle Association by the Government, but that the affairs of the Association should be managed as at Home, where it is an wholly independent organisation, managed and controlled by members themselves.”

A Phonncrranliic Association has been started in Ca church. The inaugural meeting was held on Friday night, when the President, Mr Chas. Cook, delivered an address, Thomas Collins, an old man who lately completed a three months’ sentence in Lyttelton gaol for having no visible means of support has been writing to the Christchurch papers alleging that his underclothes were never washed while ho was in gaol, and that he was turned out with no shoes on his feet, He admitted, however, that the gaol officials gave him half-a-crown. O’Brien, the gaoler, asserts that the man had clean underclothing given him, but he had not boots given him because the gaol rules forbid the practice. Mr John Ollivier, R.M., investigated the matter, and declares bis disbelief of Collins’ statement and exonerates the gaoler.