Untitled

Thames Guardian and Mining Record, Volume I, Issue 251, 29 July 1872, Page 2

There will be a meeting of the Kauaeranga Highway Board this evening at the new office, Pollen-street, near the Camden Hotel. We have to acknowledge with (hanks the receipt of a copy of Chapman's Traveller's Guide through New Zealand , which wc will review in our next issue.

A meeting of the Council of the R'flc Association will be held to-morrow evening, at Mr Carpenter’s office, for the transaction of business connected with the association.

A meeting of the memners of the Waiotahi and Kauaernngn Highway Boards, and of the Municipality Committee, is called for to-morrow afternoon at (he Governor Bowen Hotel, at 3 o’clock, for the purpose of further considering the proposed Municipal Bill.

In our advertising columns will be found a lisr of persons considered by the Shortland Fire Relief Fund Committee entitled to assistance out of the funds at their disposal. A payment of twenty per cent on the amount to which the Committee have deemed them to he entitled will be paid on presenting an order to the Treasurer, Mr Cox, signed by the Secretary, MrJ. C.Youug. A man named Mahoney was apprehended last evening, and will be brought before the R.M. this morning, on the charge of stealing a brooch, the property of Mice McMahon, who was a witness in the assault case of Easter v Clarke, heard at the Police Court on Saturday.

W c (Cross) are glad to be informed that the two small-pox patients who have been under care of Dr J. R. Nicholson arc now convalescent. They are not new cases since the arrival of the Nebraska, having been known to the authorities, it is asserted, for the past ten days, aud never assumed a malignant type.

At the Police Court, on Saturday, five persons were brought before the Court, at the instigation of the Inspector of Nuisances, charged with neglecting to keep clean the premises in their occupation. The Inspector appears to be on the alert, and all owners and occupiers whose back yards will not bear inspection had better clean up immediately.

“ Mr J. Sheehan has collected £25 in aid of the sufferers at the Shortland fire.” We find the above telegram in the Coromandel .1 fall of Saturday, and arc surprised that we have not had the news before from the telegraphic agents in Wellington. We are glad, however, to hear it now.

The ship Bulwark is now 150 days out from London, and has not yet arrived. We received intelligence that she had put into the Cane of Good Hope for repairs sometime since, but she left there on the 15th of May, which makes her now 74 days out from Cape Town. Fears are very naturally entertained for her safety, as she should have arrived here, even with bad winds, some time since.

An amateur dramatic performance has been arranged to take place in a short time in aid of the sufferers by the late tiro in Shortland. The Amateur Dramatic Club have already settled the pieces to be plave.d. They are ‘ Still Waters Hun Deep” and “ lei on iiarle Frangais.” A committee has been appointed, of which Mr Lipsev is in charge, to make all ouside arrangements, aud we feel sure that for such an object the public of the Thames will come forward in large numbers on the night of performance.

The wife nf Mnkaore, whose abduction has caused much comment of late, and the particulars of which will be fresh within our readers’ recollection, has bceu taken away, we understand, by the natives to Ohincmuri, where she now is. Makaore, v r e believe, meditated her rc-capturc with the assistance of some friends a few days ago, when she was at the settlement above Shortland, but she has now got beyond his reach, at all events for the present.

The inauguration meeting of the Coromandel Mutual Improvement Society was held last evening in the Wesleyan Church, when a most interesting address was delivered by the R°v W. J. Williams, president of the society, 'flic attendance was very good, and those nresent evinced their appreciation of the inaugural address by according a hearty vote of thanks to the president, which was moved by Mr J. Brame, vice-president, in a humorous speech, and seconded by Mr Wilson, treasurer. At the close of the meeting, upwards of twenty persons enrolled themselves members of the socio'y. A programme for the first month has been adopted. —Coromandel Mail.

After vespers last evening at the Catholic Church, Shortland, the Right Rev. Bishop Croke addressed a crowded congregation on the subject of education, and expressed his opinion that the clause relative to Bible reading would have been expunged before the bill passed, had it not been withdrawn. He reviewed the history of the Bible from the time of the Evangelists to the Reformation, and down to our time the difference between the authorised version aud the Douay Bible—and why it is impossible for Catholic children to attend schools where the Bible is used only as a class-book. That prior to the Reformation, 1450 to 1456, there was no law of the Catholic Church against reading the Bible at all, and now they were solicited to read their own version of it. There were 265 editions of the Bible in latin, 40 in Italian, 15 German. 17 French, 4 Bohemian in existence in 1534, before Luther translated the Bible into the Vernacular ; and now if Catholics did not read their Bible it was more to their shame, and not the fault of the Church, his Lordship quoted from St. John 11 Love one Another," aud asked them not to forget the spirit of the Bible, that we may live happily, living like brethren here, and in the hope wc all have on the other side of the grave.

We ( Waikato Times’) have lately seen oue of the richest things in petitions it has ever come to our lot to inspect. A *number of officers of the Militia aud Voluutcer forces have signed a petition to flic House of Representatives. It states that the whole of the Imperial forces have received a medal for services in New Zealand, whether actually engaged or not. It then goes on as follows : —“ Your petitioners therefore respectfully request that the same honor may be extended, as regards the Colonial medal (now only given to those who had the fortune to be under fire) by the Government of New Zealand to the officers and men of the Colonial forces, who served at great loss and iucouveuience duriug the late war.” These people seem to have entirely overlooked the fact that if the medal were granted to th m, in common justice one would have to be given to nearly every ablc-b»died man who resided in the North Island during the war. This, of course, would reduce its value to that of the silver of which it is composed, t his attempt to obtain that which th<y are nut entitled to is certainly not conduct becoming cither an officer or a gentleman. It reminds us forcibly of the old fable of the ass who pat on the lion’s skin*

The following correspondence will be read with interest as being prefatory to Miss Nellie Grant’s presentation to Queen Victoria :—'• Langley's Hotel, May 1872, My Dear Lady and Qtieen, —I am embarrassed at the honour of an official request, given through a high officer (your Lord Chamberlain, I think), to be presented to your Majesty. I should dearly love to tee you, that I might tell my father and mother that I have been thus honoured. lam but a simple American girl ; that I am the President’s daughter gives no claim to your rcognition as a tSovereign. If, with the kind lady who is acting as my chaperon, I might visit you, I should be very glad. Gur Secretary of Legation hints at some political"'significance iu this opportunity. I cannot so interpret it, and would not wish to be so received, because it would not be right., ns I am nothing in American politics, and lam sure my father would not desire me to appear other than ns my simple and very humble self. If, with this explanation, your Majesty will allow/ me to visit you, I shall be greatly honoured, i and be very proud. I have written this note of my own motion, and because I think it ! the right thing to do.—l am your Majesty’s very obedient servaut and admirer, Nellie Grant.” The following autograph letter was received by Miss Nellie from her Majesty the Queen, and the visit took place at the time indicated, and was very informal and pleasant:—“Windsor Castle. Mias Nellie Grant, —I have instructed Lady to convey to you this note, and we shall receive yott as the daughter of your honourable parents without the intervention of our high officers of State. I shall accept your visit as an ‘ An American girl,’ and there shall be no other significance iu the fact than your kindly expressed desire to see the lady and not the Sovereign. I shall find it pleasant to forget that I am Queen in receiving you to-morrow at-our palace of Windsor. — Victoria.”

Much indignation has teen expressed at what is considered the reckless manner in which the Nebraska on her last trip from Honolulu was allowed to come up to her usual moorings and discharge her passengers. It was a well-ascertained fact that a large number of small-pox cases existed at Honolulu, where the Nebraska called previously to coming on to Auckland, and this alone should have caused the vessel to be quarantined until time had permitted for a more searching inquiry to be made. Then what is now known at Wellington would have been known in Auckland. During the Nebraska’s outward passage from Auckland to Honolulu, it is asserted that there were either three or four cases of small-pox on board ; and therefore, leaving out of the question that Honolulu was an infected port, it is certain this vessel could not be pronounced as coming with a clean bill cf health. It cannot, we think, be denied that the Government at Wellington have acted quite right in not allowing the Nebraska to goon to Dunedin, with something more than a possibility of a province as yet free from variola becoming infected. If it was deemed expedient to place the Nebraska’s passengers in isolation on Soames Island, common sense dictated the piopricty of dealing with the crew and officers in the same way. Such a course will doubtless be attended with much inconvenience, but the consequences resulting from the detention of the mail steamer will certainly be less serious than allowing her to visit other ports to spread the dreaded infection. Dr. Pliilson is not more to blame than the Board of Health ; for the doctor, as Health Officer, refused to allow the Nebraska to come to her usual mooring-ground until he had got the written sanction of the members compo°ing the Board' of Health to haul down the Nebraska’s flag, and pronounce her as having a clean bill of health. If the captain and surgeon of the Nebraska have made false representations to Dr. Philson as to the health of those on board the vessel, whether on her outwaid or down passage, then we trust the full machinery of the law will be employed to bring them to justice.— Crons. '