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Thames Advertiser, Volume VII, Issue 1891, 10 November 1874, Page 2

It will be seen from our Auckland telegrams that a large share of the prizes at the Caledonian Games in Auckland were taken by Voluuteer -s McLean, of the Thames Scottish Company. Out of six entries he secured five first prizes, and one second. This adds one more to the already long list of victories by the Thames over Auckland. The bazaar in aid of liquidating the debt on St, George's Church was continued yesterday, Unbalance of stocks on hand at the respective stalls being sold by auction by amateur salesmen later in the evening. There was a fair attendance, and good prices were realised throughout. The proceeds of the final clearance amounted to £108, making the total proceeds of the bazaar £500; The Manukan shareholders have just divided a dividend of £1,500 (ss' per share), and have placed a sum of £L,200 to a reserve fund. There was a fair muster of officers and. members of the Thames Naval Brigade yesterday morning when they marched from their drillshed, Graham'stown, to; Shortland for the purpose of launching the, gig which has ken built to the order of the ■•corps by'Mr 'ftffa'ge. '■ It was carried from the shed by: members, of the: company. The boat. is;ta very fine. one, and 0 will prove a valuable acquisition to the comAs stated by us in yesterday's issue, the boat is built after the model of a man-of-war gig- . ; ' ~, The drawing for the lottery for the erection of a Roman Catholic Church at Kawakawa, Ray of Islands, took place on the sth of November, The numbers of prize's taken are:—No. 133, first prize, gold watch; No. 170, 2nd prize,' silver watch; No. 396,3 rd prize, Danish pipe; No. 245, 4th prize, smoking cap; No, 400, sth prize, lady's locket; No. 34G, 6'fch"prize, silver pencil case. • !' • • Last eveuing a soiree was held in the Karaka School-room under the auspices of the Star of the Thames Lodge of Good Templars. There was a larger attendance apparently than the promoters of the meeting had anticipated, for the room was most inconveniently crowded. After tea, the Rev J; Davis took the chair, and of ened the proceedings with a short address. Songs and duets were then sung by Miss Wiseman, Miss McNeill, Mr; J. Jone?, and Mr Creamer, and the last-named and Master Tregoning gave recitations, At the conclusion a vote of thanks was passed to the ladies and gentlemen who had assisted, on the motion of Mr McNeill. ' : - ,: .1'.' A meeting of the members of theWaiotabi School Committee was held last evening,' Present—Messrs Rowe, Sims, Porter, Lawlor, O'Haire. The complaint by Mr Foreman" against Mr Campbell, teacher of the Punga Flat School, was dismissed. Mr' Porter proposed, and Mr Sims seconded, "That the Chairman write to the Central Board, protesting against the appointment of Mr Brown to the Rauwaeranga School without their knowledge, the same being a breach of an arrangement entered into by the different committees on the Thames." It was proposed by Mr Porter, seconded by Mr Liwlor, " That a letter be written by the Chairman to the Central Board, praying that no action be tiken for the establishment of a superior school with: out consulting the various committees 33 to the best situation for the same." The usual monthly meeting of the committee of the Thames Mechanics' Institute was to have been held last evening, but as a quorum did not muster, the meeting was adjourned till Monday next, ; A good deal has been said lately about the Karaka tramway, and the state in which it is kept. In June last a numerously signed petition wa3 sent to the Provincial Executive on the subj;ct, and the following wa3 the answer received: —"Superintendent's Office, Auckland, 2nd July, 1874. Gentlemen,—l have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your numerously signed petition requesting that the Karaka Creek tramway be leased on terms and conditions similar to those in the case of'the . Hape Creek tramway. I beg to state, in reply, that it is not desirable that any alteration, should be mide until the completion of the • Bella-street tramway, which will connect the Karaka with the whole tramway system of the goldfield. The Bella-street tramway is expected to be completed shortly, and when that shall have been done, the request which you now make will receive full consideration.—l have. &e., P. Diqnan, for the Mr John Farrell and others, Grahamstown;'" All that was waited for has been done, aud yet' the Provincial .Government have made no! - attempt to remedy what, by the above letter, they almost confess to be a wrong' state of. affairs. We do not see why the Karaka tram'- : way should have been left in a position which made it useless to the public, even although it was not connected with the rest of the tramway system, but even' that excuse is. now done away with. * ■ ' The Justices at.the Police Court yesterday were Dr, Kilgourand Mr Lawlor*' The only charge was one of drunkenness, .• in which defendant forfeited bail. . The French journals publish details. of a hor- . rible murder which has just been committed in a farmhouse near Chateaudun (tfure-et-hoir.) The building had been inhabited by a man and his wife named Plaia, and their daughter Marie, aged seventeen, resided with them. They had a°son Albin, older, who worked at some distance, and did not live at home. During the late war the parents visited the fields of battle of a night and despoiled the dead In that execrable pursuit they had succeeded in amassing a little money. Not long since the.father died, and the children became impatient to inherit the ill-gotten gains. A few days ago the mother was taken unwell, and the son gave his sister a quantity of matches to place in a bowl of warm water to dissolve the phosphorus She obeyed his instructions, and when the old woman asked for a drink the young one gave her onehalf of the liquid, accounting for the disagreeable'.taste by saying that it was a potion the doctor had ordered. Madame Praia drank it,* and was immediately attacked with pains in the stomach, and threw it all up. The girl told her she;must take the rest, which she dil, but with the same result. _In the evening the young man cabed, and, finding the mother still alive, he took a rope, threw it oyer a beam, and placed the old woman on a chair under it.' He then passed the cord mind her neck, and putting one foot on her sbou'der, he pulled at one eud of the cord. The poor woman struggled violently, but the ruffian maintained his hold, and the dreadful scene lasted nearly a quarter of an hour before death ensued.. The girl stood coolly by all the time, watching the death throes of her mother. The two together then* suspended the corpse to a beam, in order to induce the belief that a suicide had been committed. However, suspicion immediately fell on the guilty pair, who were arrested, and a full confession was made by the girl. A London correspondent writes as follows :— Reverting to the Times and the question o£ .■ emigration, Mr Jenkins (Ginx's llaby) is nearly frantic with rage at the abuse which has been showered upon the colony for which he acts as Agent-Qeneral, in the columns of the Time*. ■ This being the dull season the Times can afford auy amount of space for these things, and columns of letters have be'eu appealing within ' the past week abusing Canada frightfully. Mr Jenkins, who, of course, knows precious little about that place, charges madly into'the combat and distributes such choice epithets as 1 " liar" 5 , and "fool" with a liber-lity aud impartiality; that are truly engaging.' • But the Times gave' Canada and her "baby" the coup'de grace x , day or t»o since, when after saying that. the ' climatcof Canada wasvillainous, livingexpensive, and work bad to get iu that region,"it gave,., judgment in your favour thus:—"ln New Zealand or in Tasmania the emigrant will find', V at least as pleasant a climate as he has left at home, and as great general advantages as any other colony can offer, -and eitVer,; • ! might reasonably ho preferM to. Canada."

Mrt? * M^lfirkTrtii-ri-*-r.r— TTim-.iri-rTlnn i..-ir»inv-.iT-ii-Tn i-r.if.i Rather a good joke is passing (says the Melbourns Herald) among the lawyers. It is said .that last week, during the dry-as dust arguments of a well-looking young barrister, who was pleading before his father on the bench, another member of the bar, recently admitted, and who bad cultivated a naturally fine voice until he had attained a considerab'e ventriloquil power, succeeded in throwing his voice into the four corners of the court, and calling out the Christian name of the young advocate, much to his astonishment. The court was convulsed, ■when the same unknown voice iu the pause of dead silence caused by this undignified interruption added the words, " Keep your eye on your father, ; and ha will pull you through!" The " Free Assembly " of the Scotch Kirk indulges in a committee for the conversion of the Jews. The descendants of the men who fought so manfully for freedom of conscience on hill and in glen, on moTand in glade, deny that freedom of conscience to the Jews, and : attack them in the exercise of the faith, not in • the light of day with the sword as the foes of the Covenanters and the Presbyterians attacked them in the days of old, but with the insidious 'weapon of mission societies armed with the potent weapon of money. The report announces that since the commencement of the mission seventy persons have been baptised. We should be glad to know their names; or, at ;least, tbenaibe of one respectable person who has seen each of the seventy, and we should like the framers of the report to explain boldly in the, ligWt. of day the circumstances under which the y l seventy" were baptised... Are there among them any such case?, for instance, as that noticed the other day ia the police reports, of starving foreign lads decoyed into "homes" by Hebrew cards of invitation affectionately begging them to receive food, work and shelter; and then when the error is discovered, and the unhappy victim flies, preferring starvation to renunciation of faith, following Mm, beating him, hauling him before a magistrate on Eome groundless pretext? We do not say that there are such cases. We only challenge a reply. That Pcotchmen—in whose history for very many years is woven the harsh tissue of sttugg'es for freedom of worshipshould assail the Jew, is indeed surprising ? If the last year's expenditure of the Committee, nearly £6,000 had been applied to the conversion of certain Scotch heathens from let us say—the habit of Sunday tippling to the Jewish virtue of sobriety; or the habit of weekday uncleanliness to the Jewish practice of ablution;—what an admirable mode ttut would be of spending the large sum of money now wasted in the avowed, though of course, fruit*less purpose of defying the Divine Promise of the eternal existence of Israel aid the immortality of the Law which was given to Israel on Sinai,— Jewish Chronicle. An English letter contains the following account of the late attempt to assassinate Prinee Bismarck:—"On the 13th of July. Bismarck was at the time residing at Kissengen, a fashionable Bavarian spa. On the day in question, he went out as usual in his open carriage, and had been driven some distance along t hestreet, when a Roman Catholic priest stepped right in front of the carriage. The coachman called on him to get out of the way; but this he did not do at first, and when he did so, he kept up alongside the carriage on the footpath tor al.outfifty paces, when he again stepped iu frout of the carriage. There were a few per3ins only in the street, and one of them stepped into the road close to the carriage, and took off his hat to the Prince. The latter gave a military salute in return, when the man drew a pistol from his pocket—the priest being itill in front of the horse—and fired it at Eismarcky whose right palm and thumb is grazed, The coachman tearing a second shot, with great presence of mind, struck the would-be assassin in the face with his whip, whereat the fellow threw away his pistol and fled, He was soon stopped, however, by an actor, who had witnessed the who'e affair, and whom the villain had savagely assailed in his struggles to escape. The crowd, which speedily collected, could with difficulty be restrained from Lynch ng him on the spot, Prince Bismarck drove straight to his home to re-assure his family, but was soon compelled to come out and show himself to the enthusiastl* crowd which had gathered in front of his windows! Half an hour afterwards he drove to the P'ison to see the n.an who had attempted to kill him. The priest who stopped the horses decamped the moment the shot was fired, but was arrested some hours afterwards on a charge of complicity in the crime. After some days' detention, and a Eearchiug examination, he was dismissed, there being no evidence against him The assassin is named 1 dward Kullraiinu, and be is a journeyman cooper, a native of jMagdeburg, a Roman Catholic, and a member of several religious societies Although only twenty years of age, he bears the reputation of beiug a cool, determine! fellow, and has served a sentence of three months' imprisonment for having, together with some of his comrades, stabbed and wounded his former master. His mother has been in a lunatic asylum at Halle for a year past. ' He is stated to have declared in prison his intention to kill the man who was injuring the Pope and oppressing the Church, and to have asserted that he had accomplices in the crime. A French paper relates the following singular case arising out of a policy of insurance upon a quantity of cigars. A gentleman presented himself at the office of the Phoenix, and sail he wanted to insure a quantity of cigars, which he had imported from Havana. 'Cigars,' said the manager, 'that is droll; however, what is the value of them ?' The gentlcmin replied that he wished to insure them for 2,000 francs. An inspector examined the cigars, and having satisfied himself as to their value, the premium was fixed and paid and the policy delivered to the insurer. Four months afterwards the gentleman returned to the insurance office, and said, ' Gentlemen, the cigars which I insured with you have been burnt, and I apply for the amount of the policy.' 'We have had no intimation of the fire,' said the manager, ' how did it occur?' 'In the simplest way in the world,' replied the gentleman; ' I have smoked them one after the other. Here is the certificate of my neighbour and a lodger, who attested the fact.' ' You are joking,' the manager told him, 'we shall not pay you.' 'I am serious, and you shall pay me,' replied the insurer. The result was that in an action he saw the presiding judge holding the company to the text of fc agreement, and that as it was not denied on tne one side that certain merchandise had been insured against fire, and on the other that the said merchandise had been destroyed by fire, he must give judgment against the company, 'l'he latter did not offer much defence'so the action, but on .the following day a summons was issued at their instance upon the person for arson, he having wilfully set fire to merchandise which had been insured. This crime beiug punishable with death, the sharper, who no longer chuckled over the supposed success _of his trickery, was too happy to make terms with the com; any by paying the expenses which had been incurred. •