Untitled

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2628, 11 June 1877, Page 2

We are informed that the Hon. F. Whitaker, Attorney-General, will be a passenger by the Botomahana from Auckland to-day. The annual and quarterly meeting of the Licensing Commissioners for the districts of Thames and Hauraki will be held at the Conrfc House, Shortland, at 12 o'clock, noon, to-morrow. Thb public meeting in connection with the anniversary services of the Tar am Road Sunday School will be held in the schoolroom this evening at seven o'clock, when the Revs. JR. S. Bunn, R. Laishley and W. Tinsley; and the officers of the school will address the meeting. A juvenile contingent of the Hibernian Society will be opened this evening at the Hall, Pollen street, Shortland, a seven o'clock. Youths of seven .years of age and upwards will be eligible for mem* bership. Officers and Fast Presidents are requested to be in attendance. Some conclusive business appears to have been done in the Native Lands Court on Friday or Saturday last week, for on the latter evening the shop of a Shortland butcher was crowded with Natives, and beef was being served out in pretty liberal quantities. Whether this was a genuine treat at the expense of the Government, i or another phase of the reihana 'system, we cannot say; bat one onlooker remarked that the Natives would find some of their broad acres had gone for the beef, when they came to settle up. It was understood some time ago that the draft of the new Native Lands Act, prepared by the Hon. the AttorneyGeneral and District Judge Fenton, was ! in the hands of the printer and would be circulated forthwith. Our Auckland contemporaries appear to be in possession of copies, and have commented at length upon its provisions, but we prefer to wait until we have a copy of the bi!l to offering comments at second-hand. The Thames Amateur Variety Troupe gave another performance at the Academy of-Music on Saturday night to a very i good house. The programme was similar in many respects to that of the previous evening, with some changes in the songs, dances, &c. The principal feature was the trapeze performance of Mr H. and Mrs J. Anderson, which was very cleverly gone through, the lady performing very neatly what was described as the great aerial flight. In this she displayed the same confidence and nerve as in the gymnastic displays on the high trapeze, and received warm applause. A feature which seemed to .please the audience very much in the second part of the progratrme was the clever dancing of Mr J. Winchcombe. Altogether the programme was creditably sustained. .- Theee was a meeting of the Board of Education in Auckland on Friday afternoon, when the usual business was transacted. With reference to an application from Parawai, the Beard declined to allow the teacher to reckon the Maori pupils in his return of attendance, the Secretary being directed .to inform the Committee that the allowance authorised in the case of Gisborne was given under exceptional circumstances, and that it was not intended to form** precedent.—Respecting the site purchased for school building at Tarara the Board decided that unless the title were completed forthwith to secure a site elsewhere.l—Waiotahi : A letter was received from the trustees of the Wesleyan Chapel respecting title to property. The Secretary was requested to inform the trustees that the Board would not accept any other than a complete tit! to the property. £3 10s was granted fci,* outbuildings. ■ ' ' - A deputation of the Thames Licensed Victuallers waited upon the Hon. F. Whitaker last week with reference to their petition for the reduction of the" license fees payable within the Auckland provincial district. The petition was originally sent to Wellington, but was referred back to Mr Whitaker for his opinion, which, as elicited by the deputation,, was to the effect that the Government could not interfere, but he had no doubt that if the Licensing Commissioners represented and recommended reductions being made the Government could exercise the same powers which were used by the Superintendents, but the representation, to be effective, must first come from the Licensing Commissioners, which was the nroper channel. The petitioners, we thinjc, went out of their way in stating in their petition that the injustice under which they labored was attributable to the rapacity and poverty of the Provincial Governments, for if that were the case in Auckland it was not so in other provinces, and the reference to the shortcomings of previously exiting political institutions was not in t / c best taste, or calculated to

advance the object of the petition. The Licensed Victuallers will now have to move the Licensing Commissioners, for it is evident that the Government will not do anything of their own accord, even if they had the power, because they would lay themselves open to the charge of depriving local bodies of part of their legitimate revenue if they attempted any reduction of the license fees before legislation has provided for uniformity in the mattethroughout the Colony. The Wellington correspondent of i Hawke's Bay Herald says :—" Sir Julias Vogel, no longer worked almost to deatl-, and freed from the fierce and unwarfau liable attacks of an unscrupulous Opposition, and the vulgar scurrility of a section of the press, has almost entirely regained his health. He is reported to enjoy better health and spirits than he has done for years past. He looks younger and more vigorous." A correspondent of the Oamaru Evening Mail gives the following plan for getting rid of rats:—Having heard a great many complaints from different people in Oamaru who are very much annoyed by rats, and have failed to rid themselves of the same by the trap or poison, I venture to suggest the following which I have tried a number of times, and always found the correct thing, and no mistake:—Take a piece of old sponge, end cut it into piecos about the size ot a pigeon's egg; iry the pieces a nice brown in some dripping, put away all food out of reach, and strew the pieces about the places the rats frequent. They will eat this greedily ; the sponge rapidly absorbs the moisture in the stomach and swells — a few. A second dose is seldom required. The Napier Telegraph says :— Dr Schwarzbach examined the sight of the Nelson College pupils recently with the following result. Out of 81 boys examined 68 had normal sight, 12 were short sighted, but only one to any extent, and 1 was far sighted. Upon this the examiner remarks :— The Nelson College ) being visited by boys from all parts of the Colony the average percentage of a (mostly moderate) faulty refraction of the Netfr Zealand boys, between the age of 9 and 18 years, may be said to be 15. In England it is about 20 per cent, and in Germany reaches the high average of 35 in the hundred.

I A panic occurred* in the Princess Theatre, Dunedin, on the night of Thursday last, which is recorded in the telegraphic column of Saturday's Herald : " There was a panic of fire at the Princess Theatre last night. Towards the close of the burlesque some foolish per* son, misled by a trial in the wings of the blue fire necessary to a proper realisation j of the final scene, raised an alarm of fire, I which had the effect of causing a stampede on the par.t of many persons, whose wits seem to hare deserted them. The assurances of those on. the stage that there was no cause for the slightest fear were for a little time utterly disregarded, and in the stalls there was a most incon- ! siderate rush made for the doors. Upstairs some ladies fainted, but there was no difficulty experienced in leaving the house by those who desired to get 01% As soon as the alarm was given sc ■ persons, aware of that "means of escai:••/>, pressed against Ihe doors marked ■-.''. ■■.in escape," leading from the back of the pi into High street, which : immediately opened, and the majority of those who left the pit and stalls found easy means of egress by this way. In about five minutes order was restored, and the burlesque proceeded with." The experience gained on this evening ought to tend to a settlement of the City Council battle which has raged for some time over the means of ingress and egress of the Princess Theatre. The difficulties the Russians will have in crossing the Danube are thus put by the London Times :—Wherever the Russians attempt to cross there would, or ought to be, a Turkish naval squadron, and with regard to this we are anxious to correct a popular misapprehension. It :'s commonly supposed that if a Russian avmy arrived at the Danube, it could protect itself anq its bridge operations against the attacks of ships of war, by means of a system of torpedoes. But, in the first place, the number of torpedoes requisite for such a purpose would be very great, and would need as much transport as a large siege train. Even supposing that they have been brought to the spot, how are they to be laid on? The river must first be carefully sounded at every place where a torpedo is to be placed, and this in the face of an enemy I commanding the water. The time occupied in laying the torpedoes would be very considerable, and is to be reckoned by months rather than weeks. The idea is quite impracticable. . At a certain church within a few miles of Kelson, the clergyman'who conducted the service on a recent Sunday morning, took advantage of the occasion to read in a most eloquent style a sermon appropriate to the day, but his hearers looked somewhat peculiar when he said, referring to Easter, that one especial cause of thankfulness at that season was the fact that a hard winter was just past, and that joyous spring had burst upon them once again, and then referred to the pleasure with which they must behold the early lily arrayed in all its loveliness, and all the beautiful sprir-j flowers that met their gaze as they wandered through the woods. It was no wonder that a smile was seen to play around the lips of those wise matrons whose natural forethought had caused them to lay in stores of wood and coal for the winter. The effect upon his hearers must have been equal to that of the sermon of a young Scotch probationer, who preaching one Sunday from the pulpit of his reverend father, whose shoes he fain would have filled, chose for his text the passage "I have waited for the Lord," and then launched forth with " Thirty years, my beloved friends, have I labored among you."—Exchange