THE Evening Star. PUBLISHED DAILY AT FOUR O'CLOCK P.M. Resurrexi. THURSDAY, APRIL 18, 1878.

Thames Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2863, 18 April 1878, Page 2

THE Evening Star. PUBLISHED DAILY AT FOUR O'CLOCK P.M. Resurrexi. THURSDAY, APRIL 18, 1878.

Ik reply to a letter from Mr A. Brodie, County Chairman, asking to hare tvro blocks of land on the Thames Hirer thrown open for selection, the Waste Lands Board- agreed to comply at once with the request and offer the land for sale. These two blocks, which comprise about 900 acres, are those referred to in these columns on Saturday last.

We would again remind intending excursionists to the Hot Springs that the Eotoraahana takes her departure at 7 o'clock to-morrow morning.

Thb following players hnre been selected to play against the Auckland cricketers, at Parawai, on Saturday. The game will commence at 9 o'clock punctual : — Messrs Bull, Burgess, Buttle, Crump, Frater, Hargreares, Lawless, Macdonald, Steedman, Whitford and Young.

The office of tho New North Deron Goldmining Company 'has been remoyed to Auckland, and Mr »F. A. White has received the appointment of manager.

The premuos in which tho Bank of Australasia have carried on business for some years in Albert slrcet wcro to-day sold by auction by Messrs T. W. Gudgeon and Co., together with the fittings and a number of appliances not removed The uuexpired term of tho lease is about four years and a half, and the building only fetched £70. Mr Hume, the purchaser, being rent free for the unexpired term. The counter, desks, &c, were sold for about £7. The swing doors were sold separately, but Mr Hume protested against the sale. Some articles of furniture realised pretty good prices, but the sundries in the melting house were placed at nominal rates. Tho cost of the buildings, erected somo years ago, could not hare been loss than about £1500.

The case of Arthur v. the Waikato Steam Navigation Company, a claim for £500 damages for injuries sustained by plaintiff when landing from one of the company's steamers, through tho negligence of tho company's servants, has resulted in a verdict for the defendants. Tho case was heard in the Supremo Court before Mr Justice Gillies and a special jury.

A ijequisition appears in the advertisement columns of the Herald to the chairman of the Otahuhu District Eoad Board. Forty-four signatures are attached to the requisition, of which number seven sign with their "mark."

A Dunedin telegram to the Herald states that in commenting on the present position of native affairs the Ago said :— "If there is reason to believe that His Excellency designedly sought to influence the native mind against the Premier, in whose policy they had hitherto reposed confidence, the immediate recall of the Governor should be imperatively demanded."

At the first meeting of tho Board of Gorernors of the Auckland College and Grammar School, held on Tuesday, His Honor Judge Gillies was elected Chairman of the Board.

At the Central Police Court, Sydney, on the Bth April, 69 persons were fined for drunkenness, and at the Water Police Court another batch of a score was disposed of. The work of " telling off" this small army of inebriates must hare been considerable, and the rerenue accruing to the State not trifling.

It would appear that Mr Severn's discovery of the use of the telephone in communicating sounds to deaf people has been discovered in another place. An exchange says:—-One of the most curious features of the new discovery of the means of conveying sounds by the use of the electric wire is the peculiar faculty it imparts to deaf persons. The slightest telephonic sound appears to be audible to their sense in a much greater degree than it is. to that of people who have never suffered the deprivation of the blessing of hearing. I know of one case (says the Melbourne correspondent of the Ballarat Star) of a gentleman jpossessing many claims to scientific distinction, whose organ of hearing is totally unaffected by ordinary spoken sounds, but who can stand by tiiis little metallic earpiece and translate to those near him the faintest whisper which passes through it. I present the fact to the profession of aurists, who may find in it a new development of their noble art.

The New York Daily Graphic closes an article on * Future Punishment' with the following suggestions:—" Without entering into the controversy (about eternal punishment) which agitates the Congregationalists, it may be proper to remark that, as far as we hare seen, liberal theology has not yet supplied the world with any motive to righteousness equally as strong as the one it denies. Leaving out every other consideration, there can be no question that a place of eternal torments prepared for the wicked was a strong sanction of morality of the past. Ordinary men can appreciate it. The Puritans moulded—nay nurtured — on this belief, were an honest, sober, and God fearing folk. They were hard and stern in dealing with offenders, but they were not open to the charge of plundering the widow and orphan, of violating trusts, of committing perjury, and. of all the many offences which our present life brings, unfortunately to the knowledge of us all. It is, doubtless, a pretty theory that looks upon crime as its own punishment, but man has not become civilised enough to allow it to be experimented with by any community. A hel! is a very ugly conception, but it had its uses. It made human life on this planet better than it would otherwise have been. And the world would do well to enquire whether a ereat deal of our laxity is not due to the decay of the belief without substituting something equally as reprebensive in its stead."

A telegbam from Cooktown to the Sydney Evening News states that the natives of New Guinea are assuming a threatening attitude towards Europeans. The natives about Mabon and Sybai are threatening to kill the teachers, and Cornwallis and Sybai teachers and their families have left for Marbraik. Mr Chester, the police magistrate, who has just returned from a visit, says that it is high-time there was a visit from a man-of* war. The unpublished orders of the missionaries and teachers lead the savages to regard the white men with contempt. The natives are eating the heads of those they kill, and are furthermore inciting the friendly tribes to kill the native teachers. A native employed by Pearson and M'Coll was ordered to go down for shell, when he was seized by an alligator and had his head crushed. The other natives standing on the shore attacked the alligator with spades, killing him. Another man, employed at the fishing station, was seized by a shark, and was fearfully injured.

We were not singular in treating Dr Von Haast's discovery of a gigantic midden in a jocular strain. Notwithstanding the vigilance of Inspectors of Nuisances, and the advance of ideas on the subject of cleanliness (says the Lyttletou Times), there are still some choice kitchen middens to bo seen in town and country in various parts of the Colony. None would bare thought, however, that there is, or ever has existed, in New Zealand a gigantic kitchen midden, 20 miles long, 300 or 400 yards wide, and an unknown number of feet deep. In discussing the probable antiquity of man in New Zealand at the Philosophical Institute last night, Dr Yon Haast mentioned that a midden of these dimensions existed, and that some of these days he intended to solve the problem, or at all events endeavor to solve it, by digging into the midden, and finding how long it would take a given number of people to eat the fish that had once been contained in th» shells. Some one imbued with a thirst for knowledge mildly en>

quired the locality of the former feasting place, whereupon tho doctor became reticent, merely saying that in good timo a'! that was now concealed would bo disclosed. In tho meantime, we must possess our souls in patience, and await tho result of tho investigations into the relics of this ancient clambake.

Says the Herald of yesterday's dnte A man named Michael Collins, who has" for some time past worked as a miner in Gororaandcl, is at present on a visit to Auckland for the purpose of securing his title to an inheritance valued at £300,000. Collins, who has a wife and three children, was, it appears, reared in London, although of Irish parentage, and he has been for many years in .New Zealand. The first intimation of his good fortune he received last week in the shape of a letter from a London firm of lawyers, announcing that an uncle or an aunt— we have not ascertained which —has died, and that he was heir to tbe property in London, valued as above. He came to Auckland on Saturday for the purpose of placing his affairs in the hands of Messrs Whitaker and .Russell, but as the latter have been engaged in the case of Arthur v. Waikato Steam Navigation Company, they have not had time to investigate the matter. It is however, generally believed that his title is good, and Mr Collins has already received the congratulations of numerous friends.

" Jacqtjjrs," in the North Otago Times, writes:—" In the early dayt of the Otago settlement—in fact before its settlement as Otago had been effected at all, ere tho Phillip Laing and John Wickliffe had brought to our shores the Old Identities who now collect the ground rents of Dunedin; when Otakou was the name of the harbor, and the site of Port Chalmers was known only as Koputai; when our brown predecessors were numerous and Englishmen were very few —there lived at the little village on the east of Lower Harbor a stalwart and good looking young fellow named Teterakipawau, who lived close by the sandy shore with his young and pretty wife Ikeno. He was desirous that his wife should learn to speak English, and be able to write a letter, and a young hanger-on about the Whaling Station undertook to teach her. All went well for a time, but on one occasion on his return to his whare, her husband learned that Ikeno had been insulted by her instructor, and, burning with jealousy, he took a gun, and determined on a savage revenge. The tutor had a companion—a young man named .Brown, a ship's carpenter. On the night of Teterakipawau's return, Brown borrowed and put on his companion's overcoat, after his day's work was over; and, as was customary in those old days, leisurely wended his way to the store. On his way he was joined by Ikeno, who walked with and told her sorrows to Brown, who had her husband's entire esteem. They entered tho store together, watched by her jealous husband, and as Brown seated himself on a nail keg, he was shot dead by Teterakipawau, without hit amssin being recognised. A hue and a cry was raised; the nuhappy murderer, who had killed the wrong man and thrown down the gun, was arrested, and placed in a hut with his bands and feet chained; and at a gathering of European inhabitants it was resolved to keep him till means could be found to send him to Wellington for trial. One morning, the honorary gaolers went to to take their prisoner's breakfast—they found he required none. His faithful wife had broken into the improvised gaol with the fatal weapon. She had seated herself behind her unhappy spouse, and the muzzle of the discharged gun was found between his hands—his toe on the* trigger. His head had fallen back on her shoulder, and hers rested on his. They were both dead! One bullet had passed through the hearts of both; and, loving in life, in death they were not divided." (A very pretty story, but not founded on fact.)

A vebt charming young bride, who recently left a town not 100 miles distant from Ballarat to take the honeymoon trip, was observed (says the Star) at the railway station to possess one of the finest black eyes that ever charmed the heart of an Irishman. A lady friend, overflowing with sympathy, inquired tenderly whether the newly-made benedict (" the brute") bad inflicted the injury. " Brute! " echoed the bride hysterically ; an i\ then came out the story that the heel of an old boot, thrown for luck, bad struck her as she was tearfully gazing from the carriage upon her father's home.