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Thames Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2956, 6 August 1878, Page 2

We are authorised to state that the purchase of the Young New Zealand mine at auction the oilier day was effected in the interests of the shareholders who had paid their calls, and that shares will be allotted to them in the united company formed of the Welcome and other miues.

To-day's sitting of the Native Lands Court was occupied with the hearing of the case re the Kareremokai block of 5 acres 1 rood 1 perch, situated atKcrikori. The claimants are Hohepa iiauhihi and others, the hearing of whose case is now finished. The counter claimants are Aperahatna Eeiroa, whose case was being heard this afternoon. The sitting of the Native Lands Court in Shortland is expected to terminate in about a fortnight's time. A great number of Natives have left for their homes lately. The Port Darwin line is interrupted north of Daly Waters. We have received from the Government Printing Office a number of Bills introduced to the Assembly by Ministers this session. The following appointment is gazetted : In the Thames Naval Volunteers, Thomas Lawless to be Sub-Lieutenant. Date of commission, 29th April, 1878. « * Mb Curtis has given notice of his resolutions for reconstruction of the egislative Council and reform of the powers of that Chamber, with provision for avoiding a crisis like that which lately occurred in Victoria, and which was imminent in New Zealaud at the close of last session.

The employment of Native labor has given some trouble to those in charge of the works, and it has required more than ordinary tact to get anything like "a fair day's work for a fair day's wage" on those road works, the grants fo, 1 which were made on the conditioa of employing Native labor. Some have worked fairly and well, doing their work con amore; but there are loafers amongst the Maoris. Of one such we have heard. He was employed at the current rate of wage, but he shirked his work. When remonstrated with he said : " Well, you know. I couldn't dp a day's work under ten shillings a day, but, if you will give me thirty shillings a week I will stay away altogether." .It is needless to say that he was sent to the right-about at once, for although he was capable of mischief when among3t the workers, he had not the influence of a chief, and could very well be dispensed with as a worker. He is only a type of loafer te be met with amongst other people besides Maories. It may have been noticed by some readers that a proposal has been made for the settlement of some of Mr G. Vesey Stewart's second batch of immigrants on lands in the Wangarei district. We are not prepared to say why such a proposition has been made, as we were under the impression that Mr Stewart had secured an eligible block of land on which to locate the immigrants now supposed to foe on their way to this country, but we may relate an incident that was reported as having lately occurred. It is this. Some travellers from Tauranga to Ohioemuri on a recent occasion passed through the new " settlement." Mr Stewart's son was one of the number, and he enquired what certain lines and pegs were being inserted for on some very precipitous hills. On being told that they were to indicate the boundaries of selections in his father's second settlement, he is reported to have said that if his "dad" introduced settlers to such allotments he would have to make himself scarce, as revolvers would be in demand.; The only business at the Ji.M. Court this morning was one case of drunkenness in which the offender was on bail. He failed to appear, and his bail was forfeited. Capt. Fraser, E.M., was on the Bench.

The usual quarterly meeting of the Northern Pioneer Lodge, 1.0. G.T., was held last night in the Templar Hall, Eolleston street, when the officers who had been elected at the previous session to fill the various offices for the ensuing term of three months, were duly installed by Bro. T. Hammond, L.D., assisted by Bros. Geo. N. Phillips and S. West of the Star Lodge, representing the Worthy Grand Logde. The following were the officers:-W.C.T., Bro. Edwin Doidge ; *W.Y'T., Sister Kate Kichards (vice Bro. W. J. Addey, elect); W.S., Bro. Lyster (re-elected); W.F S., Bro. W. J. Speight; W.T., Bro. J. Cocks (re-elected); W.C., Sister Richards, sen. ; W.M., Bro. J. B. Doidge; W.1.G., Bro. Smythe ; W.0.G., Bro. Keid ; W.R.H.S., Bro. Kodder ; W.L.H.S., Sister C. Grundy ; W.A.S., Bro. D. Scott; W.D.M., Sister Bridges. A vote of thanks was accorded to the retiring officers. The Herald's special at Wellington wires the following :—A capital story, and a true one, deserves to be chronicled. Yesterday, an old Maori woman was seen standing in front of a great brick building, of five stories—now being erected by Messrs Jacob, Joseph and Co. ' She stood looking at the pile with folded arms for a minute or two, and then, out-stretching her hand, with clenched fist, addressing the building, exclaimed : " Taihoa te ru haertmai," that is, being interpreted, " Wait! the earthquake will come." The following items of Dunedin news are supplied by the Press Agency : Mr A. Lee Smith, the employer of the girl Caroline Young, who is being prosecuted for concealment of birth, will to-day commence a criminal prosecution for libel against the proprietors of the Saturday Advertiser for comments published by it concerning the case.—The Dunedin School Committtee last night discussed the question as to whether Government should allow the chairmen of school committees, when forwarding lists of candidates for the Civil Service, Wellington, to include the^ names of youths attending' Roman Catholic schools. The Government had intimated that they would be glad to receive names of youths attending any schools. Professor McGregor and Mr Fish condemned their action, while Mr Eobin said that he thought it was but an act of simple justice!—At the meeting of the University Debating Society, held last night, Professor Hutton delivered a lecture proving that it was'impossible that! life could have originated on the earth by physical causes. ■ , i

A Wellington telegram says:—The Enterprise, schooner,. which sailed from here for Wanganui, with railway iron, on the 26th ultimo, put. back. to-day. She twice reached the Wanganui bar, and was blown away each time. She tried to reach Port Underwood for shelter, but could not. During the neavy weather Captain Baillie tried to make headway until all the sails were blown away. It was remarked that the captain was somewhat eccentric in his behaviour soon after leaving Wellington, and, \ thenceforward his conduct became excitable and irritable. The crew asked that the captain be lashed down, but Mr Day, the mate, would not hear of it. Having two new sails on board, these were bent, and the vessel headed for Wellington. Yesterday morning, while a couple of hands were aloft, the man at the wheel shouted, " The captain has jumped overboard." The life-buoy was immediately thrown overboard, but Captain Baillie was soon observed to disappear. There was one case of liquor on board, but it was brought back untouched. ~- .

Otjb Auckland Morning contemporary, the New Zealand Herald, lately indulged in a bit of blow over the fact that it had secured " a special wire" on the New Zealand telegraph, and we have noticed that the Star claims to hare secured the same privilege. This is all very well, but the Telegraph Regulations make no provision for these advanced journalistic enterprises, and we are not aware of any recent telegraphic extension to meet the demand that must arise if such concessions be granted. If one morning paper can secure a special wire, others should be able to do so; and if the enterprise of evening papers leads the proprietors in that direction in the race of competition, how are the Government going to meet tke demand? It is not a question of money, exactly, as there is nothing in the Telegraph Regulations to authorise the Government giving special privileges to one paper. This special wire business will lead to complications which the Government may feel it difficult to get out of. Some of our telegrams this session have been unduly delayed — probably through tie special wire monopoly. If more instances occur we shall feel bound to bring this special wire business under the notice of the House. , If allowed to interfere with ordinary messages it can only be by a piece of illegal and unjustifiable favoritism, against which we protest; and as tlie present resources of the Telegraph Department are absolutely unequal to giving special wires to all papers that might desire them, we protest against any concession to partizan papers which tends to interfere with the legitimate business of the department.

" A Goitntey Pabson " writes to the Pall Mall Gazette as> follows :—"When the agricultural laborer gets the franchise what will he do with it? So soon as he has got his beer and his tobacco duty free he will,, I think, forthwith proceed to disgust his Radical friends by going in, heart and soul, for the repeal of the Education Act of 1876. This summer, for the first time, the pinch of the labor clauses of that Act is beginning to be felt, and the agricultural mind is now rery sore. Yesterday a laborer came to me apgrily demanding why his children could not go to work, " same as last year, pulling brassocks.'' [Brassocks, by the bye, are the Latin brassica.'] 1 brought down the Act of Parliament, and carefully explained to him how and why it was lint his children's labor was now prohibited by the law. In a surly and determined tone, he muttered, "Then them laws 'ull hey to be altered. Folk won't stand 'em." To-day I, had to go through the same process of explanation with the mother of a large family, who had one baby ip arms, and another evidently coming. She was, still more angry than her neighbor had been ; but her remedy for the hardships of the Act was a threat, not of repeal, but of infanticide. "If that's the law about the bairns, then a lot of 'em 'ull be put away." "Putting away," be it explained, is the current euphemism for child murder. Mr G. Q. Trevelyari and' his friends hardly realise the profound ignorance of the rural laborer on all political subjects. Tennyson's " Northern farmer " was an educated man when compared with the Northern Farmer's ''hind." Last year, in conversation with an^intelligent old man, the subject of the Eastern war was introduced. Unfortunately, he hadn't heard 'bout t' war, but, said he, placing his hand on his well-thumbed Eible which lay on the table, open at the Eook of Joshua, • there's a vast o' fightin' at t' back end o' t'Bible, and very good readin' it is.' Nor has the rising generation a much wider acquaintance with current politics than is possessed by their fathers. Her Majesty's inspector, examining the other day the first class in a large school, asked the children by whom this country was governed. 'By the Queen," a child J suggested. Such mere Prayer Book politics did not suit our inspector. ' Can't you tellme the name of any statesman— of any of the Queen's Ministers? ' The question was several times repeated in various forms without result, till at last one child, older than the rest, and of highersocial position, being the daughter of the. churchwarden of the parish, owned, .that she had heard tell of Lord Derby*:, It turned out, hqwever, that she knew nothing about him except his name. None of the other children had ever heard of him^or of Lord Beaconsfield or of Mr Gladstone, or of any statesman of more recent date than the reign of Sennacherib. It is to-these children, when they have forgotten the little which they have learned at school, and when their intelligence has been further cultivated for a few years by pulling brassocks—it is to these children, and to their parents, whose notions of 1 foreign politics are derived from the Book of Joshua, that it is gravely proposed to entrust the destinies of the British Empire, and we are now informed that this revolution is only a question of time. To us, . who live among these people and in daily intercourse with them, the proposal seems . not only criminal but absurd."