WELLINGTON.

Thames Star, Volume X, Issue 3092, 15 January 1879, Page 2

WELLINGTON.

This clay. Mr Dignan, M.H.8., is to be called to the Upper House. The Minister for Public Works is still urging on the contractor for the more rapid construction of the Featherston railway. The Extension of Wharf Committee hare resolved to further incretse the shed accommodation upon outer T by eighty feet. The land tax valuers appointed for Te Aro and Cook Ward, finding consider* able difficulty in obtaining a satisfactory valuation, asked of. the City Council to copy their assessment list but were refused. A of the City Council will shortly wait upon the Government to urge the immediate construction of a railway to the wharf, though it is said the Government intend doing so shortly. Mr Travurs' opinion being unfavorable to the Hutt-County Council's claim to one-twentieth of reclaimed land and other Provincial property, the opinion of Robert Hart is .to be now taken. Tolls on the Hutt bridge will be abolished after the 31st of this month. Eignold takes his farewell benefit tonight. ;':•.■ \ The Governors of Wellington College have decided on returning Mr Wilson, present principal, at the. salary proposed in their report, and advertise for a second master and a teacher of modern lan-

guages. . , A substantial testimonial is being got tip in Wairarapa for Mr Wakelin, editor and proprietor of the Wtirarapa Standard. - The Hutt County Council hare declined to allow traffic to go through the Kawara toll gate Free of charge. The question of penny banks hating been brought under notice of Education Department arrangements hare been nearly perfected, and new experiment will commence when the schools reassemble.

The Chronicle publishes Dt Skae's report of Mount View Asylum, Wellington. The report is of a most sensational character, showing that the institution is scandalously overcrowded. Beds are made up in bathrooms and other unusual places ; patients are wedged into some of the rooms so as to be scarcely able to move. He speaks of the impossibility of discipline under present circumstances, and of the disgusting practices of the patients who are unable to be restrained by supervision, and gays it would be an undeserved compliment to call it a prison. In no sense can it be called an asylum. He also refers to the danger ot serious crimes—such as marder, etc.—occurring through the disorganised state of the institution, and advises the Government that a circular should WSjent to the magistrates of the d|strio||^r instruct them not to commit any jnore patients to the asylum in its present condition. Tuesday.

Some considerable time ago' a robbery was committed at the Pier Hotel, and a man was convictefd of having perpetrated the robbery. For some reason the police were in thej)elief; that a person named Gollop, formerly a hotel proprietor at Nelson, was implicated in the robbery, and hearing that Gollop was applying for a license for a public house at Napier, Superintendent Atcluson telegraphed to the police authorities there that Gallop was a bad character and ought not to be allowed a license. This prevented Gollop for some time from obtaining a license, aud he petitioned the House of Represen*

tatiyes for redress on the grounds of persecution, but bis petition for some reason was never reported on. He subsequently applied for indemnification at the hands of the Supreme Oourt, on the grounds ■that he had been slandered by Superintendent Atchison. It also appeared the Colonial Secretary had been moved in the matter through a Nelson solicitor, and that on the Colonial Secretary applying to Atchison he merely meinoed the document by saying he saw no reason to change the opinion he always had. Mr Travers appeared for plaintiff; Mr Buckley for defendant. After a good deal of evidence, Mr Buckley asked for a nonsuit which was granted by the Chief Justice.

It is understood that Lord and Lady Normanby, accompanied by F. Le Patourel as private secretary, and Lord Hervey Phipps as aide-de-camp, Wave per s.s. Arawata on the 11th of February* His Excellency will most probably travel overland from Christchurcb. to the Bluff, and from thence the Arawata will take him to Melbourne, arriving there on the 22nd of February, a few hours prior to the'departure of Sir George Bowen.

It appears from an extract from a private letter by the Suez mail, that the N.Z.S. Company's ship Waikato, had a somewhat perilous passage home from Lyttelton last time, she being stuck in the ice for threo days, near the Horn. ■. Soon after that matches, oil, candles, and tobacco run short. In the tropics the vessel was becalmed for a week, and experienced head winds the remainder of the passage. Complaints are being made about short Weights and measures in Wellington. One person discovered, on an average, has been giving only 131bs of corn instead of 2Olbs. A labouror named Regan narrowly escaped poisoning on Saturday night by taking a large draught of caustic potash out of a bottle, mistaking it for beer. An antidote being applied in time his life, was saved, but his mouth and throat are very much excoriated. \\ . ■

The Chronicle of Monday night, on a , liberal programme of policy, says the first point in the charter is manhood suffrage, subject to residence and registration, but manhood suffrage, it says, is & sham without equal electoral districts; and asks what benefit is it that every man shall have a vote if the colony is ; to,retain its rotten boroughs, and tor the House to be crammed with nominees of Taranaki and Motueka. It strongly advises any liberal organisation to include an income tax in its programme, but it must be founded on equality of sacrifice, and goes on to show that the larger it comes it should be compelled to pay a larger per cehtage than the smaller ones, "which would gire an income tax a reality of fairness." The amount of customs duties collected at the various ports of the colony on tea and sugar from Ist to 10th January, 1879, compared with the same period of 1878, shows—tea, 1878, £2270, in 1879, £7216; sugar, 1878, £4276, in 1879, £6985. This increase is attributed in a great measure to the fact that there has been little tea or sugar taken out of bond during December. : Mr Stevens, Secretary New Zealand Rifle Association, accompanied by several local officers, visited the spot selected for'prize firing; and was highly pleased with it. The ranges can be secured if necessary to fifteen hundred yards. It is fine dry land close to the Bridgewater railway station, 12 miles from Kelson, and -with telegraph wire passing through it. , The river is close by for bathing, and stores and provisions of all kinds are obtainable in.the immediate vicinity. The site is good and it is in every way a most suitable raftge.. Firing will probably commence the first Monday in March. •"'■""'