NEW PLYMOUTH.

Thames Star, Volume X, Issue 3100, 24 January 1879, Page 1

NEW PLYMOUTH.

Thursday. The weather is rery hot and dry. The farmers are cutting wheat. The bush is on fire in many places. A large fire on Mountain Hoad baa bnrnt several huts and piles of railway sleepers. Eain is much needed. If the wind springs up much damage will result. An albatross was found on the bench yesterday with a slip of metal round its neck bearing the following inscription :— •' Ship Tre.berg, from Boston for Batavia; latitude 86.15, south; longitude 428, west; October 7th, 1878." Mr Cutfield is dead. He came out as Commissioner to the New Plymouth Com* pany, and was in charge of their first expedition in March, 1841. He was formerly a naval architect, and was one of the oldest J's.P. in the Colony of New Plymouth. Mr Skinner, surveyor, who was ordered to Mokau, and had made every preparation for proceeding there himself, said jesterday, that after waiting some weeks, he had received counter orders from the Surveyor-General to proceed to Stratford. The strengthening of Opunake and Waihi garrisons is openly spoken of by Blythe and Co. themselves, and corroborated by an Opunake correspondent, and by a Carlyle correspondent of the Taranaki Herald. An embargo has been laid on the steamer Hannah at Mokau, lying on the Waitara. Wetera, of Mokau, has come

into town to demand one hundred pounds, the price paid for his share in the vessel.