PROVINCIAL AND GENERAL.

Tuapeka Times, Volume V, Issue 230, 27 June 1872, Page 8

PROVINCIAL AND GENERAL.

We (" Attow Observer ") hear that/ Messrs. Beetham, Turton, Eager, and Donne (bailiff) have each been served with writs to the tidy figure of £5000 each in connection with the late case of Eager v. Grace, known as "the great encroachment case." This must be a pretty fat suit for the lawyers when they can thus afford to distribute their favours (?) between plaintiff, solicitor, magistrate, and bailiff! . Verily, the gentlemen of the long robe are likely to bring the district into very questionable notoiiety; and we are fain to think we were much better off in the chiys of our simplicity, when mining agents conducted the legal business of the community.

A reckless attempt to interfere with vested interests has drawn the directors of the Central Pacific Railroad into a difficulty from which passengers using the line will wish them speedily relieved. With the view of making friends of the Shoshone Indians, whose wigwams aie dangerously near to the unprotected track running through Nevada, the directors invested them with the right of riding upon the luggage trains without payment. The privilege was fully appreciated and somewhat extensively enjoyed, the noble savages occasionally bringing their families with them, and luxuriating for a whole day or more in the pleasure of travelling on the top of a wagon of coal or astride of a bale of cotton. No objection was raised on the part of the company. It pleased the Indians, and it did not interfere with the traffic, while it was shrewdly calculated the Shoshones would be careful to" protect the interests of an undertaking whence they derived such profound satisfaction. But, unfortunately, the Shoshones have discovered that it is plcasanter to drive in a passenger car than by the luggage train. Accordingly, on Sunday before Christmas a strong detachment, including three chiefs, quietly took their seats in a comfortably furnished car which they found empty. The conductor, putting a bold face on the matter, asked for their tickets, whereupon the oldest chief made a brief harangue, the main purpose of which was that Lightning-Eye (meaning himself) was not in the habit of purchasing rulway tickets. With considerable difficulty the noble savages were handed out, and the train steamed on. But the affair was not permitted to end there. Lightning-Eye has conveyed to the proper authorities an intimation that, if ho and his tribe be not permitted to travel free of cost in any train they may select, they will tear up the track of the Central Pacific. Thus the matter rests. The New Zealand " Herald " asks— Would it not save trouble, as well as expense of printing, if the government were to gazette every man of twentyone years of age a J.P.! A Gazette never comes to hand that does not contain several of these appointments, which appear to be dealt out in a most liberal manner. In the last Gazette, of the 17th inst, there are four appointments. The Christians of Auckland certainly do love each other. Proof of this contaiued hi the following letter to the "Southern Cross:"— "To the EditorSir, — I notice in tho " Cross" of Monday that the Dissenters are about to pray for tho Roman Catholics. Let me suggest to my fellow-worshippers I that we have a week of prayer on be-^ half of Dissenters. Ono good tur« certainly deserves another. — You'rjfl &c, CATnouc." ' flp Nearly two thousand miles of irvto^* ting canals have been projected in California, which it is said, will protect ten million acres of land from drought. An important decision in respect to stamping documents was given iv Christchurch, by the Resident Magis- , trate, Mr. Bowen, on the sth instant. Mr. Mein sued Mr. Marmaduke Dixon under a sold note, signed by the latter onlji, and not by the plaintiff. The note, produced in Court by Dr. Foster, was stamped with a shilling agreement stamp, which on the face of it purported to have been affixed just before coming into Court. Mr. Cowlishaw, for the defendant, objected to the agreement being received as evidence until paymentofthe £10 penalty, citing the 9th sect, of the Stamp Act Ameudinent Act of 1867. Dr Foster, in reply, contended that this section only applied when an agreement was signed by both parties, and that the present case must be governed by the original Act of 18G8, which he contended allowed the agreement to be stamped at any time before coming into Court. Mr. Bowen decided that as the agreement was signed by one only of the parties, the Act of 1867 could not apply to the present case, and that according to the Act of 1866 it was properly stamped, and must be received as evidence. " 1 informed your readers last summer (says' the London correspondent of the " D. undee Advertiser)" that a committee of Scholars have been appointed by some of the learned societies in London to search the Scriptures in the original tongues for authentic information concerning the devil. The committee, 'whose labours havebeenvigorouslyfprosecuted,afenow preparing an" elaborate report, which will shortly be laid before those who are interested in the very mom6nous. subject of it. If all accounts be true, the report will make more noise in, theological circles than anything tha,t has appeared siuce Ecce B[opio,"