LOCAL AND GENEEAL.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume XXII, Issue 8112, 12 May 1880, Page 2

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Land Sale To-day. — We beg to remind our readers that Mr Albert Barns will sell to-day, at 2 o’clock, at his mart, the the 21 years’ lease of the forty building sections into which the St John’s Nursery has been cut up.

Borough Council. — At a meeting of the Council held last night, the annual balance-sheet and the auditors’ reports thereon were received and passed, and ordered to be printed. A Waif. — Yesterday a gentleman on his way from the Heads to town picked up a sealed gin bottle on the river bank, close to the edge of the water. The bottle contained a letter written on a scrap of stained white paper. The following is a copy :— “Dear Joseph, good-bye. We are lost in the Nairncairn, off Honolulu. Money gone down. Your partner, J. Nathan.” The paper is endorsed J. J. and Co. Football. — The Patea Mail says that three accidents happened during Saturday’s match at Carlyle. Mr Pringle, the captain of one team, had his shoulderblade broken, Mr Coutts, the captain of the other team ; had his wrist severely sprained ; and a third player had the wind knocked out of him, and continued in great pain for ten minutes, but does not seem to have been otherwise damaged. American Wheat Export. — The magnitude of the American wheat export movement is hardly comprehended without practical explanation. If, says an American writer, the export of wheat for 1879 was loaded on freight cars, 60 feet long, 400 bushels to a car, it would require for its transportation 256,452 cars, which, if made up in one continuous train, would extend 2346 miles. If loaded in ships 300 burden, it would require a fleet of 825 ships to convey the wheat alone across the ocean. This export of wheat has brought into the States in exchange for it, in gold or its equivalent, more than £20,000,000. The Native Difficulty. — A correspondent to the Auckland Star writes :— “I have just returned from Patea, Normanby, and the West Coast, and can safely say that Native matters are not in the bad state they are represented to be. The Natives are friendly, but not flash of money, and storekeepers complain that the Maori trade is not brisk. The statement of the special correspondent to the Auckland Herald that the Taranaki settlers wish to prolong the present state of affairs, is wrong. The camps are too far off to be of any benefit to the tradespeople in New Plymouth, and the men are supplied by a contractor who lives at Hawera, and gets the whole of his stores from Wellington. The quicker the affair is settled the better the settlers will be pleased.” Late Polling. — The late election (says the Advocate) illustrated a peculiar tendency, which some even intelligent persons seem to exercise, in keeping back their votes until as late an hour as possible on the day of polling. One would verily believe that they were deluded with the idea that a vote in the afternoon has more virtue and possesses greater weight in turning the scale favourably towards their own party than if deposited in the ballot-box at an earlier hour. As an example, whereas the number of votes polled at Marton during the first five hours were respectively 9, 16, 21, 19, 29 ; between two and three p.m. they jumped up to 76 ; and between three and four p.m. amounted to the number of 63 ; and this, too, in spite of the fact that many who voted in the afternoon were hanging about the Courthouse during the greater part of the morning. The Great Newspaper Country. — The San Francisco Call says: — “Our great progress in journalism is shown by the fact that in 1775 there were in the United States less than forty newspapers and periodicals, whose aggregate issue for that year comprised 1,200,000 copies ; now the united press publishes over 500 daily newspapers, more than 4000 weeklies, and about 600 monthly publications ; of the dailies that existed in 1870, about 800,000,000 copies were struck off that year ; and of weeklies, about 600,000,000 ; and of other serial publications about 100,000,000, amounting in all to a total of 1,500,000,000 copies. And to sum the matter up yet more forcibly, it must be stated that the United States publishes more newspapers, with greater combined circulation, than all the other countries of the world can boast of having. The oldest paper of uninterrupted publication in this country is the Hartford Courant, which has already attained the hoary age of 110 years. In regard to its last birthday it plaintively says, ‘We believe that with the already announced death of a New Hampshire paper, recently, at the age of 116, we are left in a condition of absolute isolation. The last of our early contemporaries is gone.’ ” Oil Train on Fire. — A railway accident, unattended by loss of life, but representing a spectacle at once terrible and picturesque, took place on the New York, Lake Erie, and Western railroad, in the woods near Southfield, New Jersey, a small station about forty miles distant from New York. An oil train, containing 20-tank cars was run into by a freight train, whose driver, owing to a heavy snowstorm, was unable to see the signals against him. The engineer and driver of the oil train managed to save their lives by jumping into a snowbank just before the collision ; but the engine of the freight train crashed into the oil-cars, and lay huddled up with them on the tracks. The fire of the engine soon spread to one of the oil tanks, and in a few minutes the whole mass was wrapped in flames. Nine tanks, containing 180,000 gals of crude petroleum were at once in a blaze. The oil ran into the woods, and “giant tongues of flame shot heavenward.” Occasionally an oil-tank would become overheated, the gas would generate too fast, and an explosion, from the effects of which the ground trembled as from an earthquake, would ensue. “A scene of wilder grandeur,” it is stated, “could not well be imagined.” The scene must, indeed, have been almost inconveniently grand, for not only were the trees in the neighbourhood reduced to ashes, but “one by one the telegraph wires were separated, and their ends fell to the ground.” The heat was be intense that the railway officials and a few hundred spectators from the adjacent villages were obliged to remain at a distance until the fire had expended its force, and things assumed a less sublime but more comfortable aspect. A Fat Official. — An exchange says : — “The Glasgow Town Council have a Town Clerk, named Dr Marwick, who receives a salary of £3500. He recently sent in a bill for £8000 for special work, and the Council paid him £4000 on account, but have now asked him to refund that sum.”

Diptheria. — This disease is said to be still very prevalent amongst residents on the Whenuakura Block. R.M. Court. — Andrew Wm. Malcolm appeared on remand yesterday, charged with having neglected to comply with a Magistrate’s order to support his wife and children. The information stated that the amount now owing was £15 12s. Prisoner, who admitted the facts, said he was unable to pay off any of the arrears at present, but believed he could pay £4 in a month. He was remanded till the 10th of June, to give him the opportunity of finding the money, and his Worship reminded him that the weekly allowance (£1 4s) was still running on, and must be paid in addition to the arrears. The above case was the only one before the Court. Imported Game. — Sportsmen would do well to remember that the proclamation under “The Protection of Animals Act, 1873,” which was gazetted on the 16th of last month, and allows the shooting of cock pheasants and Californian quail in the Counties of Wanganui and Rangitikei between the 1st of May and the 31st of July, does not include hen pheasants, There is a penalty of £20 attached to the offence of shooting the latter. In the County of Manawatu hares are included in the list of game which may be shot between the above dates. In the Counties of Taranaki and Patea the shooting season is the same, but only cook pheasants may be shot. The Native Minister. — The Lyttelton Times has a leader on the success of Mr Bryce’s management of the Natives, which thus concludes :— “Mr Bryce’s letalone policy works like a charm. It has not only brought the Natives to their senses, but also compelled the great Maori doctors to confess themselves utter quacks. Mr Sheehan is now, we believe, a junior partner of Mr F. A. Whitaker, and would be delighted, no doubt, to ‘landshark’ the whole of the Waikato on business terms. We should dearly like to hear Sir George Grey’s candid opinion of the whole thing. We wonder whether he would repeat to Mr Sheehan the speech that was said (by Punch) to have been delivered in private by Lord Palmerston to Lord Russell towards the end of their joint career :— ‘Oh, Johnny, Johnny, what a lot of jolly humbugs we are !’ ” Patea Harbour Board. — The annual balance-sheet of this Board was submitted at the adjourned meeting held on Monday. The Mail gives the following abstract :— The receipts during the year included £5000 as instalment of Government loan of £10,000 ; also sales of land reserves, £2472 ; rents of land reserves, £4 16s 3d ; rents of wharves, half-year, £192 3s 4d ; wharf dues, half-year, £189 0s 4d ; and other items, making a total income of £9059 3s 8d. The expenditure showed £4900 on account of Dickson’s contract ; £500 for Engineer’s salary ; £84 5s 6d for wharf extension ; and a number of small expenses, which, with balance in the Bank of £2380 17s 6d, make a total of £9059 3s 8d. The assets are set down at a total of £15,255 16s 1d ; estimating the breakwater as a contingent asset worth £9000, and the land reserves at £9285 16s 1d. The liabilities : £5000 received on loan, £500 as progress payment for construction of breakwater ; and £900 as balance of 10 per cent retained on breakwater payments ; showing a credit balance of £11,711 7s 4d. The Census of 1878. — The Hobart Town Mercury, in noticing that the census returns from New Zealand, taken on March 3, 1878, had not been published till February 9, 1880, says :— “They take things very quietly in New Zealand, and though it is the fashion to speak of Tasmania as a sleepy hollow, official business proceeds in New Zealand with a slow and measured tread that would not be tolerated in Tasmania ; in fact, no official in Tasmania would dare procrastinate in a manner that in New Zealand is met by the most superficial excuse.” The Cat. — Virginia has copied after Delaware, and established the whippingpost. The Mayors of cities are allowed to pronounce judgment under the new law, which the Mayor of Manchester, U.S., did in rather an original manner a few days ago. A white man was convicted of stealing a coat. The Mayor of Manchester sentenced him to receive thirty lashes, fifteen to be given at once, and the other fifteen if he was ever caught in the town again after leaving it. Evidently the New York Tribune is not averse to the lash, for, noticing this instance, it remarks :— “If there were a whipping-post in the Tombs there would be less crowding in the boarding-houses on Blackwell’s Island, and New York would not be compelled to harbour more than its share of the vagabonds and petty thieves of the country.