LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume XXII, Issue 9119, 20 May 1880, Page 2

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Wanganui School Committee. — The Committee will meet for the dispatch of business at eight o’clock this evening. Good Templars. — A meeting of Wanganui Lodge, No 49, was held in Harding’s Rooms yesterday night, when an election of officers took place, and arrangements were made for holding regular weekly meetings. Price of Wool. — In explanation of the recent fall in wool as compared with the opening sales, the Sydney Morning Herald states that it is due to the decrease in the French demand consequent on strikes in France. Handsome Donation. — Messrs York and Cornfoot have sent a donation of £10 in aid of the funds of the Fire Brigade, in recognition of the exertions of that body on the occasion of the saw mill being burnt. Though heavy sufferers by the fire, Messrs York and Cornfoot evidently think the brigade did their utmost to save the property. The Manawatu Accident. — The information laid at the instance of the Collector of Customs against Captain Doyle, Mr R. S. Martin, the agent, and the purser of the p.s. Manawatu, for breaches of the Merchant Snipping Act, were set down for hearing on Tuesday last, but on the application of Mr Izard, Crown Prosecutor, they were postponed till Tuesday next, the 25th inst. Football. — An alphabetical match will be played on Saturday afternoon, on the Recreation Ground, between the two following sides :— A to L — Aamodt, Allison, Thos., Aiken, Barnes, Barton, Broughton, Holdich, Carr, Chaldicott, Godwin, Davis, Bell, Greenwood, Blyth, Barnicoat, Fitzherbert, Bates. M to Z — Montgomery, W. M., Marshall, G., Powell, Thatcher, Towgood, Pawson, T., Walker, Whitcombe, Smith, W. M., Smith, P., G. Townsend, Smith, E., Moore (Wanganui), Tyndell. The Arethusa Company. — There was again a very good house at the Princess Theatre last night. The Woman in Red was the piece in the bills, and the manner in which it was put on the stage was very creditable to the management. Mrs Walter Hill as Rudiga, which is the principal character in the play, stistained the part admirably, and was twice called before the curtain. Miss Arethusa May and Miss Bessie Vivian also played well, and received a call. A capital evening’s entertainment concluded with the amusing farce the Swiss Swains, which afforded Miss Jennie Nye an opportunity of displaying her excellent singing and dancing. At the conclusion of the Woman in Red, Mr Burford thanked the audience for the reception accorded to the Company in Wanganui, and stated that should the Manawatu not arrive in time to leave by to-night’s tide, a farewell performance will be given this evening, when Formosa will be repeated. Promotion. — We see by the Wellington papers that Mr J. Calders, who has for some time occupied the position of assistant officer in charge of the local Telegraph Office, has been promoted to that of officer in charge of the Telegraph Office and chief clerk to the Chief Post Office at Westport. During his connection with the local office, Mr Calders has always been known as a most courteous and obliging officer, while he has earned for himself the reputation of being one of the best and most careful operators in the colony. Being a native of Wellington, it is almost needless to say that his genial habits have secured him a large circle of friends, who will regret his departure from amongst them. The residents at Westport may be congratulated on the appointment, which is one of the results of the amalgamation of offices in the three chief postal towns on the West Coast which was recently decided upon by Government. Mr J. Calders is a brother of Mr H. Calders, officer in charge of Telegraphs, Wanganui.

Whit Monday. — A Wellington paper growls because the Banks were closed on Whit Monday without notice having been given to the public. Our contemporary says that much inconvenience was caused to country customers, who knew nothing about it until they found the doors closed. Fire Brigade. — Messrs Wakefield and Hogg, the well-known chemists, have very kindly offered to supply any member of the Fire Brigade with medical requisites when they are required in consequences of injury received whilst on active service. Privileges. — The privileges for the Aramoho Schooling Steeplechases on the 21th instant were yesterday sold, according to announcement, by Mr F. R. Jackson. There was spirited bidding for the gate, which brought £40, Mr B. McCaul being the purchaser. The publican’s booth went to Mrs Campbell for £8, and the cards to Mr Eales for £8, and the right to use the totalisator to Mr Coburn for £2 10s. Gaming and Lotteries Bill — It is stated that among the measures now being got ready by the Ministry is the Gaming and Lotteries Bill, which it is understood will be introduced in the Legislative Council early in the session by Mr Whitaker in very similar shape to the Bill shelved last year, as to the provisions regarding lotteries, raffles, art unions, sweeps, and consultations. Inspecting Officer’s Parade — Major Noake attended at Hawera on Monday (says the Star), for the purpose of inspecting the Hawera Rifles, but there was not an assemblage of even the “glorious three” to welcome their commanding officer. After all, Colonel Leckie must now feel a sensation of pride. Three assembled to do him honour, but there was not even a solitary one to meet the gallant Major. Fatal Accident. — A fatal accident occurred at Oamaru on Sunday afternoon, by which a lad 16 years of age, named Charles Haggie, lost his life. He and a companion were out shooting, and when in the act of putting on an overcoat one of the guns exploded, and the charge entered Haggie’s side, killing him almost immediately. At the inquest a verdict of “Accidental death” was returned. Alarm of Fire. — Mrs Cameron’s house, at the corner of Keith and Plymouth streets, narrowly escaped destruction by fire yesterday afternoon. A gentleman who chanced to be passing the spot at about half-past three o’clock heard some screaming, and on going into the house found the curtains and the scrim of the wall and ceiling of the front room in a blaze. By strenuous exertions he was enabled to put out the flames before they spread further, so that no great amount of damage was done. Mrs Cameron does not know how the fire arose. There were two little boys in the room at the time of the occurrence, but neither of them can say anything about it except that the curtains suddenly broke out in a blaze. Owing to the rapidity with which it was extinguished, the fire-bell was not rung. Wellington Prisoners. — It cannot be said that the authorities at the Wellington Gaol neglect the prisoners so far as education is concerned, The space between tea and bedtime is turned to good account by keeping school. Those prisoners who can be improved in this way are taught by masters, themselves prisoners, whose ability and good conduct have warranted their appointment to such a responsible position, and some of the pupils show not a little aptitude, the copy-books of the majority being most creditable. If education tends to prevent crime, then Mr Read ought certainly to be congratulated upon the fact, that he is adopting the best means at his disposal for reforming those whose conduct has caused them to be placed under his care. — N.Z. Times. Fire Insurance — The Aucklanders with their splendid water supply and efficient Fire Brigade (says the Auckland correspondent of the Otago Times) are chafing under the new tariff arranged by the holy alliance of the fire insurance companies. They fail to see why they should pay for the losses incurred through indiscreet risks in marine business. It is stated that s number of business men have already agreed to give risks amounting to £30,000 (but ultimately to be made up to £100,000) to any English company starting an agency here, apart from the associated tariff. It is a great pity that the companies should oscillate between a tariff which is confessedly exorbitant on the one hand, and on the other one which, from its ruinously low and reckless character, is simply promoting incendiarism. There is no reason why such a scale should not be adopted as, while giving a fair and reasonable profit to those institutions, would at the same time prove satisfactory to the assured. How it Works. — A storekeeping firm in Otago have treated their customers to the following forcible circular : — “We beg to intimate that we are under the necessity of placing the business carried on in our Gore store on a ready-money footing. We find ourselves quite unable to cope with the situation in any other way ; we opened with a belief in our ability to manage a general store and give reasonable accommodation in the way of credit, without making any losses of consequence. Our belief in our own smartness has been very much shaken. We have been victimised to the extent of several closely written pages of names, and for sums we do not care to mention. We can only account for the growing spirit of dishonesty by its being cultivated in Legislation ; but, however produced, we have to protect ourselves from its effects as best we can. Honest men there are as well as rogues, but our attempt at classifying them has proved a disastrous failure. In another and a better world it may be done to some purpose, but here it is a perplexing task, when we find someone has imposed on us with an ingenuously innocent appearance and a plausible story and (for a crime which is really stealing) deserves to be exhibited with the Broad-arrow on the back of his coat and the legs of his trousers, the laws of this free and happy country shield him from harm, in a way that commands the admiration of anyone who thinks it part of the duly of a State to foster a spirit of rascality among its citizens. In a land where ‘honesty’ is generally recognised as being the ‘best policy,’ a profitable credit trade may be done without exorbitant profits ; but here, where the old-fashioned idea is exploded, and the belief is substituted that it is ever so much the better policy to prey on your confiding neighbour, we, at all events, can’t do it. We have been thus explicit for the purpose of showing that the step we are taking has been forced upon us. We think our attempt to establish a cash business is entitled to the support of the people in the district who pay their accounts ; they are the principal sufferers from the storekeepers’ bad debts. The profits of trade must be regulated by its risks, and if the storekeeper means to keep himself from bankruptcy he must make the honest man pay for the rascal, by taking larger profits.”

Patea Breakwater. — The Patea Mail says :— The breakwater was visited by Mr Under Secretary Cooper, on Saturday, accompanied by the Chairman of the Harbour Board. Mr Cooper expressed surprise at the extent of improvement effected in the bar entrance, and said he had been quite unaware that the Patea river could admit coasting ships, or that any important improvement was in progress. We believe this absence of precise knowledge as to the character of the Patea district may be taken as representing the average acquaintance of Government officers with this part of the colony. A Scheme for Dunedin. — In his monthly report to the Dunedin Harbour Board, Captain Hanson suggests that a penal establishment for New Zealand should be formed at Haywards Point. This point, which is just below Port Chalmers, is said to be a very out of the way place, suggestive of a sort of Siberia, and if his recommendation is carried out, the Harbour Master desires to have the prison labour utilised in the forming of a breakwater, which would remove the bar. The report was referred to the Works Committee for consideration. A Turquoise Mine. — For the first time in two hundred years, the old turquoise mine in Chalchuti Mountain, New Mexico, is being re-opened. In 1680 work was suspended on the mine, the cause being the caving in of the shaft and the subsequent death of some 100 Indians who were at work below. An attempt made by the Spanish to force the Indians to begin again and reopen the shaft led to a rebellion, and probably was one of the causes which forced the Indians to an uprising and the subsequent expulsion of their rulers from the country. The extent to which these mines have been worked may be conjectured by the vast amount of debris lying around the old shaft, covering no less than fifteen acres of ground. This mine is the only turquoise mine on the continent, and as the gem has always a market value, it will ere long be one of the recognised sources of wealth in New Mexico. Fresh Salmon. — The Strathleven experiment has another side to it which does not yet seem to have struck anyone. “AEgles” expounds it pleasantly :— Mr George Coppin’s opportune suggestion, that in exchange for our cold mutton sent to London we may look out for fresh salmon, turbot, &c., opens up a pleasantly appetising prospect. For a shorter voyage the experiment has been successfully demonstrated. Thirty years ago canvas-back ducks came regularly across the Atlantic in the icehouses of the Cunard and Collins’ steamers. Captain Caldwell (afterwards of Messrs Caldwell, Train and Co., Melbourne) about 1850, brought in winter from Boston, in his fast sailing ship the Plymouth Rock, as many dead hogs as he could hang in his ’tween decks, sweet and sound, without ice or artificial process, and he obtained a very good price in St John’s Market. During the winter just closing in England 3000 Canadian fresh salmon were landed in perfect condition on the quays of the Thames. So that, with our genial comedian, I look forward with some impatience, but with confidence, to a slice of haddock and a fresh herring. The Great Speech. — The Rangitikei Advocate lets the junior member down thus :— “From one end of the colony to the other, Mr Ballance’s speech has been adversely criticised, and his attach on the interim report refuted. As the New Zealand Times and the leading Auckland journals say, Mr Ballance addressing a Wanganui audience and the same gentleman on the floor of the House, are two entirely dissimilar people. Warmed-up by the cheers of his thick and thin followers, he is capable of great flights of “highfaultin” oratory ; but the moment he misses the friendly cheers he is cowed and tame. We believe last session it was really pitiable to see the evident fear and trembling which possessed him whilst addressing the House in defence of his Liberal friends, as he knew full well the keenedged sword of the member for Timaru’s sarcastic tongue was hanging over him, and would descend ere long to his utter confusion and shame. In the hands of Mr Wakefield, the junior member for Wanganui is as easily dissected as a spring chicken ; his arguments literally fall to pieces the moment they are touched. The Dunedin Fire. — The Evening Post gives the following particulars relating to the recent fire in the office of the Commissioner of Railways :— “The destructive fire which, as will he seen by our telegrams, occurred in Dunedin yesterday morning, may be characterised without exaggeration as a colonial disaster. The loss sustained in the destruction of the office of the Commissioner of Railways, with its valuable contents, cannot be estimated by any mere money equivalent. It included the demolition of a vast accumulation of documents containing the practical history of the railway system from its first initiation at Invercargill and Lyttelton, together with an immense mass of carefully compiled statistics, upon which some most important calculations were to be based, also the valuable engineering library of Mr Conyers and other things which money cannot replace. The full extent of the damage is hardly yet known. Fortunately the officers managed to save a large number of Morse telegraph instruments, procured for telegraph railway purposes, which were in the building, and which were valued at over £1000. It is hoped too that some of the papers may have been rescued, but this cannot yet be ascertained. Mr Conyers had left Dunedin last Thursday, and is now in Wellington preparing his annual report for presentation to the Government. Extraordinary Capture of a Shark. — On Sunday morning last, Messrs D. White and H. Talbot went for a pull to the bank beyond the Motueka harbour, Nelson, and on arriving there, the children who accompanied them took off their boots and socks for the purpose of wading in the tide, which at the time was making. Just after the children left the water, a large shark was observed beating about very near them, and Messrs Talbot and White at once made up their minds to secure him if possible. Mr shark approached to within a few feet of them, and upon finding the water too shallow for him to get nearer, he turned to go back, but as he was in the act of doing so, Mr David White with great pluck rushed into the water and seized his tail for the purpose of dragging him ashore, which feat he accomplished. The shark turned upon him several times whilst he was in the act of doing so, but each time White gave him a sudden jerk, and so prevented him from reaching his arm with his mouth. After lauding him upon the bank, they half killed him by battering his head with a huge stick, and afterwards towed him across the harbour and landed him at the Retreat Inn at the rear of which he could be seen all day on Sunday. It was a blue shark, and about eight feet long from tip to tip ; he lived about two hours after arrival at the inn. The water where White seized him was about two feet deep.

English Cavalry Horses. — The English Government has decided upon establishing several stud farms for the purpose of breeding artillery and cavalry horses. A very few years ago the regulation price from £40 to £50 would every year secure as many chargers as were wanted for the service, but latterly the supply has completely failed. Thoroughbred cart horses are easily to be had for £20 or £25, as are also thorough or three quarter bred carriage horses from £65 upwards. But the medium priced animal on which we used to mount our cavalry, seems to have disappeared from our market, and the authorities have nothing left for it but to provide for their own wants in this respect, as is done in other European countries. A Deserted City. — According to the New York Sun the United States now boasts the finest ruin in the world, an American Baalbek in fact. It is the erewhile city of Pithole, Pennsylvania ; once a place containing 20,000 inhabitants, and now owning but three families. Its history is a peculiarly sad one. In 1861 “oil was struck” accidentally, and immediately all the population of the adjacent districts flocked to the scene. Houses were erected, lots apportioned, streets marked out and built, Government offices, establishments, churches, chapels, theatres, drinking saloons, all grew apace. In a very short time Pithole bid fair to become one of the most flourishing townships of the Union. Two years passed by. All was going merrily forward, when suddenly the oil ceased flowing. Then a stampede ensued for places where petroleum was to be found. Away went the populace, and, following them, the officials, until three families only remained to plough up the streets and grow wheat where once the citizens had disported themselves. In the eyes of the American paper that records this, but one satisfaction remains, and it is that happily all the great classes of political thought in the States are still represented at Pithole, for while one of the remaining residents is a Greenbacker, the second is a Democrat, and the third a Republican. Female Servants. — The movement of emigration is always rather slack in the winter months, but the agents of the New Zealand Government are just sending off a shipload of nominated passengers from Plymouth. About one hundred of these are single women, drawn mostly from the ranks of our domestic servants, and intended, in the first instance, for the same walk of life in the colony. It appears nearly certain that the young women who have proceeded to New Zealand have sent back very flourishing accounts to their friends. Wages there for domestic servants are more than twice as high as with us, and there is besides the chance — something like a certainty, indeed — of early marriage. The bait cannot but be tempting to the fair sex in a country where women, according to political economists, are redundant, and the number of spinsters and old maids greatly on the increase. The only question is, do these female emigrants marry well in New Zealand ? That marriage is a lottery, is an adage as old as the hills. Husbands may be plentiful enough in the Antipodes, but arc they always of the right sort ? The offers made are not always such as an honest girl should accept ; while the excellent parti, with his grant of land which he cultivates himself, may prove on a closer acquaintance a gentleman who purposes to turn his wife into a mere household drudge. Nevertheless, the stream of female emigrants sets steadily towards the Antipodes, and housewives at home complain more and more that the class from which domestic servants are drawn is rapidly thinning out. — Home News, 26th February. Mental Culture. — At a public meeting of the Nelson Young Men’s Christian Association held last week, the Rev R. Bavin spoke on the value of mental culture. He urged upon young men to nightly employ the minds with which God had endowed them by reading and reflecting. Careful reading brought general pleasure. The more they used their minds the more their opacity for study would he strengthened. Numbers of instances were on record of men who in their boyhood were dull scholars but who by hard work, and perseveringly plodding on, gathered such strength of mind as to become celebrated men in science and literature. He considered it degrading to any young man to spend all his leisure hours in gymnastics and physical exercise, while his mind was ignorant and uncultivated. Physical exercises and mental culture should be combined. He sympathised with the movement for the shortening of the hours of labour, and all that he could do to assist the young men in that direction he would gladly do. He considered it the duty of every man and woman to endeavour to contribute to the mental wealth, of the nation. Every young man owed a duty to the nation in this respect, If it was dangerous for their hands to be idle, it was imminently more perilous for their minds to be unemployed. He urged all young men to employ their time in mental culture ; to guard against temptations to evil ; to have a fixed, worthy purpose in life, and to be thoroughly in love with that purpose. In the language of the poet, he urged them to live for the good they could do.