GENERAL NEWS.

Westport Times, Volume V, Issue 892, 25 November 1871, Page 2

GENERAL NEWS.

Salmon have been seen in the river Clutha this season. The increase in the value of wool represents an addition of income to Victoria alone of .£1,050.000." The " Nelson Examiner" is in favor of a tax of sixpence per acre on all land in private hands. It asks pertinently : —" What ' cockatoo' would grumble at a land tax of sixpence per acre on his small holding, if ail important necessaries could thereby come to him and his children untaxed ? Which of the lordly capitalists would not be starved out by such a tax ? The ponr man makes his acre bring in so much, that by him the tax would be unfelt. The capitalist lets his square mile produce so little, that to him it would be sheer ruin." Last week Caledonian scrip sank to £75. Later news states that they have recovered, and are again quoted at £IOO. A pension of £3OO per year has been provided by Government lor Mr Brannigan. which is to cease should he recover. Messrs V. and G. F. Bullen of Melbourne, have spent £15,000 in conrection with the Scandinavian Quartz claim, Skipper'Sj Otago^ Telegraphic communication with Europe by anr Australian overland line is expected to be established in January, 1872. Kecent rises in the rivers have depressd the river-claim gold mining ntcrests in the Lake District, Otago. Some Celestials at Cardrona, have been taking the law into their own hand, and ha\e suffered the cu:nsequences. They far outnumber the Kuropean miners at Cardronn, and true to th> ir character, made an onslaught on t!;c- latter on accot.nt of some boundary dispute claims, but they did not get the best of the row. However, a lawsuit in the KM. Court, Arrowtown, was the result, the Europeans claiming £l5O (50 in each case) damages for the assault. Mr Beetbaw, in giving judgment for £23, with £('j costs, expressed his regret that under the charges made, ho

was unable to make the punishment greater. The assault had been a most dastardly one, and in his opinion, criminal actions should have been brought instead of civil ones. Poverty Bay is going ahead. Shops and dwellings are going up in all directions, the erection of a school-house has been commenced, and it is even whispered that a newspaper will be started there before long. During the discussion on the Stamp duties, Mr Gillies suggested that instead of a tax on receipts for £2 they should impose a tax on photographs. Mr Vogel said it would be quite time to impose fancy taxes when they went into fancy expenditure. Mr Buzacott of the " Rockhampton Bulletin," has commenced legal proceedings against the "Northern Argus" for " piratically " appropriating the telegrams of the former journal. The case (the first of the kind) has attracted much attention, and the result is looked forward to with considerable interest. The Tichborne case seems to be coming even nearer home than it has hitherto done. It appears that the now famous Arthur Orton is believed to have proceeded to Ofcago about the year 1861, and it is therefore possible that some one in Otago may know something about him. If so, the police will be glad to receive any such informati >n. The description given of Orton as he appeared in 1858 is as follows : —Age, from 28 to 30; height, 5 feet 7 inches ; slender build, thin face with sharp features and sallow complexion , clean shaved ; hair of the head, dark and curly. He was a native of Loudon or the neighbourhood, and was dressed better than the ordinary run of the criminal class, of which he is beluved to have been a member, though no charge is now pending against him. An advocate for the establishment of retreats for inveterate drunkards, in a letter to the " Melbourne Argus" on the subject, quotes from one of the medical reviews that at the Washington Home, uear Boston, during nine years, 3,000 inebriates have been received, and 2,000 of them were cured. The Melbourne " Daily Telegraph" says:—"An invention likely to prove highly useful to persons interested in mining pursuits, if it realises the expectations entertained of it by the discoverer, has been made by Mr Roff, an ingenious mechanist, also the inventor of the self-registering weighing machine. He proposes by the aid of certain machinery to extract gold from quartz by means of melting the latter, and allowing it to flow over a bed of sand. The gold from its weight will sink in the sand, and can be easily gathered together, while the liquid quartz, it is said, will flow into a receptacle provided for the purpose. It will then be utilised in various ways, such as forming a kind of brick. It is of course too early yet to speak of the merits of the invention, but the discoverer is himself very sanguine of its value." There appears to have been considerable commotion in the management of the Caledonian mine recently. The manager, whose cordial working with the directors hitherto has been a matter of much comment, has at last differed with some of the more influential among them, and resigned his appointment. There having been no rule in the company which prevented the manager from speculating in its shares, the shareholders have always looked with distrust on the reports, and it is to be hoped that auy new manager will he prohibited from taking a similar course. Mr Rowe remains in office, at the request of the directors, till December. Rumours of considerable robberies of specimens by the men working in the mine are also prevalent, and we observe by a late telegram in the Auckland papers that they are obliged to submit to be searched now after every shift. The following from the " Bankers' Magazine") are provisions of an Imperial Act, passed on the 25th May, 1871, respecting obligations to make payments and do other acts on bank holidays:—" When the day on which any notice of dishonor of an unpaid bill of exchange or promissory note should be given, or when the day on which a bill of exchange or promissory note should be presented, or received for acceplance, or accepted, or ."forwarded to any referee or referees, is a bank holiday ; such notice of dishonor shall be given and such bill of exchange, or promissory note shall be presented or forwarded on the day next following such bank holiday." " No person shall be compellable to make any payment or to do any act upon such bank holiday which he would not be compellable to do or make on Christmas day or Good Friday; and the obligation to make such payment and do such act shall apply to the day following such bank holiday; and the making such payment and doing such act on such following day shall be equivalent to payment of the money or performance of the act on tho holiday." Judge Richmond recently made some remarks from the Bench upon the subject of administering oaths in Courts of Justice. The same question seems to be receiving, some attention in Victoria. One writer in the " Leader" says : —lt is high time that the .present law relating to the administration of oaths m courts of justice were modified. One woman refuses to be sworn because aho is in an interesting condition - ; tho testimony of another witness is objected to because his notions of the future state- are not exactiv those taught by either Dr. Perry, Dr Goold, or Dr Cairns. This witness makes a feint at

kissing the Testament, but takes care not to do so; that fumbles with her glove for half an hour before she takes it off. The Jew swears with his hat on. The Chinaman blows out a candle, "or cuts off the head of a cock. A. short measure, allowing every witness to go through any form which he considers binding on his conscience, and visiting on an untruth told in a Court of Justice the pains and penalties of perjury, would meet the case better than the present half barbarous expedients. The new Government in Fiji have •officially altered the title of Cakobau (Thahkombou) to Ebenezer, which is the name in which that potentate was baptised. King Ebenezer will be much less trying as an etymological puzzle to those unacquainted with the •intricacies of the Fijian alphabet, and this act—in the interests of foreigners —should have a cordial recognition. We also hear that King Ebenezer has taken kindly to the new position, and displays none of the arrogance feared from his elevation. The large building in Levuka, occupied as an hotel by chelate Mr Turner, has been purchased for a Government House, and fitted Tip for the use of the king and his attendants. An Auckland paper gives the following particulars of an affray at Wangapoa:—On Monday, the 30th ailtimo, an affray took place between the men employed by Thomas Craig and Harris's men at Wangapoa, which is very likely to prove fatal to one of the combatants. One of Craig's men was run at and stabbed in the left side near the heart by one of his opponents with a pike pole. The wound is a very severe one, and the man is not expected to survive. Doctor Payne, of Coromandel, on being acquainted with the facts, had gone over to see the injured man, but at the departure of the Lalla Rookh, had not returned. "The police had likewise been informed of the matter, aud were taking active -steps to bring the perpetrator to justice.