INTERPROVINCIAL NEWS.

Westport Times, Volume VII, Issue 1075, 27 May 1873, Page 2

INTERPROVINCIAL NEWS.

Commenting on Mr Macandrew's recent statement, that Otago last year contributed one-tbird of the total amount of Customs revenue raised in the Colony, the Lyttelton Times says : —"lf Mr Macandrew had said onefourth, he would have been much nearer the mark, but the exaggeration is pardonable under the circumstances. If Otago does not contribute one third of the Customs revenue, it is pretty clear that she does more than onethird of its business. Otago ' bagmen' are to be found everywhere, pushing trade and elbowiug less go-ahead people out of their own market." The Wellington correspondent of the Wanganui Herald writes : —" I heard a clergyman lately endeavoring to persuade his congregation to give liberally in aid of Maori misaions. He pleaded eloquently, but ho admitted that in the face of the news of last week he feared that there would be but little response to his advocacy. And ho was right. It was not Christian perhaps ; but certainly it was natural."

The Herald says that Colonel Haultain is mentioned as the probable successor to the Hon. Dr Pollea, in the office of General Government Agent in Auckland.

A boiling down company has sold out at Napier for £l2, 150. Mr James Mackay, jun. i 3 spoken of by the Auckland Star as " a man of plain speech and dauntless heart in dealing with the Maoris." Wellington Gas shares have been sold at £7, being an advance of 75 per cent, on their nominal value. Petroleum.—The Poverty Bay paper advocates the establishment of an oil distillery to utilise the petroleum spring in that district. It says that by the development of this industrv it is estimated that immediate employment would be afforded to quite 2000 men. Somo remarkable figures showing the intensity of the heat in Otago during 1872 are contained in an abstract of the meteorological observations taken daily at Dunedin during that year, published in the Provincial Government Gazette. The maximum temperature registered in the shado was 88 degrees on Christmas Day, as well as on the 28th of the preceding January The records of the exposed thermometer, registering tho heat in the sun's rays, are startling. The highest figure reached was IS6 degrees on January 18th, and tho heat on December 23rd was only two degrees loss. On November 30th, 171 degrees were recorded; on February 11th, KJS degrees ; on March Ist, 1-50 decrees;

on April Ist, 142 degrees; and on lb October, 140 degrees. An Invercargill paper says that it is stated on very good authority that some persons who have recently acquired mineral leases at the Nightcaps will shortly take steps to form an extensive coal mining company in the Southland district. A Mr Wiltshire has backed himself to walk, at Christchurch, one thousand miles in one thousand hours. Latest Christchurch papers state that he has averaged about eleven minutes per mile, starting upon his two mile walk fifteen minutes before each hour, having an even number. The course is round a paddock off Madras street, Christchurch. Should the feat bo successfully performed it will be ; for the third time in the . colonies ; having 13on done twice in Victoria, first by a man named M'Kean, and then 'by a female pedestrian, the latter, a Mrs Douglas, repeating it in England. An Invercargill paper understands that during the months of March and April, close On 440 tons of wheat and barley were sent down from Winton by the railway. The Melbourne correspondent of the Otago Times writes : —As to.your late, our present, Governor, did it ever strike you that he has rather a tendency to gush ? To me it seems that there is a disposition to cheap emotion about Sir George Bowen that is not a very manly quality. Then the little scraps of poetry with which he bejewels his speeches. The first speech he made here he quoted a writer who 6bserves, " There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads On t6 fortune," and in the second he 'poetically ejaculated— Oh, woman! in our hours of ease, Uncertain, coy> and hard to please. JSTot very recondite quotations these, but as we get on further we shall perhaps strike deeper sources of poetry than any we have yet reached.