INTERPROVINCIAL NEWS.

Westport Times, Volume VII, Issue 1079, 10 June 1873, Page 3

INTERPROVINCIAL NEWS.

Advices from England states that three-fourths of the £IOO,OOO capital Coal company at Miranda Redoubt, opposite Grahamstown has been subscribed in London, and the remaining fourth reserved for New Zealand. Working coal there will be commenced immediately. There are also large deposits of iron on the ground, and blast furnaces to work there will be erected.

The Napier Council opened bn the 3rd. 'the Superintendent, in his speech, said he had a credit balance of £13,000 at tho Bank, nearly all of Which was available to supplement the current year's revenue. He invited the Council to record its opinion on a Variety of subjects, on which legislation by the Assembly would be needed. Mr Moorhouse writes to the Lyttelton Times emphatically disclaiming all intention of contesting the Superintendency at the coming election. He says the reason he resigned the Eegistrar- Generalship was the appalling condition of surveys in certain portions of the Colony, and which he saw no chance of getting the Stafford Government to attend to. He stood for Egmont in the hope of aiding to restore the Fox party to power, as they had promised attention to the inattefc The Otago revenue for May was £22,36? 14s 4d. The New Zealand Herald says:—" A curious case of woman's rights cropped Up in the Bankruptcy Court yesterday. A lady fails in business, and her husband has to go to the Bankruptcy Court for relief. Indeed, two cases of this kind came before the Court. His

Honor said incidentally that if a lady had the right of carrying on business , (aa in the particular case under consideration), without the consent, and partly against the will of her husband, Bhe should have the right of going through the Bankruptcy Court with all the inconveniences thereto annexed." The Christchurch papers, as was to be expected, are very indignant at Mr Bathgate's recent attack on the New

Zealand University, The Lyttelton Times concludes a leading article on the subject by virtually telling Mr Bathgate that he " is not worthy to be a representative of the people, far less a member of the Government." In an article on prison discipline in New Zealand, the Wanganui Chronicle Bays : —At present there is only one really safe place of detention in the Colony. We refer to Dunedin gaol, and it is for from perfect. All desperate criminals are at present sent to Dunedin to undergo their respective terms of imprisonment. There is, therefore, the nucleus of a proper penal establishment already in existence, and there are many reasons why it should be recognised by the Government. The employes of one of our morning contemporaries (says the Auckland Evening Star) have followed the praiseworthy example of the people of the local warehouses in instituting a " blasphemy box/' for the benefit of the Orphan Home. The box measures 6in x sin x and the rule is that a penny shall be deposited by every titterer of an oath or obscene word. In seven hours after the introduction of the box its weight had increased wonderfully; towards morning it was more than half full, while at eleven o'clock next evening there was room for no more, and a pile of seventeen coppers stood by its side, and the overseer was busily engaged in improvising an iron bucket as a moneybox for future offerings. The employes f must have a great idea of providing for , the fatherless, or copy in that office must be wonderfully unintelligible. There must be plenty of pheasants in the province of Auckland. Every steamer that arrives in Wellington from the North brings a quantity of dead birds of beautiful plumage, which it seems absolutely a pity to kill. On the previous trip of the Taranaki nearly every passenger was loaded with either ducks or pheasants, and .yesterday there was plenty of dead pheasants to be seen about the Vessel. It seems rather anomalous that while at one end of the colony the acclimatisation societies are doing all they can to introduce partridges and pheasants the latter are slaughtered in such an indiscriminate manner at the other. The following strange advertisement appears in the Waikato Times: — " Wanted,—A good musical cook for a first-class hotel in Cambridge. A good pianist* possessed of an instrui ment, will receive fifteen shillings per week. Apply H.M.D.P.Q., P.O. } Cambridge."