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Waikato Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2286, 5 March 1887, Page 2

Bishop Hadfield is reported to be much better. About a dozen Auckland visitors arrived in Cambridge yesterday by the midday train. The Marquis and Marchioness 9f Huntly are coming to New Zealand in the Mararoa, from Melbourne. A race meeting will be held at Ngaruawahia on Easter Monday. The full programme will shortly appear. The members of the old Cambridge (country) Licensing Committee have been re-elected without opposition. Applications are invited from the candidates for the offices of surgeon to the Waikato Hospital and secretary to the board. At the R.M. Court, Cambridge, yestorday, before Capt. Jackson, R.M., a large number of small debt cases were disposed of. It is proposed to erect a statue in memory of the late Mr Macandrew, and to establish n scholarship at the Otago University. The London Press characterises the Parnellite obstruction in Parliament a public scandal, and calls upon the Government to put it down. It is reported that the Earl of Dunraven, late Under-Secretary for the Colonies in the Salisbury Cabinet, will visit Australia in August. Flockowners who have not paid their sheep rates should remember that the legal time expires on the 31st of this month, after which date legal proceedings may be taken. Two of the village settlers at Newcastle North, Messrs Mallandine and Clayton, have erected cottages on their land, and or two residences are in course of erection on Firewood Creek. The natives of Mosambique have risen in revolt against the Portuguese rule. A British man-'o-war has been summoned by the British consul, who fears for the safety of the English residents. The revolt in Bulgaria has been quelled. It now seems that only a small number of the garrison in Silistria rose. There is an impression in Vienna that Russia was at the bottom of the business. At the R.M. Court, Cambridge, yesterday, Hote Thompson, a well-known native, said he " worked hard at potatoes," anyone who lias seen Hote at a "Tangi " wiil know that he is a good worker at the "spuds."

The Cambridge Band have been sending round a subscription list, which we learn has been liberally responded to. Saturday return tickets will be issued to Pukekohe on the 7th and Bth, available for return on Bth and 9th. This will enable those desirous of attending the Agricultural Show on the Bth to accomplish the journey at a cheap rate. It is stated that the Wellington City Corporation can be held responsible to' the losers by the late fire. The grounds of this opinion have not been made public but it is extremely probable that some work will be found for the lawyers. The usual monthly meeting of the Kirikiriroa Road Board was held yesterday. Present: Messrs Primrose (chairman), Steele and Thomas. The business was chiefly of a routine character. Several accounts were passed for payment. The Hamilton West Public Bath •jhas been doing fair business during the week. Mr Pannell, the caretaker, has, in his capacity of professor of swimming, secured a number of pupils of both sexes, all of whom are making rapid progress in the art. Mr Samuel Vaile will deliver a lecture on the subject of Railway Reform at Le Quesno's Hall, Hamilton, on Wednesday evening next. The chair will be taken at 8 o'clock by his Worship the Mayor, who is also chairman of the Reform League. It is, we understand, the intention of Captain Rutherford to drive a mob of 75 fat cattle from Te Awamutu to Auckland. He anticipates that he will be a gainer to a considerable extent by so doing, as the cattle, free from bruises inflicted in the railway trucks, will fetch a higher price. Three civil engineers and one of the corporation workmen narrowly escaped death on Thursday at Dunedin. They were inspecting one of the main sewers when a heavy thunderstorm fell, filling up the sewers and almost drowning them, With the greatest difficulty they got out, much bruised and thoroughly exhausted. Much-needed rain fell on Thursday and yesterday morning. The showers will do an immense amount of good in the Piako district, where the pasture lands have been completely parched up. There has been no rain in Piako, practically speaking, since the sth of November. Such a long drought has never been experienced in the district pefore. Levy, the J.P., who disappeared from Wellington so mysteriously a year ago has returned from Sydney. He says he has no recollection of anything that transpired between the date of his leaving Wellington and last Monday week. He hints that he was hocussed in some way, and his mental faculties temporarily impaired by someone connected with the .hotels which he was instrumental, as secretary of the Temperance Alliance, in closing. Serious charges have been alleged against the Loudon Corporation. It is asserted that a sum of £20,000, Corporation funds, was spent in hiring halls, feeing speakers, &c., with the object of defeating Mr Gladstone's London Government Bill. Messrs Labouchere and Bradlaugh profess their ability to prove the charge. Sir R. N. Fowler, who was Lord Mayor at that time, courts the fullest inquiry, and it is not improbable the Government will appoint a commission to enquire into the whole business.

The codlin moth has found its way into Gippsland. The Melbourne Daily Telegraph says " The news has already caused considerable consternation amongst fruit-growers in that part of the colony. Indeed, the rapid progress this pest has made since its first introduction here would appear to indicate that its existence has now reached such a degree of magnitude as to ba regarded almost in the light of a national calamity. Unless some steps are very soon taken to arrest the progress of this plague, the possibility of-successful cultivation of apples or pears is hopless. It is useless for individual fruitgrowers to make any attempt to destroy the moth. United action is absolutely necessary."

Some ot the spoils of Mandalay palace are now on view at the ' Colonies ' at South Kensington. King Theebaw's dress is the most remarkable of all the objects, being composed of elaborate spangle work, sewn on a stiff material, and embroidered with metal figuring-and silk thread. It weighs over GOlbs. The royal hat, which is cone-shaped, weighs two or three pounds. The painted shoes are of hollow gold, highly ornamented ; the clogs are plainer, [and very heavy. The whole dress seems as much ,as a man could well stand under, and it is not easy to see how his Burmese majesty walked.

Victoria and South Australia have decided to put up a vermin proof fence on their border line. The idea is to isolate the Mallee country, and enable its lessees to grapple with the wild dogs and other vermin. When completed the fence will secure an area of nearly nine and a-half millions of acres from external depredations, and allow the lesses to run sheep at large within the zone of fencing, and thereby greatly increase the carrying capacity of their holdings. Thus the state will receive an increased revenue from the assesment per head on stock. The fence will be of one width (42in) of netting, with iron standards and solid substantial straining 50 to 100 yards apart. It will be both dog and rabbit proof.

Messrs Dixon and Potter, two of the five village settlers allotted sections adjoining the Newcastle North suburbs, waited on the chairman of the Kirikiriroa Road Board yesterday, with a view to seeing what assistance the board was prepared to give them on the way of draining and road-making. Mr Dixon said the Minister of Lands had promised to give £ for £ to the local body. What was wanted was a drain through the bush, which would drain the road and enable it to be made. The Government surveyor, Mr F. Edgecumbe, had estimated the cost at £GO. The Chairman said the board could not take action until the matter was brought before thom by Mr Ballance, and he advised the deputation to communicate with Wellington at once, and on the receipt of a letter from the Minister the board would take the subject into consideration.

Operations at the Onehunga ironworks have ceased tor the present, and the fires have closed down, the casting of the propellers for the steamer Gairloch having been completed, The blades are annealed and ready for the finishing touches, and have been forwarded to Messrs Fraser and Tinne's foundry. Mr McAndrew, who has at present charge of the Onehunga Iron and Steel Works, is confident that there is a great and successful future for the project. He is thoroughly satisfied that he has solved the difficulty of not only converting the ironsand of New Zealand into marketable steel, but also of being able to produce it at a rate which will compete favourably with home manufacture. He is thoroughly convinced that, with the material available, and by his process, steel can be manufactured at Onehunga equal in quality to that used on the Clyde ; that all kinds of steel used in shipbuilding can be procured, and that there is nothing to prevent steel vessels being built on the Mauakau equal to those of the Clyde or Tyrie, and all from the products of New Zealand. This opens a wide prospect for New Zealand manufactures, and a destiny for the Manukau which would convert that port into a great centre of shipbuilding.—Herald

Mr Price Williams writes to the New Zealand Herald from Australia, saying that an erroneous idea had been conveyed to the public through its columns that he had expressed himself in favour of Mr Vaile's system of railway management. He says, on the contrary, that beyond accepting thesoundnessot the principle that the Government railways in the colony should not be looked to as a source of revenue, and that the great aim and object of their administration should be the reduction of the cost of transit to the lowest practicable point, he did not approve of Mr Vaile's " complicated and impracticable"system. And he also considered, in spite of what Mr Vaile had urged to the contrary, that his system was nothing more or less than a system of differential rates in disguiso. The effect of a differential rate, with greatly reduced charges for long, as compared with short distances, although undoubtedly it would greatly assist in promoting settlement in the agricultural districts of New Zealand, would at the same time tend, as all experiences in railway traffic shows, to develop still more largely the traffic to the great centres of population. He also was of opinion that to attempt to bring about by such artificial and complicated means as Mr Vaile's scheme involves, the diversion of traffic from great population centres, is as impracticable as to attempt to interfere with the inexorable laws of gravity.