PROVINCIAL AND COLONIAL.

Cromwell Argus, Volume III, Issue 130, 7 May 1872, Page 7

PROVINCIAL AND COLONIAL.

[here are 90 public-houses at the Thames. [Auckland is said, to possess an inordinate [niber of City Arabs. Tobacco is being successfully cultivated at a iroa, near Wanganui. The telegraph is to be extended shortly to tffori, from Greymouth. Heavy floods, attended with loss of life, ve oc curred in the Timaru district. [t has been found necessary to organise a 'k and Destitute Relief Fund at Reefton. Twenty-five new mining companies were zetted at Coromandel during four days two three weeks ago. rfj ie arouse brought from Norway by Mr ~j’ a °e not to come to Otago after all; they ie been left at Wellington. Cod liver oil manufactured by a Mr Innes, port Chalmers, has been very favourably by the Melbourne Medical Society. Gas is being laid on in Port Chalmers. The st lamp-post was lately erected, in the prence of the Mayor and a few leading citizens. The total losses caused by the Greymouth ood are stated by the report of the Relief iniuiittse to have amounted to not less than 30,000. [The agricultural correspondent of the Grey L r Argus for the Grey Yalley, has been [esented with a ton of horse-feed by the [nners up-river. • ■The genuine mackerel, “such as can be ien in Billingsgate any time during the seaL ” has lately been caught in great numbers | Picton, Nelson. IA petition, bearing 2000 signatures, has ben forwarded to the Governor by the resists of Mount Benger, Switzers, &c., against [e Moa Flat sale. prom Martin’s Bay, the latest news is very ".couramng. The crops have turned out exsllently, and all the settlers are reported to ke the place very well. In Wanganui, when the prisoners work e i;-r they are rewarded with a stick of toLT * They are usually employed in repaircleaning the streets. A number of Mormons living at Karori, ear Wellington, left for America by the last an Francisco steamer, and the remainder rill follow them next month.

Edwards, a pedestrian, was matched at iaiK'amu the other day to walk thirty-five ards against a horseman galloping fifty. The orseman won, bnt only by two feet. Captain Macpherson, of Alexandra, Auckmd, lately ordered the arrest of a militiaianv, T ho refused to add “Sir” to “Here,” ■hen answering to his name on parade.

Messrs Brogden and Sons intend to contract a race in the Ross district, Westland, b carry forty heads of water, at a cost of 140,000. They have applied for a fifty years’ icense of the water.

[ A “ mean cuss,” as the Americans say, was licked out of the Taranaki Institute the other ay for persisting in using the reading-room [ithont paying the subscription, which is |nly one shilling a quarter. | The claimant to the Tichborne estates is Stated by the Evening Post to have resided in Veliingtou for six months, under the name {De Castro. It is suggested that this will ,ccount for the missing link (of six months) n his Colonial life.

Complaints are made in Auckland that the j jadets lire off their rifles in the streets when •eturning from parade. Half a dozen of them ilso outraged the nerves of an old gentleman vho was peacefully walking along the street, by presenting their rifles at him. Te Kooti’s last escape seems to have been affected in a ridiculously simple manner. A mrrespondent of a Northern paper says that “ lie coolly walked across the track between ;wo sentries and got olf, and it was not known 'or some time after that he had done so.” Drink has brought another clever man into trouble. Robert Eyreton, formerly of Auckland, has been committed for trial in Melbourne, on a charge of passing a valueless heque. He is a journalist of some note, and Mas the gainer of the £SO prize for an essay on colonisation awarded by the General Governin' r nt a few years ago. Mr„ohn M‘Leod, M. H.R. for the Bay of Islands, has arranged with the Provincial Government of Wellington to go to Canada to procure immigrants. He leaves after next session of the Assembly.—The same Government has also arranged with a Mr Ingles to proceed to Holland to procure two hundred [immigrants. Professor Hasclmaycr’s first “ performance” |in Dunedin was to “shout” for something like 150 persons, It appears that the St. iPatrick’s Brass Band mustered outside the Criterion Hotel, and serenaded the Professor; Mho, in return for the compliment, invited not only the band, but “ all and sundry,” to refresh themselves at his expense. A singular recovery of lost money occurred recently on the banks of the Hokitika River. A man who was fishing, just after dusk, in taking his knife out of Ins pocket, dropped a five-pound note into the river. It was useless to attempt to look for the note then ; so the search was deferred until the next morning, Mhen, as soon as it was daylight, the loser went in search, and was lucky enough to find Ms note washed ashore close to the flagstaff.

A good deal of amusement was caused on the wharf in Auckland one evening recently v flip attempts of a large number of excited individuals to capture what was supposed to he a large shark. Shots were fired at it, and J hook was baited with a tempting morsel ; hnt the monster treated it all with the most stolid indifference. At last, one of bis perscentors, more bold than the rest, seized a boathook and made a furious onslaught. To bis astonishment, the book brought up a great raass of sca-wccd. The multitude disporsod.