THE Inangahua Times, PUBLISHED TRI-WEEKLY FRIDAY, APRIL 22, 1881.

Inangahua Times, Volume II, 22 April 1881, Page 2

THE Inangahua Times, PUBLISHED TRI-WEEKLY FRIDAY, APRIL 22, 1881.

A telegram was received on Wednesday last hy Mr Brennan, from Mr R. Reeves, Nelson, conveying the intelligence of the death of DrJFarrelle. .The same tdlgram also carried to Beefton the news of the death of Lord Beacon id eld. The funeral of, the late John Harris took ii .-' place on Wednesday last, and was very largely attended; The friends of Mrs Monteith will be -glad to learn that she is rapidly approaoh ing to rrcoveiy, and looks forward to an early re* turn to Reefton. . The inquiry into the cause of death of tbo murdered man John Bell was resumed in the Court House, op Wednesday last, before W. H, Bevell, Esq., coroner, and a jury. Con* siderable interest was taken in the - proceedings by the public and the building was crowded throughout the day. The prisoner was present in Court throughout the inquiry, and avajjed himself freely of the privilege of cross-examining the witnesses. Ec did so ih a seemingly calm and collected manner, and with a special stress upon the most material points. He was not placed in the do?k, but allowed a seat within }he \>tis, He was dressed in a heavy pea-jacket, and bes yond a scratch or sear on the bridge of the nose, presented nothing unuial in, his ap* ppajrapce. Without offering one word of comment npon the nature of the evidence tendered up to Wednesday evening, we may say tbat so far as it went up to that stage it conveyed a silent hut strong rebuke upon much of the speoulitive twaddle wjiieh has already jbenn written concerning the murder lii the, Warden's Court yesterday William Wyndham, Edward -Byrne, Treloar and Thompson, and Hugh Brennan, respectively, applied for various . rights, but were not in attendance when their names were called. A number of alluvial rights were applied fqr by Chinameri in Burkes and Italian Gully, and were granted. Charles Cli^br^ applied for a mining lease at. Boatman's, which was unopposed. Mathew Byrne applied for a mining lease (for the Comstock Company) at Boatman's. Granted. Thomas Lee (for the Great Eastern Company) applied for a lease adjoining the Specimen Hill Company, Boatman's. Granted. Maurioe FitzGerald applied for a gold mining lease at Little Boat* man's. Adjourned. Davies v. Frampfon— Mr Lynch for plaintiff applied for an adjournment, defendant having filed his schedule. Adjourned till first pitting of the Magis* trate's Court after next District Court. The Greymouth pedestrian handicap was won by Robert King, formerly of Reefton, Stenhouse being second. The balf mile race was won by Thomas Cochrane, who also ran second for the mile race. Mr Hodgson, Inspector for the Nelson Pro* viucial School District, conducted the examination of the Reefton State school yesterday. The qnantity of alcoholic liquor that is sufficient to kill, if taken at a single draught is being determine^ satisfactorily by actual experiment. The other day an aged colored man in Texas drank three pints of whiskey and l#l de/id. A German paper tells of a woman who has made a similar experiment in a tavern in the village of Wirr wits, near Breslau, where she and her husband, being engaged jointly as travelling vendors of lamp: black— a business that is recognised speoially in Germany— had put up for the night. ' The feat was occasioned by a boast made by her in the course of conversation with a number, of cabin loungers, that bhe 'could drink a pint of brandy at a singlo draught if any one of her hearers had the ability to pay for it. The offer was taken up, and she stowed the brandy away without, winking. Then, however she sat down and covered her face with her hands, and, when, after some time, her husband becoming alarmed, tried to atouse her, it was found she was dead. The London correspondent of the Melbourne Age says:— The companion outrage in London commenced like an ordinary burglary. The wealthy inhabitants of South Kensington have during the present winter been eased of an unusual number of jewel cases, ka., by what Mr .Gilbert, in tbe Pirates of Penzance, colls the ' enterprising burglar,' and strenuous efforts have been made by the police for the purpose JJof discovering the criminals. Four or five Burglaries had been committed in Cromwell, road, Kensington, on ths evening of Saturdny last, when about ten o'clock at night the cook iv the house next door to that occupied by Sir Julius Yogel, the retiring Agent-General for New Zealand, met a Btrange wan comirg down

stairs. In answer to her inquiry what lie wanted,. he said he hnd couie courting the upper housemaid, and commenced to run away. , The girl followed him out into the street,, whereupon the fugitive burglar drew a eaXfchambered revolver from hi> breast pocket and fired at his pursuer, Fortunately the bullet miasecl takjntr effect, ancl llie n<r's,e of the explosion brought up consecutively a police constable 4tid a postman, both of whom tho miscreant elo«ed with, fired at, and ' ultimately succeeded in seriously wounding. A hue and cry was raised, bnt the offender managed, aftor firing two or three more random shots, to escape through some empty houses, and-' he ia at present unarrested. Altogether the fellow fired no fewer than five shots- at his pursuers, and for all one knows he was in a position to fire twenty so as to secure his escape. The police, armed with a truncheon and a bull's eye lantern, are obviously insufficiently armed to deal with such desperadoes as those at Edinburgh or Kensington; and the subject i»"now being munh discussed, whether they ought not to be pro* vided with fire-arms to meet snch emergencies. In England, we have lately become less apt to look npon all criminals as cowards who will run away withont any signs of showing fight when an honest man pursues them. The two cases cited above do not by any means stand alone in illustration of the contrary doctrine. Paul Clifford and Jaet Sheppard live now only as named but we have had several instances in the past winter, wewutbeir spirit of audacious criminal recklessness, has survived. The Chief Comraissoner of the Property Tax has snpplied a correspondent of the Auokland Herald with complete returns of the property tax received, so far as included in the accounts of the financial year which concluded on the 31 ult. The total sum is £220,764, thus made vp :— Auckland £33 474 ; Wellington, £28.527 ; Canterbury, £58.302 j\ Hawke's Bay, £14,250; Nelson, £10,960; Waitaki, £12,106; Southland, £8063. The abolition of the offioes of Lord Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas and Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer, whioh the deaths of the late chiefs rendered possible, is now almost an accomplished fact. Apart from the regret everybody feels at losing two historical landmarks, there is little to be said against ' the proposed reform, Tho bar naturally views with dislike a change which will reduce judicial emoluments by £4000 a year, and a meeting was recently held in tho Inner Temple Hall to petition Parliament against the alteration. The strongest argument urged against the abolition —except theonly real one, that the bar did not like it— was that the ablest men would in the future be unwilling to accept such humble appointments as puisne judgships, (torn which there would be no reasonable chance of promotion. For the sake of the bar I could wish this were true, but I confess it is difficult to believe it. Competition among lawyers is as great, if not greater, than in other walks of life, and there are few practising barristers who can afford to despise tbe dignity, ease and fwcjjrjjy of a judgfhip with £5000! a year. There are certainly not a dozen men in the profession who, taking one year with another; make as much as £5000 per annum ; and even in tbe few cases where this income, may be exceeded, in the safety of the judical income, and in the pension whioh follows retirement, there is no little attraction. The recommendation of the judges has been agreed to in both Houses of Parliament, and in a very little time now we shall have the change completed. At the same time it may be hoped we shall find means adopted for lessening the extrtvngant cost and interminable delay at present attending litigation. Except in the largest commercial cases, the real matter in dispute sinks into insignificance when recourse is had to litigation in comparison with $ } c cost of proceeding!*, and th result is that tbe publ : c are avoiding courts of juctice as they would the scorge The chambers of commerce in various parts of the country are advocating ' courts of arbitration ' for the settlement of commercial cases, so disgusted are the trad irq classes with the expense of taking legal proceedings. Justice must be sure, fair, speedy and cheap. No fault certainly can be fonnd with the system in England as regards the two first essentials, but it must be admitted that it is very far from what it should bo in tbe latter equally important particular. Tbe night mail train from Buffalo to Jer* sev went off the line, near Oswego. In the postal oar were four men sorting letters by the light of twelve kerosene lamps, The lamps broke. In a moment the car was in a blaze. Besecue was impossible, and they were burnt to a cinder. Ah express car caught fire and efforts were made to extricate its solitary occupant. A hole was cut in the -door, and> the man's head appeared through the opening, but he could not force himself out. "The hole created a draught, upon which the fire seized, and it suddenly shot up the le^s and body of the man, surrounded his head in one great sheet of flames and he sank back and was literally roasted to death. A large meeting nt which the Mnyo presided, was held in Boston on Feb. 12 to express sympathy with Ireland. A letter was read from the Governor of Massachusetts expressing his sympathy with tho cause so long as constitutional and legitimate methods were employed in furthering it. The United States Senate has passed a resolution appropriating 175,000 dollars for the purpose of fitting put a vessel to be sent in search of Mr Gordon Bennett's exploring expedition in the Jeannette, wliich is thought by some to be shut up in the ice in the Arctic regions, in company with some missing whaling vessels. An Anti-monopoly League is forming throughout the States, iv opposition to the j gigantic corporations. Messrs Moody nnd Sank'ey are still in San Francisco. They have not been so successful as wns expected. Mr Proctor, the astronomer, is lecturing to crowded audiences in America.

The Inventor of the Goddesb of Liberty was a benefactor of humanity. [He enabled d ladies ('ays the Boston Post) to dismay them selves in tableaux, in every want rainjent without being guilty of impropriety.