MISCELLANEOUS.

Inangahua Times, Volume II, Issue II, 25 July 1881, Page 2

MISCELLANEOUS.

» Sir Stafford Nortbeote, in addressing the annual meeting of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, the other evening, remarked that for the first time in forty-two years the name of New Zealand, so dear to tbe missionary heart, did not appear ii the records of the society as deriving any assistance from its funds. New Zea« land bad become self supporting. This statement was received with great satisfaction by the crowded audience. The steamship Cuzco, of the Orient line, left London on tbe 7th May, with the largest refrigerator on board that the Bell Coleman Merchants Re« t frigeraticn Company have yet erected ' on any ship. It is taking ship's pro* vissions on tbe outward voyage, and is expected to bring a large cargo of frozen meat from Australia. This machine is capable of taking it into compressors about 80,00 cubic feet of • air per hour, and delivers every hour, about 60,000 cublic feet cooled to 50 ! deg. to 100 deg. below zero. It is about four times the power of tbe machine used by the Protos, and stands in about half the space ociuiped by the machinery of that ship. The Cuzdo arrived in Melbourne on Mon« day. A correspondent at Levuka, Fiji, writing on June 13 to the Sydney Telegraph, says : — ' Tbe first blood has been shed through the working of Sir Arthur Gorden'd native taxation scheme. Nearly a month ago tbe native officer in the town of Na Drau went one morning to turn out the men, women, and children, as usual, to work on Government gardens, when, ap* parent ly, this was the last straw which broke the back of these poor overworked slaves, endurance they refused any longer to work and get nothing for their labor. Angry word ensued — the only half dead cannibal spirit arose wifhin them — they killed the officer, cooked and ate him. Being subsequently fearful, for the consequences of their acts, they sent for the native teacher, and compelled him also to .eat some of the ( bukalo ' (dead man), under pain of being served in a similar manner if he refused. Certain returns in reference to sixteen English counties show that forms are going a begging. There are no tenants to take them. Good land in the fine district of Huntingdonshire, which formerly — five or Jseven yeari ago— brought from thirty-two to forty forty shillings per acre is now let with difficulty at from fifteen to twenty five shillings : clay land, which let at thirty shillings, may be now had at from seven to ten if anyone can be got to take Licestershire things are no much better. A farm of 160 acres half grass which bad been let for thirtyfive shillings an are h.is just !wn relet for twenty slti'tii?;^.