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DELORAINE.
THE period for receiving nominations to
fill the vacancy in the representation of
Deloraine has passed, and none have
been made. It was hoped that John
Crookes, Esq., would have consented to
stand, but that gentleman declined.
Then we understood that Colonel Craw-
ford, of Richmond, would be nominated,
but this expectation has also proved illu-
sive. Under these circumstances the
Governor will have to extend the time
for receiving nominations, and we trust
the electors of this important district
will find a suitable man — if possible a
local, or at least a northern resident — to
represent them in Parliament. It will
be humiliating, and may be disastrous, if
they allow themselves to be disfran-
chised through negligence or apathy.
A CARELESS JUROR. — During the sitting of
the Recorder's Court, this week, a man was
fined three times for non-attendance when
called as a juror.
THE FIRE-BELL in Wellington-street tolled
an alarm indicating a chimney on fire about
half-past seven last evening. The cause was
at Burston's Fire Brigade Inn, Brisbane-
street. Several firemen with a hose reel
were quickly in attendance, and the flames
were subdued after burning fiercely for about
ten minutes.
ST. ANDREW'S CHURCH.— The Rev. John
Gardner, of Adelaide, will preach to-morrow
morning and evening in St. Andrew's
Church.
ST. JOHN'S CHURCH.— At the meeting of
parishioners of St. John's Church, on Thurs-
day evening, it was decided to request the
Rev. M. B. Brownrigg, of Ross, to permit
himself to be nominated to the cure of St.
John's. A requsition to the rev. gentleman
has been signed by a majority of the parish-
ioners. A meeting of the Board of Patron-
age has been called for the 1st of June, to
nominate a successor to Dr. Browne.
BOARD OF EDUCATION.— Tuesday, May 19.
— Carrick School. — A tender was received
from Mr. Edwards for putting up a porch and
making sundry repairs to the Carrick school
for the sum of £18 15s 6d. The Board
decided that they could not entertain the ap-
plication, not being at present inclined to
make such an outlay on this school.
LAUNCESTON.— Mr. Leech, the master of the
Elizabeth street school, Launceston, forwarded
an application for the enlargement of this
school, and the master's residence. The
Chairman stated that the Board paid £40 a
year rent for the school, and a like amount
for the schoolmaster's residence. The
place was rented in the gold times
and the amount paid was enormous.
The Inspector (Mr. Burgess), in his report
stated that there was not a playground at
present attached to the school, and that not
withstanding the rent paid, many incon-
veniences were experienced. A building could
be obtained for £600, sufficient for the
wants of the district for many years to come,
and would give the Board a schoolroom free
from any denominational influence. It was
decided that six months' notice be given of the
termination of the tenancy. Deloraine school.
— Mr. John Young, the master, wrote to
apply for the erection of an outhouse in con-
nexion with the school. The Board instructed
the secretary to reply that the limited amount
of funds would not allow them to entertain the
application.
VENTILATION OF SHOPS.— In the planning
of shop-fittings this necessity is but too fre-
quently overlooked. In the summer months,
it will be argued, every shopkeeper keeps his
door open, and thus sufficient ventilation is
insured ; and in the winter there is enough
cold air wafted in every time it is opened to
supply the necessary change. But the thous-
ands of shop-assistants will tell a different tale.
When they first enter their respective shops in
the morning they are nipped with cold ; as
the fires or stoves draw up, the temperature
becomes more equable; but the evening wanes,
and dozens or scores of gas-burners re lighted,
the air is as oppressively heated as it was in-
clemently cold. They endure, in other words,
every day throughout winter, all the altera-
tions of climate they would experience in a
diurnal transformation from the Hebrides to
Hindostan. The proper heating and ventila-
tion of shops is as imperative, writes the
Builder, as that of workrooms, and there is
no chance of effecting these unless they are
constructed on scientific principles. We
have been called a nation of shopkeepers, as a
term of reproach. Calling art and science to
our aid, let us make our shops as handsome
as palaces, and as healthy as the hills.
FOOTBALL.— The match at football, Gym-
nastis v. All-Comers, will take place on the
Windmill-hill this afternoon, when some first-
rate playing is expected. The colors are—
Gymnasts, white; All-Comers, any color.
The Australian Journal for the current
week, is very interesting, — one tale especially,
of which one chapter was given, it illustrates
the dire effects of a fashionable vice. The
author will have achieved no mean distinction
if she has rendered the monster sufficently
hideous to make it shunned by the readers of
her narrative.
A VENERABLE CHIEF.— The venerable
chief Eruera Patuone — who having when a
boy seen the vessel of Captain Cook off the
Bay of Islands, is believed to be about 106
years of age — has been introduced at Auck-
land to his Excellency the Governor, who con-
versed for some time with the old man, through
Mr. G. Brown, of the Civil. Commissioner's
office. Sir Geo. Bowen referred to a book
kept at Government-house wherein the names
and other particulars about the principal
chiefs are kept, and asked Patuone about
Heke and the war in the North, and also as
to the Maori King ; at the same time express-
ing a wish to see peace restored, and both
races living on terms of amity. " Are you
coing back to Wellington," asked Patuone.
" Yes, I shall have to go back by-and-bye,"
was his Excellency's answer. "Then," said
Patnone, "how do you expect to do what
you have been speaking about if you go down
where we cannot see you ; but when this son
boy of the Queen comesm I will snap him up,
and take him off to the Bay of Islands."
SINGULAR PHENOMENON AT WARATAH.— A
correspondent in whom we can place every
confidence (says the Newecastle Chronicle)
sends us the following account of a very
strange appearance recently witnessed in
Waratah. He says :-— "A few days ago, while
a little girl named Matilda Russell was en-
gaged in doing some domestic duties, some-
thing having the appearance of the flame of a
candle, only about three inches in length, was
seen to enter at the door of the apartment in
which she was working, and approached close
to her until it struck her on the cheek, leaving
a sharp itching pain which was felt for ten or
twelve hours afterwards. When the flame
or whatever it was exploded, which it did
upon striking her face, a report equal to the
report of a Chinese cracker, was distinctly
heard at a distance of twelve yards from where
the girl was standing. The wind was blowing
from the south at the time the singular occur-
rence happened."
A GOOD PROVISION.— It will be remembered
that in March last, six unfortunate men met with
a watery grave by the upsetting of a boat off Point
Lonsdale, Victoria, while endeavouring to reach
the shore from the wreck of the Light of the Age.
According to the Melbourne correspondent of the
Geelong Register "a subscription was started
by the purchasers of the wreck, who put down
£100 to begin with for the benefit of the families
of three of the men (the other three being un-
married). I fled that about £300 has been col-
lected, to the present time, and there is a prospect
of making it at least £350. This it it proposed
to lay out in the purchase of a small cottage
apeice or the three widows, and a patent mangle
each to assist them in earning a livlihood for
their children. There are three children in
each case, and one of the poor women is shortly
expecting a fourh"
PENNY READINGS.— The Australasian of the
16th inst. says : — The penny reading season
has set in with extraordinary severity, but as
admission to them is not now a penny, but
sixpence and upwards, their name has been
changed to popular readings. Last winter
they threatened to grow into something not
greatly remote from a social nuisance, for
they became altogether distorted from their
first purpose of giving to a miscellaneous
audience, not accustomed to intellectual oc-
cupation, the reading means en-
joyment. But instead of the promoters con-
fining themselves to standard Engish au-
thors, they seemed gradually to merge into
comic selections, Ethiopian melodies, and
general burlesque. Perhaps they found
material of this kind so much more in accord-
ance with the prevailing taste, that it was
easier to supply it than to create a relish for
mental food of a higher character ; but in do-
ing so they departed entirely from the pro-
fessed intentions with which they started.
They essayed to create a better taste, and
themselves fell into the prevalent habit, and
thus the penny reading audience camo in
many instances to represent a miscellaneous
assemblage of turbulent boys, fast young men,
and giggling young women, the really in-
telligent elements in it being almost imper-
ceptible. Something, to be sure, is to be
said on the score of incapableness in those
who attempted to read our grand English
poets, essayists, and writers of fiction. They
read without having first learned the art of
reading, and put people to sleep, or only
irritated them, when if they had been com-
potent to the task they so presumptuously
undertook, they might have charmed instead
of disgusting. Perhaps this good, however,
came of the failure, that it taught penny readers
their deficiencies, and set them endeavouring
to qualify themselves for the work they had
at first thought so easy. We believe a gentle-
man of large experience as an elocutionist
not a merely mechanical elocutionist, but one
thoroughly versed in a knowledge of good
English authors and enthusiastic in his
admiration of them — has commenced a class for
imparting to ladies and gentlemen the true art
of good reading, and as the result of his ea-
deavours, we may hope before long to see
penny, or popular readings, take a permanent
position as a real source of mental refection
in this colony. Nothing can be better if pro-
perly carried out; few things can be worse
if misapplied or misdirected.
LAND IN MAURITIUS.— Mr. G. H. Poole,
who has recently arrived at Adelaide from
Mauritius, gives some information in reply
to enquiries by a correspondent of the
Register, respecting the value of land in the
latter colony. " Enquirer," he says, "if he
saw the cane fields of Mauritius, would be
more likely to term them stone quarries than
agricultural lands. They consist almost
entirely of fields of basaltic rock, with a
small quantity of soil thinly scattered among
the interstices of the rocks, which everywhere
cover the surface in the greatest profusion.
In some parts they have to be piled up in
pyramids and circles to get them out of the
way ; but unless they are too numerous, they
are merely disposed in rows at four feet in-
tervals, and the cane-holes are made between
them, the ground being left unbroken around.
In these holes, 18 inchess by 4,
and about eight inches deep, from two to four
truncheons of cane-tops are placed, and not
filled up with soil, hut only covered lightly
till the canes sprout, when they look like a
field of young maize.. Of course the plough
is entirely out of the question in such land,
and can only be used in a few localities which
are not highly esteemed, as the sugar they
produce is greatly inferior to that of the
basaltic formation. Some years ago the upset
price of forest land, when sold by Govern-
ment, was £15 per acre; but as these lands
have become scarce, and are actually worth
more for the wood standing on them, I should
thick they would fetch considerably more at
auction now ; but I have not heard of any
such sales for a long time, and the Govern-
ment are unwilling to allow the heights to the
disforested, as the prevalence of drought for
some years past has been generally attributed
to the excessive destruction of the forests, and
consequent drying up of the streams — for
merly very abundant, but now
of late very deficient. Without
doubt, sugar crops will pay heavy interest for
money laid out ; but the expenses are very
great, and many of the Mauritius planters who
have lost their crops for successive seasons by
drought are on the brink of ruin. It involves
an expenditure of at least 10,000L., of which
at least half will be required for the machi-
nery and building the sugar house and otter (sic)
erections necessary for carrying on the opera-
tions.
THE JINDEN MURDERS,. — It will be in the
recollection of our readers (says the S. M.
Herald) that the Parliament voted the sum of
£550 to be divided rateably among the
widows and children of the constables who
were murdered at Jinden, near Braidwood,
while out after Clarke's party of bushrangers,
on the 10th of January, 1867. To Mrs. Car.
roll and her four children the sum of £275
has been apportioned; Mrs. Kennagh and her
two children are to have £190 ; and the sum
of £85 has been on apportioned to the daughter
of Phegan, now resident in Tasmania.
Recently the constabularly at Killteely,
county Limerick, ripped up the flooring of the
altar in the Roman Catholic chapel, and found
nearly 100 pikes, 76 of which were in a per-
feect state of preservation, having been well
oiled and wrapped in flannel. There were
disturbances in the place last March. The
priest has always been opposed to Fenianism,
and warned his people against it.
Mr. Philip Francis, who for nearly four
years has held the position of her Brittanic
Majesty's legal Vice Consul at Alexandria,
has been recently appointed Consul-General
and Judge of the Supreme Consular Court at
Constantinople.

READING.— The public reading at the Me-
chanics' Hall on Thursday evening was
well attended, and as a whole was
about the most successful enter-
tainment of the kind given this session The
chair was occupied by the President, who in-
troduced the various performers in his usual
humerous way, each introduction being accom-
panied by some telling bit of fun, which
assisted to keep all in good humor. The fol-
lowing programme was gone through in very
good style, the whole of the musical portion
beiong executed by ladies:— Instrumental,
Pianoforte duet; reading, :Daniel O'Connell
and Mrs Morairy;" duet, "Oh could I teach
you warbling bird;" reading, "Pharmacy
Extraordinary," by Betsy Jane Ward; song,
"Spirit of my dream;" reading. "The Violet
Boy;" duet (with flute accompaniment),
"Hark 'tis fairy music;" reading, "Mrs.
Caudle thinks it would be right for Caudle to
to join the Volunteers," not by Douglas Jerrold;
song, "Yes, I will write to thee;" reading,
"Sore eyes, or tit for tat (by request);" read-
ing, "Why don't the men propose, and why
the men don't propose;" duet, Elphin Cult;"
God Save the Queen. On next Thursday
week the Rev. Mr. Brownrigg, of Ross, will
lecture on " The Atmosphere," with various
illustrative experiments.

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