Untitled

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1487, 13 March 1885, Page 2

Sir Julius Vogel has received the following telegram from the Agent-General in reference to the West Coast railway delegatee:—“Delegates working diao-eetly and safely. Tentative steps necessary at present. Please inform Canterbury and Nelson.”

The annual meeting of the Ashburton Coursing Club will be held at the Somerset hotel to-morrow evening.

A correspondent signing himself “ Humanity ” has written to us in reference to the Ashburton School Committee, but we do not think any good purpose could at present be served by giving publicity to his remarks.

The following details as to the number of Volunteers in Canterbury are given by the Lyttelton Times ;—Lyttei ton .aavals, 03 ; E Battery, 63 ; City Guards, 40 ; Christchurch Rifles, 2d; Sydenham Rifles, 62 ; Scottish Company (a), 63 ' Christ’s College Rifles, 63 ; Canterbury Yeomanry Cavalry (6), 6.3 ; Ashburton Rifles, 50 ; Temuka Rifles, 50 ; Timaru Artillery, 50; Timaru Navals, 46—total, 634

A summary of the speech delivered by theColonialTreasurer at the banquet given to him last night by the Mayor and citizens of Christchurch, is published in another column.

The telephone is about being introduced into Tunis under very singular circumstances. A Frenchman, who was 'on'ce a priest of the Premonatrants in Paris, afterwards a Trappist in Algeria, and is now a Mussulman at Kairman, has

been invested with the charge of p Kouba or shrine. Though ha is said to gpeak Arabic admirably and to preach on the Koran with great unction, he finds the offerings of believers who visit the shrine come in slowly. Accordingly a telephone is being fitted up which will convey to him i,n his chamber the questions put to the saint'by the Arab ptlgpinjs. By the same agency he will be able to’ return replies calculated to startle and amaze the! natives. This is making science the handmaid of religion in a way little contemplated by devout believers in the Koran, j

We know that there is nothing on earth equal to Hop Bitters as a family medicine. Look lor. —[AdvT.J Skinny Men.—“ Wells’ Health Re.newer restores and vigor, curd dyspepsia, in? potence, debility. fUc N.Z, Drug Co, General Agents. *

Indigestion and Liver Complaints.—For* these complaints Baxter’s Compound Quinine Pills have proved a specific, acting powerfully on the liver and mildly on the stomach, bold everywhere, or post free from J. Baxter, Chemist, Christchurch, for 19 or 44 stamps.

A other unfortunate, —Again we must draw the attention o' ur 1-caders to the feet that a £2,424 stock of Clotm.£ aad D | pery, in the estate of Dennis O u.,. ' - I ding in Jkyttelton and Cristchurch, now bank- . r,upt, purchased by H. E. May & Co., of I the Hall, High street, for £954, or only a little over one-third of its yalpe. H. E. M. ' and Co. are now selling it at half the marked i price, which stxjrely ought to secure a speedy I clearance. ]

Mails for Europe, etc., per R.M. steamship Kimutaka will close at Ashburton to-morrow morning at ten o’clock. A supplementary mail, fur despatch per express train, will close at 5 p.m. Last evening as one of the trains laden with the homeward bound southern excursionists was travelling between i unsandel and BauKside, an alarm was raised I that one of the passengers had fallen between the carriages. It appeared that ] one of the male excursionists hailing from Timaru, who had evidently imbibed rather freely in the Cathedral City, essayed to pass from one carriage to another, and in doing so fell between the carriages on to the centre of the road. As soon as the lengthy train was brought to a standstill one of the engines was sent back up the line in order to pick up what was thought would only be portions of the dead body of the passenger. A search was made up and down the line for some considerable time, but without finding a single trace of the individual, and at last it was rumored that the affair was a hoax. After a delay of nearly two hours the train resumed its journey southwards. This morning the mystery was solved by an individual ‘ turning up” at the Dunsanuel Hotel in time for an early breakfast, where he gave an account of his narrow escape, telling the _ landlord that the whole train of carriages had passed over him the previous evening, and that he had walked to the neatest straw stack where he had passed the night very comfortably. The hero <■£ the adventure, none the worse tor his fall, beyond a few cuts and scratches on the legs and face, resumed his journey to Timaru this morning by the express. The Oamaru Mail has gone one better. It says A local lately appeared in a Christchurch paper stating that a certain gentleman had six plums that weighed 18 ounces, shortly afterwards this statement was capped by an assurauje that Mr Slaly, of Ashburton, had six plums that weighed ?3 ounces. At this the cognoscenti marvelled, but what will they say when wo tell them that six plums grown at Oteksike, in this district, were found to weigh 24 ounces ?

A luminous tree grows in a valley near

Tuscarora, Nevada, US. A. At certain seasons the foliage gives out sufficient light to enable anyone near to read small print, while the luminous leaves can bo seen a mile avay. The phenomenon is attributed to parasites.