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Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume I, Issue 94, 12 June 1877, Page 2

We notice that the contractors for making a side walk along the main street of the Borough, are pushing on fast with the work so that in a short time pedestrians, ladies especiall}', will be enabled to go from one end of the town to the other with more safety, from fastly ridden horses, that they now experience.

From an advertisement in another column it will be seen that Messrs Bridge and Bushell are to offer every Sat"-day carcasses of mutton. We hear the raatton is of good quality, and that it will be sold without the slightest reserve. This is certainly a new method of housekeepers procuring their supplies, and one which we should think desirable at the present figure required by the local butchers for mutton. We are sure that the many friends of the Eev. W. Aylmer, will be gratified to learn that that gentleman is rapidly recovering from the effects of the late severe accident which befol him, and is now strong enough to take walking exercise. As showing the mildness of the winter, up to the present time, we have had our attention drawn to a garden in Jolliestreet, where violets, jonquils, and narcissus, are to be seen in full bloom. We desire to call the attention of our readers to the meeting of the Mutual Improvement Association this evening, an advertisement of which appears in another column. In the unavoidable absence of the Eev. W. Douglas, the chair will be taken by Mr. J. D. Garwood, the vicepresident of the association.

klt is currently reported here that Captain George Clark, well known here as master of the ketch XXX, has purchased the paddle steamer, Tongariro, and that he intends running her in the harbour should sufficient inducement offer. We trust that those-interested will come forward and patronise Captain Clark, as the want of steam communication is much felt in the harbour since the Pioneer launch has been laid -up. The vessel in question is nearly new, and carries about 40 tons cargo on a draught of five and a-half feet. Her. saloon is such .that passengers can travel in all weathers with comfort; and wo hope the venture will be of such a remunerative nature as to ensure its continuance. On Thursday night last, as the Eev. Mr. Cooper was returning from the bays, he was attracted by, a; .peculiar noise to an object, in the creek at Halm's,, and 'on dismounting from his horse, he discovered a man all but dead. On procuring the assistance of Constable Euffie the person turned ritft'to be D. Kowland, who was before the Court bri Friday, June 1, for being illegally on; premises. . Had it not been for' the' .opportune arrival of Mr. Cooper, we , :sh<>uld "have had to record a much more serious mishaps ' ' Three of the wives of the late Sir Salaf Jung werejby. their, own desire, burnt with the body according to the custom of suttee in Nepaul. The Great Victoria-Gold Mining Company at Adelong has received, the[Government reward of £l,ooofor the - discovery of payable gold at eight hundred'feet- X One of the"sisters of. the Sultan is de&d When ill she married her loverf tji&t . he might become the heir to her £200;OOOiGOO estate. He was -willing. Who say&itliem is no romance in Turkey? .'■■ : r ; .

During his late candidature for the; *e'- : presentation of Eodney, Mr. Griifie's "expressed a strong dislike to making promises, and in illustration of their toutility he told a yam which (says the; Goulburn Advertiser) is worthy of repetir tion.. There were four candidates for Parliamentary honors met by common consent on a platform for the purpose of addressing the. constituents of a certain district. A ballot was taken as to the order in' , which the speakers were to hold forth. No. 1 on being pressed on the land question, assured the voters that if he were returned for Parliament he would vote for them having their land free. It was recompense enough to the.State if they expended their time and money in its cultivation. No. 2 would go further, and promised that he would do his bast to cause Government not only to give them the land, but to fence it, as an encouragement to selectors. No. 3 would go even further ; he would erect arouse on each.block. It was thought that the wind would be taken out of the sails of No. 4, but he 'proved as great a master of pu£6 as any of the others. He would see, if returned to Parliament, that the free and independent electors whom he addressed secured all the benefits promised by his rivals, but he would insist on , Government supplying ploughs, harrows, horses, and seed, and wouuld see that the proper agents were appointed for the sale of the harvesj; when brought to market, and that the proceeds should be transmitted to the farmers, so that they would have no trouble whatever. The result of the poll between the rivals was not mentioned .

The Melbourne Argus states that the rewards paid by the Victorian Government for the capture of sharks in the waters of the bay now amount in the agregate to the sum of £62 11s 6d. The number of sharks brought to the various police stations, since the offer of a reward was published amounts to 846. Of these 735 were caught at Sand ridge, 5 at Footscray, 16 at Williamstown, 20 at Mornington, 73 at Brighton. The latter place.may also be credited with, six more which have not been officially returned. One of the sharks was a moneter, measuring about 16ft in length, and ewighing about a ton ; but the majority were over 2ft and under sft in length. The sum expended in the destruction of such a large number of these dangerous visitants to our shores has been well spent, and it is to be hoped that those engaged in the pursuit of shark fishing will find it sufficiently lucrative bo encourage them to persevere.

A. Wellington paper says: How fires sometimes occur was shown in a practical way in the Pier Hotel to-day. Two gentlemen were in the long room, when suddenly a strong smell of burning became apparent. One, who was smoking, immediately made a personal examination of his but without finding anything alarming. Looking at the table, however, a tinythread of smoke was seen rising from a bright spot upon the cloth immediately behind a clear glass water caraffe. The rays of the sun had been concentrated by the water and a regular burning glass formed. A hole was burnt in the cloth; The caraffe was afterwards moved about, and in every case smoke began to arise from the cloth a few seconds after it was set down. Had the concentrated rays focussed on any highly inflammable material, without being noticed, a fire would have been caused, and an explanation of the cause would in vain have been sought for. Probably many fires are caused in a somewhat similar manner.

There lately came over the seas a report that De Murska was again a widow ; but it proved to be a canard for which one of the San Francisco dailies was mainly responsible. Mr. Hill was very ill, but sufficiently removed from death to initiate and carry on an angry correspondence with the offending journal, in which it is almost needless to say he has been utterly discomfited. The " Maestro" was thus let down by the ' Mail' on one occasion : —" Our criminal news detective had the pleasure of looking through a work now in course of erection by Maestro Strauss Ilia, which bears the suggestive title " Pinned to Her Petticoat, or from Penury to Plenty." The book is in the form of an autibiography ( and is really full of interest. It details the early struggles of the author to pound a living out of the piano ; his first meeting with Madame lima de Murska, their marriage, and the life of ease which the writer has since been able to lead. A full account appears of the causes which led him to murder his talented wife's pet poodle and monkey in Australia, and it must be confessed that he makes an able defence of his conduct in that regard. The reasons for changing his name from plebeian John Hill to his present stunning handle are given at length. The gifted author devotes a chapter to American journalism, and avails himself of the opportunity to pay the ' Mail' many high compliments. The Maestro- in his preface acknowledges that Ms main reason for going into literature is to provide himself with a little independent pocket-money. The 'Mail' representative gratified the Maestro by looking over his proof slips, and placing the scattered ' h's' in their proper places.

At the Indre et Loire Assizes, in France, a woman has been "condemned to penal servitude for life for getting rid of her only child, a little boy of four, in a manner so infinitely more brutal than the Moyaux employed in throwing his daughter down the Bagneux well, that one can only ascribe her escaping the punishment of death to the growing repugnance there is in France to the infliction of the capital sentence. During the last six months of his life the poor child was daily beaten with vfticks, whips, bootjacks, or any weapon that presented itself, and his body being by'this treatment made one mass of sores, he was thrown into a tub of cold water and left there for hours. His feet were ulcerated to such an extent that the bones protruded through the skin ; this suggested a new torture; the child was taken out by his mother, and made to walk for miles along the stony roads until he fainted under the infliction. A merciful death at length took pity on the infant martyr, bu* even the near approach of the freedom she coveted did not move to compassion the heart of his executioner. On the day of his death $he shut, him up in a dark closet to meet the coming struggle alone, whilst she repaired to; her favourite place of amusement, the theatre. Finding on her return the dying-child was still lingering on the confines of eternity, she hastened the flitting soul by a last application of the whip, which she handled with so much fury that it broke in her grasp. Surely for such atrocities as these, inflicted on the tender limbs of a mere baby of four by his own mother, death itself would have been a lenient sentence. But the jury managed as usual to find extenuating circumstances ;■ so this monstrous mother is to be left to disgrace the earth.

A very painful case occurred at Makikihi, near Timaru, late last week. A child of Mr. John Martin, aged 11 mouths, was left in its cot asleep, and the family had not been absent long before they heard loud screams proceeding from it. Upon looking under the clothes, they found a ferret lying on the child's face and that it had bitten the right side of the head in a fearful manner from the forehead to the chin, and was sucking , the blood. Dr. Macintyre, of Timaru, was sent for, and he reported that the eye was so much injured that it was doubtful whether the sigh* could be preserved, and that the other injuries were of a very severe naturOj rendering it probable that the little sufferer would be marked for life. In one place mortification has now set in, aggravating the case considerably. The ferret was one of the two which had been in the habit of playing with Mr. Martin's children. The Otago Daily Times, in an article drawing attention to the defenceless state of th'el colonial ports, thus refers to Dunedin in particular -.—"The rich booty, lies aUthe mercy of any privateering vessel

n these- seas, would tempt any power to come and seize it. Here in Dunedin there is money, as the phrase is, ' sticking out ( for the first vessel that ranges itself outside the Ocean reach and threatens the city with bombardment unless" its requisition meets with a prompt response, What defence have we under such circumstances? absolutely none. Let our volunteers be as valorous as they are held to be by their warmest admirers, they cannot all swim, and if they could, they could not capture the cruiser by deft natation. We have a Naval Brigade which is full of daring no doubt, but which would look very small indeed in the face of a decent cruiser with half a dozen guns. We have a few somewhat old, though no doubt excellent guns, which are admirably adapted for firing a salute, but which would be of little use for defensive purposes." We learn from the Saratago Spring that one of the belles of that place has had a difficult operation performed on her ears for the purpose of reducing them to the ordinary size of such appendages. The lady is accomplished and pleasing to all who meet her, but to this time she has suffered great annoyance from the fact that her ears were very far beyond the proper dimensions. No art of the hair-dresser or milliner could be employed to hide successfully this deformity. She resolved to go to New York and have them cut down. She consulted a skilled surgeon, and refusing to take chloroform, suffered bravely ! while undergoing the operation. Ihe surgeon believes that the ears will be all j right again within a few weeks— Utica Herald. I Brigham Young spoke a few words of wisdom one day to a youthful Chicago enthusiast who called upon him. He said : j "Young man, be sure that you are throughin your search fort he kind of .partner you want —be sure that you hayj> got the pattern of ! a woman that suits, before leading her to the altar. Don't wait until after marriage j as I did and then be obliged to keep on sampling. Is there a man with soul so dead, that to himself hath never said, I wish to lay ,my money out to the best advantage, and can do so by spending it at G. Black's, who gives the best value for ready money in Akaroa. A very heavy stock of drapery and clothing always on. hand, at the Criterion House, next to Professor Chadwick's.—[Advt.]