GOSSIPPY NOTES.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume 2, Issue 118, 7 September 1877, Page 2

GOSSIPPY NOTES.

(from our timaru gossip.)

The New Zealand Grand National Steeplechase meeting, held on the 22nd ult, was a decided The weather was splendid, the course laid off was the best possible, and there was a large muster of well-known cracks. Under_ these circumstances small wonder is it that the meeting has been pronounced the most satisfactory that has taken place for years. I don't think that the ring made much of a pile, as outsiders took two out of the four events. A paper chase over the same course was projected for the 24th, but from- some cause or other it dropped through. The Yen. Archdeacon Harper holds service every Wednesday evening in St. Mary's Church. On a recent occasion, just when he had got to the middle of his sermon, some larrikin entered thevestry and turned out the gas. This did not matter however to the reverend gentlemen, for he went on with his discourse as if nothing had happened ; and, although a small boy from the choir lit a candle, his proffered services were rejected. A friend from the Kakahu was telling me to day of an horrible accident that occurred out there to a young fellow who was pig hunting. It appears that he left his home early in the morning, taking, with him as a spear, a shear blade : lashed onto a Manuka rail: two dogs followed him. About eleven o'clock in the morning

the dogs put up a pig, but were unable to hold it when it charged, and the young fellow in a Hurry presented the wrong end of the pole. The pig rushed on it and drove the. shear blade right into his thigh and up towards the groin. I don't know how he managed to get the spear out, or what became of the pig, but 1 know that it took him till nine o'clock at night to walk, or rather crawl, three miles to his home, and that now he lies in a precarious state in the hospital.

Talking of pig-hunting reminds me of the many tough yarns one bears from those who indulge either voluntarily or involuntary in the sport. One, which I heard told a few evenings ago, is worth recording :— Two fencers were camped out on Raineliif run. They built a sod chimney to their tent, and made things generally comfortable. One night, as they wore, soundly locked in the arms of the drowsy god. as "ye men of ye press term sleep, an enormous black pig roused them out. One, more active than the other, made his way in his shirt, and their continuations, to the top of the chimney, and, from that elevated stand, directed and encouraged his comrade to assault master piggy with the axe. His pigship, however, resented such treatment, and is reported to have inflicted such injuries that his antagonist had to be very careful how he took his rest for a week or two. The narrator stated that the pig sat and watched with evident enjoyment his victim shivering in the keen frostffcair, and he only decamped when the man's mate returned with a gun at daylight.