SCISSORS.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume 2, Issue 163, 8 February 1878, Page 3

SCISSORS.

A meeting of the police authorities has, been held in reference to the robbery of tfie Countess of Aberdeen's jewels ; ■and Colonel Henderson expressed his opinion most emphatically that such robberies could not take place without the connivance of servants. As an example of the. trouble and pains taken by thieves in these jewel robberies, he stated that he had received information which proved beyond doubt that the Dudley jewels had been tracked and watched for two or three years before the robbery took place ; whilst, as a proof of the connivance of servants, who are really nothing else than professional thieves in disguise, he told the following story : " At a recent fashionable wedding in London, when the breakfast had come to an end, the carriage which was to convey the happy pair to the station drove up. Presently the bride and bridegroom, in travelling attire, entered the carriage, and every one in the house, guests and servants, assembled in front to witness the departure. The carriage started amidst a shower of slippers and rice But suddenly the head of the bridegroom was protruded from the window, and the coachman suddenly stopped, and then turned back to the door. Pale and trembling the bridegroom jumped from the carriage and summoned assistance for the bride, who was found to be in a swoon. The heel of a fashionable slipper, hurled by a powerful arm, had struck her on the temple and stunned her. She was carried up to the room in which she had been attired, and where her jewels and bridal dress had been left, after she had metamorphosed herself into a tra veller. The bride soon recovered, and was about to start again, when a shriek from her maid proclaimed some new source of commotion. The bride's wreath, veil, fan, scarf and jewels were gone ! Not a trace of them to be seen anywhere. The maid declared that they were all on the toilet table when she left the room with her mistress to see the bridal couple off in their travelling-carriages. In the brief space when all were occupied in taking their last glimpse of bride and bridegroom, the jewels, &., had been abstracted, and, what is more, the thief was never discovered, through it was absolutely certain that the theft must have been committed by some one in the house." Such was Colonel Henderson's tale, the moral of which appears to be that you must either never trust your servants at all, or else be much more careful ia inquiring into their characters before you engage them, to say nothing, of regarding your guests with suspicion — -Coming Events. —

A doctor, a man of considerable standing and ability, has just given an anecdote of one of his patients, which is not only amusing but expressive of that particular type of man who, as a rule, does not practice what he preaches: "A patient of mine, a middle-aged clergyman, was suffering from some slight symptoms of gout. I recommended a glass of hot whisky-and water every day, in preference to physic of any kind ; but my reverend friend, with upturned eyes, absolutely refused to accept my prescription, saying : • No, no, doctor ; I have all my life preached against alcohol in any form. If that is the only remedy I must continue to suffer. Besides,' said he, ' if I rang for hot water my servants would guess its purpose.' Said I, ' You shave ; ring the bell for shaving water ; mix your glass of medicinal whisky, and who will be the wiser but yourself V The parson at last submitted ; we warmly shook hands and parted. In a few weeks' time, my carriage pa e sing the clergyman's door, reminded me of my clerical friend. I touched the bell, and the thin, care-worn face of a once robust housekeeper

answered , me. 'Well, , said I, 'how's your master ?'' Stark, ptarifT man, sir— mad as he can ho.' ' Mad ! lu>w ! whai! how mad ?' ' Lor', si: , , m.id us can bo ; why, he shaves himself al*>ut twenty times every day!' was the innocent reply." A Scotch gentleman declares that tho intense desire to obtain specimens will eventually lead to the extinction of many beautiful forms of British flora. Achille Cazin, proffessor of physics of one of the Paris lyceums, has just died of a malady contracted in 1874, when he was a member of the French expedition to observe the transit of Venus. M. Poey infers, respecting the connection between barometric variations and the sun's declination, that low pressures follow exactly the course ot the sun and high pressures on opposite course. A queer case is on trial at St. Louis involving the alleged poisoning and ultimate death of a little daughter of Wm. G. Waite, and for which he and his wife ask damages against D. Crawford, from whom some striped stockings were purchased last year, and which were worn by the deceased child, and from the effects of which, it is alleged, she was poisoned and died. The case is attracting general interest, it being a novel one, and among the witnesses examined are several medical experts. The child is alleged to have suffered about one week with sores and pimples upon her limbs, all of which is attributed to the poisoned coloring in the stockings, but the defence allege that the malady might have occurred from many other causes.

;SIOOO.