ONE THING AND ANOTHER.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume 3, Issue 269, 14 February 1879, Page 2

ONE THING AND ANOTHER.

• (Collated from our Exchanges.) I 'During a gale in the Atlantic a short time ago, the American ship Bridgewater, from London to New York, sprang a leak and lost her foretopmast. She became wholly unmanageable, and wae believed to be sinking. The captain and crew were rescued by the German barque- ConsulPlatin, from New York to, Plymouth, with a cargo of oil cake. A tremendous sea was "running at the time,' but after an interval of some hours the captain of the -' American ship resolved, if possible, , to recover liis vessel. His chief officer and crew of five men volunteered for the dangerous duty and were on the point of departing on their perilous mission when a romantic episode occurred. The wife of the*chief; officer declared- thither husband should not go without her, and in answer to-remonstrances simply Exclaimed '* We will die together." With the tenacity of her sex she clung to her resolve, and was -the first person lowered into a boat A which many believed was destiried to be swamped. Such, however, was not its fate ; the? boat and its occqpants ultimately succeeded'in reaching tlie wreck. A supply of- pr<M* - siona was also taken on board, and in the end the Bridgewater was brought into Queenstown, where she now remains. A contemporary says \ We took a new reporter on trial yesterday. He went out to hunt items; and after being away all day, returned' with the following, which he said was:the' best he, couhl do:— "Yesterday we saw a sight that froze our muscles with horror. - A hackman driving - down College street at a rapid pace, came very near running over a nurse and two children. There would have-been one of .the most heartrending .catastrophes ever recorded, had not the nurse, with wonderful forethought, left the children-at home before she went out, and providentially stepped into a drug-store just before the hack passed. Then, too, the hackman, just before reaching the crossing, thought of something lie had forgotten,- and turning about drove in the opposite direction. Had it not been for this wonderful occur-rence-6f!favo"urable.circuinstances, a doting father, a loving mother, and affectionate brother and sisters, - would have -beeiiplunged into deepest woe and unutterable funeral expense." The new reporter will be retained. " ~; ~ , : The proverbial wit of the Irish jaryey is oftentimes mixed with an undercurrent of

stern reality that is as touching as it is elequent. Driving through Sackville street, Dublin, the other day on an outside car, the wretched appearance of the horse suddenly struck me- I said, "Pat, you ought to be. taken up for cruelty to animals driving such an old screw as that." " Be gor, sur," was the quick reply, " if I didn't drive that, I'd bettakert np.for Cruelty to a six children.". " Stop that car!" cried old Mr Nosengale, chasing a flying ' car up Davidson street, the car fresh as a daisy and Mr Nosengafijl-:-badly blown, and the distance pole 'not "a tnimite away. ''Stop that car!" "Be* shoutedton fleet limbed boy. "Certainly," shrieked back the obliging boy, " what shall I stop it with ? " Tell it to hold on," shouted the "abandoned passenger. " Hold on to what?" yelled the boy. "Make it wait for me!" puffed the Mr Nosengale, ; , : " You have got too much weiglit, now," said the boy, " that's what's the" with you." *' Gall the driver!" gasped the perspiring' ."as the car got round the passed cjc&of siglit, the mocking' echoes at thaobliging answer came floating cheerf\iUy;back, '■ All right! what shall I call him ?" . An English paper describing a London Post Office, says:—" Eight" hundred young women at work, all of them in ono room, . all looking comfortable -most of them : - looking pretty, earning fair-wages at , , easy ~ work—work fit-for wotoen to do .y ?voib at .which they can sit .and rest, and not be weary, .with a kitchen, at hand and a h<it dinner in the middle of the day, with. leava of absence without stoppage of payment, every 3 T ear, with a doctor for sickness and a pension for old ' age,. for' ,: the' young* women as years roll on will become old— with only-eight hours of work, never her fore eight o'clock in the morning, and never.after eight at:night, .with/ femaje superiutendeQts,.and. the chance to superintendent'open to each gir). ~Thta is a Government office, under Government - surveillance, and ail this has sprung into existence during the last eight years." | An exchange says it is a startling fsbt- ' that over 10,000 persons of unsound are confined'in the lunatie-ssylutns of United States, xiriven, mad i fr,om'-, ojrer citement c&used by Spiritualism^-g^i^^H

An amusing instance of the absurdity of the- employment pf the pronoun " we {'* by lawyers when speaking of their clkjnts, occurred at the Resident Magistrate's Court,-Wellington, during the'hearing of an action for breach of agreement. Mr Mansford having enquired what the defence to the case was, Mr Ollivier naively, replied—" We deny that there is an agree-' ment, and if there was any writing actually' signed by us, we say that'we were in a state of intoxication at the time, and. are not bound by it." A gentleman in the timber line has inserted the following advertisement in an Auckland newspaper:—" Wanted known, that F. Carr has for sale, in lots to fiiiit purchasers, all that timber used in the late" R. C. Mission building. Zealous Catholics who may desire relics, of Father Henneberry, will not be charged extra for that gratification ; or bigoted Protestants can find vent-for fanatical zeal by buying to burn ; and sensible men of all parties, who are,not influenced, by such feelings can get useful timber at low rates." The editor of the Skennectown Recorder is now probably striking the angels for a star sacred concert ad.,, and lying to St. Peter about his circulation. At any rate, about the first of the present month he published what he called some " racy gossip about a gunsmith's wife," and on the fourth the man of guns celebrated by rolling a keg of powder under the editor's sanctum: and touching it off. A fiendish contempprary says the Recorder was never so widely distributed before. They picked up type and editor in four different countries. ; '

There are thousands of young people who, though they dance, do so in the firm belief that they are waltzing to perdition, and who when they venture.to visit a theatre, shudder at the allegorical words " The way to the Pit." Millions of children are under terrible apprehensions that " Father is a goat," as a popular tract says, becsuse father smokes his pipe, drinks his glass of beer, has a throw at skittles, or readshis Sunday newspaper. Weak|brothers and sisters are responsible for the existence of generations of pietistic little prigs, who may perhaps never recover their healtli3tone of mind, or, more fortunate, may live to laugh at their absurd delusions. The religious weak brother and sister are remarkable at once for their amazing credu Jity and for their maddening scepticism. They are the natural advocates of the hypocrite and of the commercial impostor, because in all attacks on him they see a virulent assault on religion. They are capable of believing the most monstrous figments against the character of their neighbors .who make no particular pretensions, and they swallow camels in the way of taking the virtues of the humbug at his. own valuation.— Shtarday Review. The Melbourne correspondent of the Otago Daily Times says:—lt almost becomes tedious to repeat that the missing woman and the missing gold robber Weiberg, have not yet been heard of. The police are therefore the butts of the public, scorn. As a minister was heard to remark the other day, *• Yes, we have been abused for.-'Black Wednesday,' as they call it, again an,d again, and because we dismissed a number of incompetent men (receiving high salaries for doing nothing), at a time of pelitical exigency, we are told that we have,aemoralized the Civil Service. It is admitted that we saved 4£30,000 a year in the departments in which the dismissals took place, and it is proved that more work is better done now. This is enough of itself, but look at the police. This one trpsch of the public service was left .untouched because we were unwilling even to rpu#e; a - endangering public to say that if we had made a clean sweep there too, we should hms caught; .the Kellys long ago. A Givil Service like ours, which has been simply the asylum of political hangers-on, wants a Black Wednesday once a month to bring: it. into working order. I have been two years in office,: and yet have been unable until this week to obtain any insight into, or information as to, one of the most important •departments committed to my care, in spite of all my efforts to the contrary, i : Give "us & little time, and Black Wednesday ,or no, ! .we'll make a public service that can do its work, and will do it'police and all.'" There is a great deal in these frankand spirited utterances, and it is well known that the man who used them has the capacity .to make good all he said.