ONE THING AND ANOTHER.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume 4, Issue 314, 22 July 1879, Page 3

ONE THING AND ANOTHER.

(Collated from our Exchanges.) A contempory says that two passengers were playing cards in ; the train between Christchurch and Dunedin. "It's very odd,"" remarked one of them, " we've been playing a long time, and I haven't seen a single king." "It's very natural," replied the. other, "seeing that you have the king of hearts up your sleeve, and I have the other three in my boot." They didn't play any more after that. At Banchory lately, the parish schoolmaster, from mere curiosity/put this question to the scholars, " What is nothing?" A pause ensued, until an urchin, whose proclivities for turning a penny were well known among his schoolfellows, got up and replied, "It's when a man asks you to hold his horse and just says thank you." The answer has since earned considerable notoriety for the youngster. "Can you tell me where Washington's Monument is?" asked a.rural gentleman in Charles street, Baltimore, the other day. "Just lift your eyes off the ground," said the person addressed, rathor tartly, " and you'll see it."—" Well, I hey lifted my eyes," said the rural party, looking his informant calmly in the face, "an' I don't see nuthin but a darned old fool." ■ We have heard of a man so mean that he would not die for fear of incurring the necessary funeral expenses—but he was not half so mean as he who borrows his neighbour's newspaper to save a "token." On May 13 the hereditary princess of Saxe-Meiningen gave birth to a daughter, which is the first great-grandchild of Queen Victoria. Her Highness and the newlyborn princess are progressing satisfactorily. A Northern exchange says:—"lf the Government bad to build a canoe at the North Cape, it would send the advertisement calling for tenders to a newspaper proprietor at the Bluff, provided that the latter was a whole-souled supporter of the Premier." v The Berlin correspondent of the Standard telegraphs:—" The state of St. Petersburg is described as melancholy, the streets being deserted.. If. more than three persons presume to walk together they run the risk of being arrested. The troops are kept in the barracks ready for action, while patrols abound, cavalry escorts accompanying the carriages of the generals and dignitaries. . Business is at a standstill; rumour, reporting dreadful deeds, is rife in the palace and hut, and the apprehension of cflming horrors is universal. Arrests continue to be made, and are by no means limited to students or young men. Among the prisoners are Senator Stavos, who acted as counsel at a recent Nihilist trial, M.Pytlin, one of the directors of the State Bank ; Professor Famincyn ; Mdme. Filosophoff, the wife of the chief military prosecutor ; relations of Schulz and Drenteln, the two heads of the secret police ; many officers, and other persons of rank and station. There can be but little doubt that the revolutionary party are highly connected. When, a short time ago, the secret police commissioned a well-known writer to produce a eeries of anti-Nihilist articles, the loyal literateur is said to have asked for the latest revolutionary, pamphlets before setting to work. Imagine his dismay when the parcel that was to contain the subterranean literature, though sealed with the seal of the political police, breught him a letter from the Revolutionary Committee, threatening death if he presumed to carry out the Government order.

Simpkins refused to get his wife a new hat, and soon after his little girl came in and said, " Mamma, won't you buy me a monkey to play with when you go down j town?" '• No darling—wait till you are older and then marry one, as I did," replied the grief-stricken wife, her teara bursting out afresh. A famous impostor has just died in the poorhouse at Hawick. He had his day, this Robert Aitkin, alias " Hi-I-Obby," a name belonging to a language which probably Robert himself invented, Be did \ several notable things ; but his greatest exploit—that by which he is still most: feelingly remembered in the south of I Scotland—was when,, twenty years ago, he made the canny people there believe that hs had become heir to a large estate and great wealth by the death o£ an uncle in America. Robert soon found himself living in clover, as the saying is. His story, perhaps to his own surprise, was believed. It was easy to point out that it would take a considerable time to realize an estate bequeathed to him in America: and several generous gentlemen in the neighborhood of Dunse—no punning allowed —gave him a cash account in one of the banks for £1000. It was eriongh.. With such an account it was easy for an ingenious fellow like Robert Aitkin to play the gentleman. His society was courted on all hands, and by the most respectable families—in Dunse. He purchased an estate, but, of course, forgot to pay for it; he bought hunters, jewellery, was richly apparelled, gave great dinners himself, and dined sumptuously with the most respectable families in the neighborhood. It was a gay life while it lasted, but Robert clung to it too long. He was convicted of fraud and imprisoned ; and this seems to have broken the spirit of the clever impostor, as his fortunes thereafter sank low, and now he has died in a podrllOUSe..-. ./.■: '■..';. •' -.::*"

Rev. Dr M'Cosh tells a story of a negro who prayed that he and his colored i brethren might be preserved from their ' " upsetting sin." " Bruddcr," said one of his friends at the close of the meeting.' " You ain't got de hang of dat word., [tV ,' besettin', not upsettin'." " BruddiT." replied the other, "If dats so, it's so. But I was prayin' de Lord to save from the sin ob intoxication, an' ef dat ain't an upsettin' sin, I dunno know what am." An American correspondent sends nn account of a crime which is attracting groat attention in the United States. Charles Freeman, member of the Second Advent Congregation, at Pocasset, 'Massachusetts, irecently became insane from excitement at revival meetings. . A week ago he declared he had received a wonderful revelation, and has not eaten or slept since. He declared that God had directed him to sacrifice his daughter, Edith, aged five, and that she would rise again in three days. He seized her on Thursday morning ;at daybreak, and having transfixed her with a knife upon the table, improvised as an altar, killed her, and poured out her blood on the altar. His wife assented to the murder, and both prayed before it was committed. He then summoned an advent meeting, which assembled in the afternoon. He told them of the sacrifice he had made, and exhibited the body to the meeting. He endeavoured to keep the sacrifice a secret, but it was disclosed. Then he drove everyone from the house, barricaded the doors and windows ; and, being M r ell armed, threatened death to any who! interfered with him. On Friday he conducted an incantation over the body preparatory to Sunday's resurrection. He and his wife were arrested on Friday afternoon, and taken to Barnstable Gaol, Cape Cod. After his arrest, while being taken to the railway to gaol, he sang hymns, and declared he was a second Abraham obeying a Divine mandate. His wife seconded him, and neither expressed anxiety as to the future. Freeman is a farmer in moderate circumstances. Several Adventists at Pocasset who attended the meeting will be arrested as accessories.