The Akaroa Mail. TUESDAY, APRIL 27.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume 4, Issue 389, 27 April 1880, Page 2

The Akaroa Mail. TUESDAY, APRIL 27.

Owing to the extra stress of reading matter and advertisements, we have been compelled to hold over our leading article.

We beg to draw tho attention of our readers to an advertisement appearing in another column, and notifying that an entertainment will be given in the Oddfellows' Hall to-night and to-morrow night by the Grand Combination Variety Troupe. The programme seems a liberal one, and we have no doubt they will be well

patronised

We have been informed on good authority that the statement made by the Town Clerk, at the last meeting of the Council, to the effect that he had handed in to the auditors his balance sheet is utterly incorrect. We will refrain from actually calling tho statement a falsehood, as we really believe that our Town Clerk no more knows what a proper balance sheet is than he knew what a correct Hat of registered dogs to hand to the police meant, and that it is very likely he did hand in something. One thing is certain* the auditors have not been supplied with a balance sheet, such as they will consent even to examine, and they consider that they have been humbugged over the matter quite long enough. Moreover, they have distinctly given the Mayor to understand that unless an order be made by the Council to have the balance sheet and books ready by a certnin date, they will not trouble themselves further in the matter. Surely when affairs have come to such a pass as this and are the genera! talk of the town, it is high time our worthy Mayor and Councillors looked to it. We learn that telegraphic communication between here and Christchurch was found yesterday morning to be cut off. On examination it turned out that a post on Barry's Bay Hill Top was split up with one arm off, and the line on the ground. The accident must have occurred during the storm which raged the previous night or in the cariy morning. An epidemic, which has taken the form of a cough similar to whooping cough, has lately seized the majority of children in Little Akaloa. It has most likely been caused by the inclement weather of last week. At present there appears no sign of its abatement. Much comment has been made during the last few days with regard to the verdict returned by the jury of the inquest held at Little River on Wednesday last. Although wo have in no degree altered our opinion, n-; to both the absurdity and cruelty of the Coroner's inquest, still we might inform our readers that in tho pre&out cu;sc no othor verdict according to tha evidence given could, in our opinion,

have been returned. There is a set form of verdicts for juries to return, aud any who feel uneasy on the matter have only to refer to Judge Johnston's " Justice of the Peace " to find the interpretation excusable homicide to be "death caused either by accident or in self-preservation," and as tlie whole of the evidence leaded to prove the death in tins case was caused by, accident, we again repeat that no other verdict could have been returned.

Aa indicating the quantity of drinking done in Adelaide during the late hot season, it is reported that a local brewer is at present banking £10,000 a week.

A late copy of the Salt Lake Tribune strongly denounces the Mormon Eiders who visited New Zealand, and says one was an expelled Freemason, the next an athiest, and the last a fraud.

Tho Rev. John Hobbs, of Naseby, Otago, has a tenderness of a peculiar kind for hot-cross buns. The local paper, the Mount Ida Chronicle, says : —" Hot-cross buns " are three words which one would think would hardly make a good subject for a sermon. Yet the Rev. John Hobbs made them the corner stone of his sermon iast Sunday. The rev. gentleman waxed very warm in his discourse, and said the practice was a " most horrible one " —" it

was an insult to Almighty God. Tho idea of a person irreligiously eating a lot of buns with a cross on them made him almost shudder."

Martin, who was sentenced at the Christchurch sessions to 5 months'imprisonment and two floggings for criminal assault, received his first punishment of twentyfive lashes on Monday. On Tuesday, at Timaru, William Tate, sentenced to twentyfive lashes by Judge Ward for indecently assaulting some young children, also received corporal punishment. It is observable that the infliction of the lash for this class of offences is regarded with favor by the whole Press of the Colony, as being the only means of checking the growth of such crimes.

According to the Dunedin .Herald a number of forged bank notes were circulated in Dunedin last week. The notes originally represented one pound each, but they had been altered to five and ten pound notes. The forgery was very cleverly executed, and to disarm suspicion the high numbers on the one pound notes had been reduced by obliterating the last figure. If the bad notes are held to the light the forgery becomes apparent, as the paper is much thinner where the figures have been altered.

A writer in an English Magazine says : A few years ago, when diphtheria was raging in England, I was prevailed upon to accompany the celebrated Dr Field on his rounds to witness the so-called wonderful cure, which he performed, while the patients of tho others were dropping on all sides. The remedy, to bo so rapid, must be simple. All he took with him was flour of sulphur and a quill, and with those he cured every patient withont exemption. He put a teaspoonful of flour of brimstone into a wineglass full of water, and stirred it with his finger, instead of a spoon, as the sulphur does not readily amalgamate with water, when the sulphur wan well mixed he gave t as a gargle, and in ten minutes the patient was out of danger. Brimstone kills every species of fungus in man, beast, and plant in a few minutes. Instead of spitting out the gargle, he recommended the swallowing of it. In extreme cases when he had been called, in just the nick of time, when the fungus was too nearly closing to allow the gargling, ho blew the sulphur through a quill into the throat, and, after tho fungus had shrunk to allow of it, then gave the g-irgle. He never lost a patient from diphtheria. If a patient cannot gargle, take a live coal, put it on a shovel, and sprinkle a spoonful or two of flour of brimstone upon it; let, the sufferer inhale the fumes, and the fungus will die."

It will be seen by our shipping report that the captain of the s.s. Taiaroa yesterday morning refused to take in any outward cargo from this port. Wo cannot help commenting upon the injustice done us, and likewise the damage done to our export trade. Surely if! the captain, to accommodate shippers at Port Chalmers, could take in 20 tons over the regulated quantity, he might, alter- having- discharged them here, have taken in one ton in exchange, which we believe was all he was required to do; especially as it should be taken into consideration how few and far between are tho vessels that are at present calling here. We have no grand trunk lino of railway, and no line of coaches by which heavy cargo can be taken, so that it is certainly most hard if the only other way, carriage by water, should be deprived us.