ONE THING AND ANOTHER.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume V, Issue 438, 1 October 1880, Page 3

ONE THING AND ANOTHER.

(Collated from oun Exchangks.)

Some fun was caused at one of our popular seaside resorts by an accident that happened to a well-known curate Having a, horse that did not like the water, he tried to v;ure him. He rode to a lonely part of the shore, stripped to his skin, donned his bathing drawers, and then mounted his steed which he sought to force into the sea. But the brute did not see it, and whirling round started at full pace for the town, through the main street of which he dnshed, greatly to the surprise and horror of his rider, the male Godiva. It is said that the curate did not officiate next Sunday.

A sad looking man went into a Burlington drug store. " Can you give me," he asked, " something that will drive from my mind the thoughts of bitter recollections ? " And the druggist nodded and put him up a little dose of quinine, wormwood, and rhubarb, and epsom salts, and a dash of castor oil, nnd gave it to him, and for six months the man could't think of anything in the world except new schemes for getting the taste out of his mouth.

You can't make a horse drink. This shows how inferior is the horse to man. You can make a man drink, but can't always make him pay.

" Tommy Eyebright " wants to know if we think " a boy from the city could go into the country and make a living picking strawberries ?" Well, yes, we rather think the boy could, but the man for whom he worked couldn't, by a large majority.

In response of a circular sent out from this office to one hundred prominent church members in lowa, seventy-two replies have been received, and without exception they all state, as the solemn conviction of the writers, that it is not wrong to steal an umbrella.

The Chinese Camp at Maryborough was the scene of some excitement the other Sunday night. The Chinamen, who have been suffering from a continued depression in business, determined to propitiate the devil in the hope of reviving trade. "On Sunday evening," we quote the Maryborough Advertiser, " preparations were made for the ceremony, a priest was procured from Ballarat to perform the ceremony at the price of £3 10s. The ugliest devil that can possibly be conceived had been prepared, including every Celestial delicacy, and all went merry as a marriage bell. The ceremony, which is not a musical one, commenced abottt eleven o'clock. There were about 250 Europeans on the ground, who taking advantage of their superior numbers surrounded the Chinamen, hustled them, and ran away with their devil and burned him. Stones were thrown al out indiscriminately, burning embers wore burled at the Chinamen, and one unoffending Celestial sustained a severe wound in the temple by a piece of metal which struck him with great force. At the end of the ceremony the Cinnamon were assaulted on their way home, thoir provisions forcibly taken from them ai d thrown away, while the tables and other furniture were destroyed.' .

Wβ copy the following little episode from an exchange for the benefit of Britishers contemplating emigration to America: —" Pc-dee, Marion County, South California, has lately been the scene of a terrible conflict with rats. Mr Boslick tho owner of a flour mill at Pee Dee, accompanied by one Anderson Wayles, imprudently visited a barn of his in which large quantities of wheat had been stored away and undisturbed for more than a year. Upon entering the barn the miller perceived that swarms of rats had substituted themselves for the bushels of corn that had been gathered up. Before they had time to recover to their astonishment t!iey were fiercely attacked by the ferocious vermin Bostick and Wajlcs strove manfully to defend themselves, but, unfortunately, in their efforts to get rid of their savage assailants, they contrived to upset a huge chest, which falling blocked up the doorway ; and a few miuutes elapsed before their agonised cries for assistance brought them rescue. Meanwhile the rats had used their sharp teeth to such cruel purposes that their victims, "when dragged out of the dark barn into the light of day, had suffered so severely as to be scarcely recognisable The miller's left ear had totally disappeared, and his face and hands were bleeding profusely from innumerable bites. Wayles was still more terribly mutilated, for the rats, had literally eaten off his nose, ears, and lips, besides inflicting hundreds of wounds on other parts of his body.