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Auckland Star, Volume II, Issue 338, 8 February 1871, Page 2

A very disgraceful scene occurred to-day in Victoria-streot Eust, being a fight between two women and a Maori woman, or rather a brutal pommelling of the later by the former. The causa icterrima helli was the ownership of a dog. The two white women claimed the animal in possession of their sable sister. Haying succeeded ia bringing the aboriginal to the earth the two civilised combatants proceeded with great vigor to beat her on the head with stones, causing the blood to flow freely. At length the dark sister escaped, and proceeded all bloody to the police station to lay information for assault and battery. Meantime another white woman of the same locality, doubtless excited by sniffing blood and also by previous suction of alcoholic stimulants, had proceeded to the performance of such antics as compelled the police to carry her offin the direction of the watch-house, the burthen of screaming, kicking womanhood, and the pacifying efforts of the bearer 3 producing a scene in the public streets to be remembered. We are requested to call attention to the sale of valuable household furniture by Messrs. B. Tonks and Co., at the Karanghape Road, at 11 o'clock. The peach is the rose of fruits. Unlike love, it i 3 harmless in any of its effects. A man once wished to commit suicide, and, lookiug nbout for an easy death, decided to eat himself to death on peaches ; but the moro he ate the better he felt, till, at the end of his basket, he cried, " Let me not leave the world that contains such a beauti'ul fruit." An amiable way of partaking of the peach is to slice it, cover it with sugar, and let it remain on ice for an hour, or till it freezes ; then pour equal parts of sweet wine and cream over the fruit, eat and realise a vegetable passion. A peachclub has been formed among some of our gentlemen of refinement, who solemnly departed for the sunniest orchards of the Southwest to indulge in their favourite fruit, as anglers do in trout-fishing. Only one bite is taken out of the crimson side of a peach. The last, 1 account was 1,331 peaches eaten by the best sportsman of the party.— New York World.

Our friends in the province of Wellington, N.Z., appear to bo in desperate financial straits. The Provincial Government has stopped payment; the officials have received no salaries for months; and even the day labourers on the public roads are in a similar plight. Like Mr. Micawber, who, in the midst of pressing embarrassments, found time to meditate throwing out abow window for the improvement of his sitting-room, the authorities at Wellington are prosecuting, at this very moment, a costly survey of a line of railway which is to connect the provincial capital witb every other town in the North Island. It is going to borrow a few millions to execute this work with ; and at the same time it is obliged to importune the General Government to step in and assume a portion of the provincial liabilities. Wellington is already weighted with its proportion of a debt of eight millions sterling, and cannot pay its way. It finds itself in the position of the spendthrift in one of Jerrold's comedies. " How came you to get head over ears in debt, like this?" asked the exasperated father. "It was so d d easy," rejoined the prodigal. Colonies have the same fatal facility for contracting debts which young men with good ex pectations experience.— A ustralasian.