MISCELLANEA.

Cromwell Argus, Volume II, Issue 99, 3 October 1871, Page 7

MISCELLANEA.

The present Maori members are admitted on | all hands to he vastly superior to choir prede-; cessors in the late Parliament. Parata has a' letter in the Wellington evening paper of the' 9th inst., in which he siys that the present Maori .Representatives do not belong to the, “clan M‘Loan," The result of the c-unis in the three chief towns of England shows that Glasgow has once more regained its position of being, in point of j population, the second city in the kingdom. : Liverpool, with its suburbs, has a population of 433,0dd ; Manchester, including the town of Salford, 533,000 ; Birmingham, 847,0dd. The population of Glasgow and its suburbs is 560,009. ' The Xew Tor, 7 ; Tribune, discoursing cm Chinese devotedness, says “ We have always said that the Chinese in this country would easily adapt 1 themselves to the situation, and would do well if they were not persecuted. The facts prove it. In Massachusetts, Chinese cordwainers go to the Methodist meeting with edifying regularity. In San Francisco, we are told that there is a Chinese Young Men's Christian Association, with forty members. What better immigrants can be desired than such as these—hard-working, sober, thrifty, manly, and moral and peace-keeping and willing to belong to a Christian Association? The selfish American mechanic, who howls indignantly about cheap Chinese labour, and the wrong which it dues him, if he will keep steadily at work, and join a Christian Association, will find himself in a much more comfortable frame of mind.” The Southern. League of a recent date, under the heading of “ Squatting with a Vengeance,’ 7 says ; —“ It was elicited in evidence in the case of Neilsou o. Douglas that the whole permanent service-stall" on the station of Mr Douglas, at Mount Royal, Palmerston, —a station occupying some thousands of acres, —consists of only three people I Let us say that this is a miscalculation, and that three times three would be nearer the fact, then we have nine servants employed | on about 14,090 acres. The question arises, | How many of the poor down-trodden parents of ! England could be provided with farms and faj milies on this estate ? With such faots before I our eyes, is it any wonder that our socialist i friends should call it “ property robbery ?” The | defendant in the ease referred to was the dc- | featod candidate for a. seat in the Provincial j Council for the Waihemo district, when, by the ! votes of the Macraes electors, John Mackenzie, I solely on account of his liberal views, was placed j in the position contested by Mr Douglas.” j A case which has some points of resemblance to the Tiohhorne case, has lately been occupying j the attention of the Edinburgh Court of Sessions. The question to he decided is the identity of the Earl of Aberdeen with a person named Osborne, who was drowned at sea in 1870. The late Earl landed in Boston in I Slid, in company with Lord Gosford and a Mr Peterkin. At Boston he disappeared ; but it seems now almost certain that he embarked in 1897 as a passenger in a vessel bound for Texas, under the assumed name of G. il. Osborne, and this same person afterwards served as a mate on a vessel named the Hera, and was lost at sea in 1870. Photographs of G. H. Osborne are recognised by Lady Aberdeen, and photographs of the late Karl of Aberdeen are recognised by the friends of G. H. Osborne. Letters from the Earl to Lady Aberdeen tally exactly with what is known of the life of G. H. Osborne. And lately a rifle was sold by G. IL Osborne in America. which is identified beyond all doubt by Mr Henry, of Edinburgh, as being one which he himself sold to the 1 ite Earl. The case at present stands over a while, that further evidence may he collected. A correspondent in the Labe Wakatip Mall, writing about the Blue Gum, says:—“ Few, perhaps, know the real virtues of th ; s tree. From some experiments recently made by the writer, he has found that it possesses more than ; the reputed qualities as a styptic. The Chinese j having continually asked me for gum leaves to 1 apply to wounds, I thought a solution of gum i leaves boiled would answer perhaps more effee il tuaPy and rapidly in effecting a cure. I tried

it in the following instances with success (I.) I A dog got his toes cut o.T, and his foot divided | by a broken glass bottle. He was bleeding pro-' fusely, and all the licking of his tongue had no I etl'cct. He would not submit to have gum leaves | tied round him ; so as rapidly as possible some igutn leaves were boiled, and the heat brought I down with cold water. Though the water was [ warm, the solution within a minute or two proI duoed a most beneficial effect. (‘J. ) Applied to 1 i a pack horse, it healed rapidly a nasty saddle | sore ; and 1 think it would act, therefore, as J j well with collar galls. (3.) Applied to a severe j burn to a female on the wrist, it alleviated the ; 1 pain, and an ugly scar was prevented.” I In our last week’s issue, a “ local” appears 1, j | to the eii'eeD that Peter de Lorce, who was welli known some years ago on the Otago Gold-fields | las the ‘•Champion Swordsman,” was sentenced ! ( at Hokitika to three years’ penal servitude for a I robbery of jewellery. AVc take the following j j account of the ease from the Urey Jiiucr Arju<: | I —At the Supreme Court, Hokitika, on Monday, ■ Sept. 11, before Mr Justice Richmond, Peter de , i 1 Loroc was indicted for that he did; on the 23rd i , j April last, burglariously break an I enter the | promises of Peter Kelly, and di 1 steal and carry j j away certain property, to the value of £3OO, and j j money in silver to the value of £l. Tue pi'is i- i 1 nor pleaded guilty, and called witnesses to cha--1 meter. He then said that he had been twenty-1

| three years in the Colonies, and had never been ; through ths Insolvent Court ; only twice had lie ' 1 been summoned for debt. He had always acted honourably to everyone, fl e had had the mis- ; fortune eight years ag<i to lose his wife, who had I ( left live small children, lie had married again, I j but his wife had turned nut a drunkard, and his family had drifted into destitution. Just before the commission of the robbery, he had received j a letter from Westport, stating that his children : wore starving, and that his eldest boy was beg-1 ging in the streets. (Here the prisoner burst i : out sobbing, which prevented him speaking for | j some time.) Ho had been travelling with his two : daughters performing, and At the time he re- : 1 ooived the letter, both his daughters were out \ j of situations, and ho himself had Iml l!s (Id in 1 1 his pocket. Under this pressure, and for the : i sake of his family, he had committed the offence, j i He trusted his Honor would take into consult;-1 : ration the time he had been in gaol, and that he ! | had voluntarily occupied himself in mending and 1 I making clothes for the prisoners. An American paper says Of the persons who : occupied thrones when Victoria’s reign began, , j almost all are dead or in exile. Nicholas of : Russia, Louis I’hillippe of Franco, Ferdinand of; Austria. Frederick William of Prussia, Charles! ■ John of Sweden, Leopold of Belgium, William; 1 of Holland, Ferdinand of the two Sicilies, Louis - ; of Bavaria, Maria of Portugal, Sultan Mahmoud, | Pope Gregory, and others, —all have gone he- : youd that river which every breathing thing i must cross, without aid of bridge, or boat, or balloon. Don Pedro 11. of Brass'll is one of the I few sovereigns of 15.‘17 who survive ; but he was j then a child of eleven years. Isabella 11,, the. ! Spanish Queen, “still lives,” hut she does not i i reign, bci»g an exile. Mi Van Buren, who was : 1 our President in 1557, has been dead some years, i I J I , If we look at the great changes that have taken' ! place since Victoria became Queen, we cannot' ; hut he struck by their number, for they include 1 | the overthrow of the Papal temporal power, the | I conversion of Italy from a number of small conn-' j tries and foreign dependencies into a united king- 1 (loin, the loss of the European leadership by! | Russia, the destruction of the Germanic eon- ■ ! federation, the defeat of Austria by Prussia, the ! ! overthrow of three branches of the House of; j Bourbon, the restoration of the Buonapartes in ; j France, the creation of two French republics, 1 the conquest of France by the Germans, the fall! !of Napoleon 111., the re-ercation of the Gorman i ; empire under the House of ilohenzollern, the j setting-up of a new dynasty in Spain, the discs*! tahlishment of the Irish church, the second Hri-i | tish Reform Bill, the Sepoy mutiny t the opon-i jingof China and Japan to Western intercourse | | and influences, the establishment of ocean steam j | navigation, the creation of the electric telegraph. 1 1 the comjuest uf Mexico by the Unite I States,! the secession war, the abolition of Ame-ican si a-1 j very and the overthrow of American slaveicratio ] j rule, and many other strange events. Perhaps j I not the least remarkable of these changes is that-1 | which placed Victoria herself on the throne of i Akhar and Aunmgw.bc. | A most remarkable instance of the mlervcnI tion of Provi leuec is given in the Pleasant CrcrJt j Weirs; —A few days ago, a man named Thump- i j sou, while at his tent door, at Moyston, observed | i a hoy about seven years old passing towards the j 1 common school, and a few minutes afterwards j I nn irresistible conviction suit'd him that the boy ! he had lately seen was drowning in an adjacent ;creek. So unable was he to resist this impres- ] sion that he ran with all his spend to Pin snat i presented to his min 1, when, sure enough, he ■! beheld th 3 disappearing body just below the surface of the water. In an instant he plunged \ forward and grasped the nearly lifeless body of i the child, who bad evi itmt.ly been struggling for! some time, and in a few seconds more would have passed into spirit world, Restoratives : were applied and the child was restored to its 1 grateful parent. Thompson feels proud that hj was used by the hands of Providence in thus ’j preserving a life. He says that his mind was 1 j engaged iu other matters when the s-ene per•j frayed presented jb If, vdiivli when concluded I ' ccctuccl to him like a dream.