MISCELLANEA.

Cromwell Argus, Volume IV, Issue 199, 2 September 1873, Page 7

MISCELLANEA.

4*. “ Porridge made to order” is the tempting announcement displayed on a placard shown in a shop window in one of the leading thoroughfares of Dundee. It is recorded that one nice old Native, a chieftain of Rakiraki, kept a registrar of his own consumption of prisoners, by means of a row of stones, which, when reckoned up after the old gentleman’s demise, amounted to 872 ; and yet these Maoris were a healthy race enough when civilisation looked them up. News received at the Bay of Islands from New Caledonia, states that the copper mines at Manghene, in the northern part of the island, promise to be extremely rich, and are being vigorously worked. Forty miners have arrived from Sydney to work the mines, and tests showed the ore to contain 75 per cent, of pure copper. Of Mr James Smith’s new apo&tleship, the Melbourne correspondent of the UaniUton Spectator, writes:—“By the way, it may be mentioned as curious that one of his latest converts and most sincere followers is Mr Frank Weston, the Wizard Oil Prince. Good fellow, Frank, and clever; but I thought him much too ’cute to fall into Mr Smith’s ways, unless, indeed, he sees ‘ plunder’ in it, from the showman’s point of view.” One of the inebriates who was fined yesterday at the Police Court either hoie or assumed the name of another man who laid an affectionate sister. Upon being informed, wrongly of course, that her brother was in the lock-tip on Saturday, she folded up his bedding with a supply of blankets, and in order that he should not repose upon the “ cold, cold ground,” took them to the station ; and judge of her surprise i when she saw her brother enter the house !in a thoroughly sober state. She imrne- ! diately discovered her mistake, and returned without delay to recover the blankets which her dear brother needed for the night under his own roof. —Auckland Star. | We learn from a Wellington telegram that the Government have decided upon employing young ladies in the telegraph i department as operators. It has been | found by experiment in England and elsewhere, that educated females are specially adapted for telegraphic work, on account of the great aptitude they display in the transmission of messages, and the quickness with which they read the signals. In Victoria, telegraphic instruction classes for young ladies have been for some time open, under the management of the working head of the department, and two ladies at least now hold the appointment of tele-graphic-mistress—the one at Queenscliff and the other at Emerald Hill, The average rate of wages paid to miners in the Colony during the year ending 31st j March, 1873, was as follows;—In AuckI land, £2 per week; Marlborough, £3; j Nelson, £2 Bs. to <£l ; Westland, £3 to .£4 ; and Otago, £2 10s. to £3 10s. The I number of miners employed on the gold- | Helds of the Colony during the vear ending | 31st Match, 1873, was 22,335, of which { number 4,202 are Chinese. Dividing the j value of the total quantity of gold ex- | ported amongst the mean number of miners employed in alluvial and quartz mining, in 1872, the average was per man, for the year, £77 10s. 3d. There are within the Colony 4,932 miles of water-races, carrying 6,776 sluim-heads. constructed at an j estimated ccsA o; £763,809,