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Evening Star, Issue 2918, 26 June 1872, Page 2

Kakanui Bridge.—This bridge is to be opened by his Honor the Superintendent on the sth prox. Strange Death.—A patient in Nelson Lunatic Asylum has died from suffocation caused through a piece of bread sticking in his throat. The Weather. —The cold must have been very severe at Queenstown, for on three occasions last week the thermometer registered at the local observatory 20 ®, being 12 3 below freezing point.

Dancing on the Ice. —As a result of the recent hard frosts, the young folks at Arrowtown were able last week to slide through the first set and Sir Roger, to the strains of a band, and, according to the Observer, enjoyed the novelty of dancing on the ice im’mensjly. Skating, too, was largely indulged in by the matuvcr portion of the townspeople. The Incoming Mails. —We are informed by the Chief Postmaster that lie has been requested by the Postmaster General, as a precautionary measure, to have the contents of the San Francisco mails well fumigated on arrival here. As this will have to be done before sorting is commenced, it may be expected that some little time may elapse before correspondence is put into the hands of the public. Piscatorial.—Numerous 6ne frost fish have been picked up on the Oamaru beach during the past few days —one measuring nearly sft. in length. There have been captured several specimens of a fish unquestionably identical with the familiar sprat of the old country; and the Times thinks there is reason to believe that ere long the familiar cry of “Sprats! sprats! sprats!” may resound in our streets.

An Artful Dodger.—A paragraph has been going the round of the Colonial press, in which the misfortunes of one David Cameron, who is said to have seen service in the Crimea, fought against the Maoris, and narrowly escaped being roasted alive by of some Toto Kowaru’s men, are pathetically told. The Daily Times found a place in its columns for the paragraph, when very little enquiry would have shewn that the whole thing was a tissue of falsehoods. In reference to the story and the hero of it the Tuapeha Times remarks that the individual alluded to is “ Doon the Burn Davie ” wellknown on the goldfields of Otago and the West Const. He sustained his injuries by being burnt in his hut at Tuapeka while in a state of inebriation. The story he has told the N.S.W. folks as a work of fiction is really excellent. Davie will probably improve as he travels. A Clergyman Candidate on Education. —The Rev. W. G. J. Bluett (Episcopalian) is one of the candidates for the vacant Coleridge seat in the House of Representatives, and by all accounts he stands a good ’chance of being returned. In addressing a meeting of the electors lately he made some observations on the subj c ct of education, which are of a more liberal character than might be expected from a gentleman of the cloth. He said that he should be in favour of giving to all children the very best possible education that could bo devised —the kind of education that would be useful to them in after-life, or in any undertaking that might be brought before them. Wherever children were found of greater talent than others, he should be in favour ’of their being assisted to bring that talent to a successful issue and make it of the greatest possible use to the country. With regard to the religious part of it, he thought that in a country where religious opinions were so diverse, it was a very great difficulty. For his own part, he should deplore the fact that religion should be ignored in schools altogether, but he hardly saw how the system of education could be carried on here if persons of all denominations M’erc allowed to go into the school, take half-a-dozen children from this desk and that, and teach them their own peculiar dogmas. He looked upon every parent as a priest in his own house. He thought a great part of a child’s religious teaching should be taught at home. If that were done, the difficulty would in a great measure be done away with. He was decidedly in favor of the State providing for every child in the country the best possible education it could provide. Mutual Improvement Association. —There was a fair attendance at the usual fortnightly meeting of the Mutual Improvement Society last evening, in the hall below the Athenaeum. No doubt the miserable state of our streets prevented a great number from being present; however, those who had come were more than rewarded for their trouble by listening to one of the best essays we have had the pleasure of listening to this session. The subject, “The condition of Europe a century ago, ” was a very wide one, and afforded the essayist, Mr Bolt, an opportunity of displaying to advantage Ids thorough knowledge and deep study of history. The essayist painted in dark colors the licentiousness and immorality, the grasping avarice and deep poverty of both Protestant and Catholic Europe, pointing out the causes of the prevailing poverty, and the means taken at different times by various reformers for the lessening of the powers of the feudal aristocracy, and how the cry of infidels and heretics had at all times been raised, and hurled with all the fury of ignorance and bigotry against such reformers and

their advanced opinions. He also pointed out that the so-called Spiritualism of the present day was really the revival of opinions much more than a century old, as men had long ago professed to hold communion with the spirits of the departed ; and in this, as in most other beliefs, when men became thoroughly convinced of the truth of their belief, they were apt to become bigots, and condemn all those who differ from them in opinion. The essayist also spoke at considerable length of the literature and literary men of the past century, giving a short sketch of the teachings of Voltaire and other brilliant geniuses of France and Germany. After the essay a discussion followed, in which Messrs Rcdmayne, Christie, Hughes, Barr, and Riddell took part.

The meeting in connection with the United Evangelical Services, will he held in the Congregational Church (Rev. Mr Koschy’s), this evening, at 7.30. A meeting of the Dunedin Society for Investigating Spiritualism, will be held in the Lower Hall of the Athenaeum to-mor-row (Thursday) evening, when Mr Redmayne will deliver an inaugural address. A meeting of the Provincial Grand Lodge of New Zealand, S.C., will bo held at the Masonic Hall to-morrow, at 5 p.m,, for the installation of office-bearers.