NEWS OF THE DAY.

Globe, Volume VIII, Issue 855, 21 March 1877, Page 2

NEWS OF THE DAY.

Christchurch City Guards.—The members of this company will hold their annual dinner at the Garrick Hotel to-morrow evenat 7.30. Members are requested to muster at the drill-shed at 7 o’clock. Railway Servants Benefit Society—A special meeting of the Railway Servants Mutual Benefit Society is to be held at the old Oddfellows’ Hall', Lichfield street, tomorrow night, on important business.

St John’s Presbyterian Church. —At a meeting of St John’s Presbyterian Congregation, Lyttelton, held last evening, it was resolved to give a call to the Kev James Hill, of the Thames; the salary to be offered is £4OO per annum and J2GO for house-rent.

Mr Thomas Bussell,— Mr Russell has returned to Auckland, after visiting some of the southern districts of the North Island, but the Herald states that he does not intend to make a long stay there, as he proposes shortly to leave for England.

Captain Calder We notice by an Adelaide telegram, published in the Sydney Herald of the Bth instant, that Captain Balder, late of the steamer Otago, has been appointed chief officer of the steamer Victorian.

The Brogden Claims, —The Auckland Star says, besides the action by Messrs Brogden against the New Zealand Government for a breach of their immigration contract, Messrs Simmon, of Hamburg, will again sue the Government in the English Courts respecting the Fritz Reuter case.

An Octogenarian.— A Mrs Ramplin has died at Auckland at the age of eighty-eight, venose first husband, Mr Otto, was attached to the commissariat during the Peninsular war. Mrs Otto accompanied him through most, of bis campaigns—that of Waterloo included. .She witnessed the siege of Badajoz, and had a daughter born during the battles in the Pyrenees. On Mr Otto’s death she married Mr Ramplin, and came with him to Auckland, where she spent meny years, and in which she leaves many descendants and other relatives.

Travers v Perrier —Referring to the recently threatened action by Mr Travers against Mr J, M. Perrier, as the supposed author of articles entitled "The Intelligent Vagrant,” the New Zealand Times says 11 The only thing Mr Perrier has heard in reference to the continuance of the action has been from friends of Mr Travers, who asserted that the latter gentleman had acted very foolishly, and one of them went so far as to get Mr Perrier to promise he would regard the withdrawal of the action and the payment of his costa by Mr Travers as sufficiently satisfactory,” Dunedin Cup. —A Calcutta sweep was drawn lust evening at Morton’s Hotel or. the Dunedin Cup. The list filled up readily, but when a price for the first came to be asked, buyers assumed a shyness made some what ominous by a knowing one present assuming a shyness so little a characteristic that poor Danebury was knocked down to “nil." Templeton was made the favorite, Pnuga, were wore, Guy Fawkes, and Fallacy dividing second honors, with Fishhook and Right Bower immediately following. The value of the sweep was £56 10s, and the following prices were obtained:—Templeton, £9 ; Guy Fawkes, Pungawerewere, and Fallacy, £5 each; Fishhook, J 4; King Phillip and Right Bower, £3 each; Fanny Fisher Colt and Elfin King, £2 each; Danebury, Princess Mary, Titania, Osprey, Stanley, Stirabout, and Rob Roy, no bid. Sweeps will be drawn to night at Mr Morton’s on the principal events of the meet, and Calcutta sweeps are also advertised at Warner’s.

Mbs Scott Siddons. —We have already quoted a criticism in the New Zealand Times of this lady’s appearance as Rosalind, in the play of “As You Like it,” on the Wellington stage. The criticism was certainly not flattering to the stock company in that city. Mrs bcott tdddona has since written to the Times a pleasantly dictated letter, in which she acknowledges the support g' yen to her, and explains the circumstances of the failure thus " The delay in commencing, trying to the audience, and agonising to those behind the curtain, was caused by the non-appearance of two important members of vhe dramatis personce, one of whom arrived at 8 30 p.m , the other not at all. The play could not have pro caeded but for the kind and courageous assistance of one of the company, who volunteered to read the missing actor’s part, in addition to playing the two for which he was cast. ‘Every one cm master a grief but he that has it.’ I, sir, who have played Rosalind some hundreds of times, felt, under this sudden contretemps , my mind become 1 a blank,’ and ‘ the receipt of reason a limbeck only.’ No wonder then that ‘chaos’ reigned in theirs, many of whom were playing their parts for the first time.” A Series op Accidents Lyforri, the well-known jockey, sustained the injury of a fracture of the collar bone by the horse Zetland, which he was riding, putting bis foot into a hole on the Forbury course, and rolling right over his rider. Lyford was immediately taken to Dunedin in a buggy, and ia now reported to be progressing favorably. The circumstances of the accident, which happened to Mr Sperry, in the same city, are thus stated by the Guardian :—“ Mr Sperry had occasion to go to Forth place to call for his children, who had been spending an evening at a party, aud on hia way up Queen street, towards the top of Dundas street, he had the misfortune to fall into the new cutting made by the Corporation contractors. The cutting ekirts the original footpath, and has taken away a portion of it. Although the excavation is about fifteen feet in depth, it was only partially fenced ; the Coiporation lamp was not alight at the time of the acci- , dent, and the contractors’ light, as is gene rally the case, was burning but dimly, Under such circumstancesau accident was almost inevitable Mr Sperry’s ankle was severely fractured.” The accident reported from Kivfton, by which a man named Hood ost lus life is thus described:—“Hood. ?, b-iker, and George Rowles, a carpenter, were coming home from Invercargill in a buggy, md had reached the Maori Jv&ik and wen ■ookiog for the turn off from the beach to own, when Hood got off the buggy and said he I’ghfc at the pilot station on the otho vie of the river was the light of the town, lie went in that direction, and must kavc walked straight into the river. RowJei hove over to the Kaik and came home Nothing was seen of Hood till the body wat ound in the river, lie leaves a widow auc ,-;ix children.'*

Accident.— Mr C. F. Vince, the well known boatman, met with a bad accident in Lyttelton yesterday. It appears he was doing something to a boat on the gridiron when his foot slipped between two of the battens, which are five or six inches apart, and hia leg was broken between the ankle and the knee. He was conveyed home on a stretcher, and Dr McDonald was speedily in attendance and pronounced it to be a simple fracture.

Mr H. A, Severn’s Lecture,— Last niaht the first of a series of interesting and very instructive scientific lectures on The s'un and Modern Solar Discoveries,” was delivered iu the Oddfellows’ Hall, Lichfield street, by Mr H, A. Severn. There was but a email attendance. The lecturer, in adverting to the small number of persons present, said ho appeared before the audience as a uerfeGtstraoger,andhecertainlyexpected to find, in a city like Christchurch, with its 15,000 inhabitants, a much larger audience. In Taranaki, where he had a right to expect the people would not be fond of scientific pursuits, the hall he had, and which was nearly as large as the one he was then in, was crowded for six consecutive nights. Before he came to Christchurch he was aware of there being a College there, endowed with professors eminent in their respective callings, and he, therefore, expected to find a very much larger audience. He was proud to see Professor Bickerton present, and he felt very much indebted to that gentleman for his presence that evening. Men who pursued science for its own sake bowed to nobody, and, as far as he (the lecturer) was personally concerned, it mattered little to him whether he had only one person or a larger number to meet him. It only showed him what were the characteristics of the people of Christchurch. In Wellington be had been begged to go back, and give six more lectures. He thought the citizens of Christchurch could not take much interest in scientific matters. The lecturer then proceeded to speak upon solar physics, illustrating his subject with some really magnificent diagrams, showing the various phenomena in connection with the spots visible on the sun’s surface. The first thing he desired to call the attention of the audience to was the size of the sun. No doubt many of those present had learnt from statistics that the sun’s diameter was put down at 800.GCO miles, and the moon’s distance from the earth as 240.000, By doubling that they would have 480,000, which would give them the moon’s orbit in miles. Supposing they took the globe of the sun, and dropped it into the moon’s orbit, they would find that it was actually doublethe orbitofthe moon If they got a piece of smoked glass they would find the light of the sun would be so far dimmed as to enable them to look into the sun. They would then see certain spots on his disc. The question was, What where these spots ? On looking through the smoked glass they would find that they were actually in motion, and gradually creeping across the surface of the sun, and finally disappearing, but only to reappear again. If they watched closely, they would find the spots only travelled ever a certain portion of the sun’s disc, both on its upper and lower parts, and that the central portion of the sua was never traversed by any of the spots. Now, no telescope would do more chan magnify any image they might be looking at. In astronomical and chemical work they had another and most powerful instrument of inspection, called the spectroscope, which enabled them to find out what where the chemical characteristics of light which we received from the sun. The lecturer next proceeded to illustrate the method pursued by astronomers in determining the character of the spots observable on the sun's disc. He concluded his address by exhibiting a series of diagrams and views of various cities of different countries. To-night, he will lecture on “ Artificial Illumination,” and on the two following nights on “ Spectrum Analysis.”

Captain Barry’s Bet with the Davenports — A large audience assembled at the Princess Theatre, Dunedin, when the Davenport Brothers were to be tied up by Captain W. J. Barry, who was stated to have staked £SO that he could tie up the Davenports so ihat they could not free themselves. The captain, says the Daily Times, made bis appearance with a large supply cf rope, and certainly tied up the brothers in an artistic fashion, sparing neither knots nor time in the process. The tying, which occupied forty-five minutes, was performed in the presence of Dr Batchelor and Mr H. Driver, and in full view of the audience. Captain Barry then said be was confident they would nut free themselves for five weeks, and that if they did it was hopeless for anyone else “ this side of the line” to expect that they would succeed in securely tying the Davenports, The brothers were then locked up in the cabinet, and as soon as the doors were locked the usual noises were heard inside. Nine minutes after the closing of the doors one hand was shown at the small opening in the top of the cabinet, at 10J minutes two hands, and at I6£ minutes four hands. At the expiration of 20# minutes the doors were opened, and the Davenports were discovered unbound, and the ropes piled up on the floor of the cabinet. The audience applauded, and Captain Barry acknowledged himself beaten. It is mentioned, in connection with this feat, that it is now ten years since the brothers accepted a similir challenge. This was in New Orleans, when for a wager of 5000 dollars they were tied up by a Yankee planter, who consumed one hour and three minutes in the tying process, and in fourteen minutes the brothers stepped from the cabinet to claim the money. The ordeal they were subjected to by Captain Barry ia “the greatest tying up" they ever had.