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Grey River Argus, Volume XII, Issue 1320, 22 October 1872, Page 2

A misprint calculated to mislead occurred in the advertised list of the winning numbers in Schlichting's art-union. It was ticket No. 23 which won the third prize.

MrDobson, the Provincial Engineer, is at present in Greymouth, on his way to the Grey Valley and Inangahua districts. He was recently on a visit to the eastern portion of the Province of Nelson, having proceeded thither by sea for the purpose of inspecting the Hurunui bridge. He came from Westport by the beach road, as did several other gentlemen whose business compelled them to make the .journey overland, in preference to staying for any Nelson steamer, about whose date of arrival nobody there knew anything.

By those who have within the past few days been afforded opportunities of standing in their bars or shop doors without having their line of vision interrupted by the presence of too many customers, considerable interest has been taken in the occurrence of a novel and extraordinary circumstance in Cobdcn. There ib positively a new house being erected there ! It is a house for the schoolmaster. However limited the population of that pretty township may be at present, great expectations are evidently entertained as to the. probabilities of its increase, and the selection of the schoolmaster's house as the first building to be erected would seem to signify that the increase is not expected to como in the form otan importation of adults,- but in augmentation to the quantity of young Cobden.

A miner, named Alex. Allen, met with an accident on Saturday evening, at Hatter's Terrace, Nelson Creek. Allen and a man named Magee were fighting or wrestling, when Allen fell or was thrown down, doubling his leg 'under him, which, -vras broken between the knee and the ankle. A number of miners gathered, and coveyed the sufferer to the foot of the creek the same evening. He was forwarded to Greymouth the first opportunity.

The writer of Parliamentary gossip in the Wanganui Herald says that the recent caucuses of Mr Vogel's party took the form of champagne luncheons. At these luncheons, according to the same writer, so much champagne was "consumed" that the supply in Wellington was nearly exhausted.

For a period of comparative commercial dullness such as the present time in Greymouth, the attendance at the Volunteer Hall last evening was not remarkable by its minuteness, but it was, no doubt, smaller then the performers could have wished or deserved. To judge by the applause (as the papers usually say) the audience was, however, eminently 'satisfied with Hearing Miss Holman sing,; and there was a sentimental silence on the pan of some which seemed to indicate that they had equal pleasure in simply seeing her. Her songs were, if anything, better given than on Saturday, because the accompaniment was more in accord, and * the audience,; greedy of good things, "wanted more." That "is, they encored, 'and did until their wishes were complied with; Mr Bromley was, as usual, great in song, 'speech, and " g'etup," and the entertainment was altogether satisfactory,

The probabilities are, we believe, that an effort will be made to continue, at the Volunteer Hall, the class of entertainments which have made the winter pass lightly over, and it is to be hoped the project will not fall through from want of support. "The Marble Heart," as produced by Miss Stephenson, Mr Burford,and their company, was worthy of bigger stages and better exchequers, and the production of anything similar would be welcome.

Some vtry strange rumors have been current in Christchurch relative to the recent exhumation of a human skeleton at Fendaltown. The " Press" is glad to be enabled to announce that it is placed beyond all doubt that it is that of a Maori, and that probably it was interred very many years before the advent of any Europeans to these shores.

The following conundrum appears in a Wellington contemporary :-" What is the difference between the penultimate Premier and the present? Mr Fox tried to turn every public into a water-house ; the present Premier is content with keeping a Waterhouse at the head of public affairs."

A number of men have left Christchurch for the purpose of laying out a township at the Malvern Hills, the plan of which has been prepared by Mr S. C. Farr, on instructions received from a private company recently formed in Christchurch. The township block comprises fifty acres of land, and is in a very eligible locality, being on a high terrace at the entrance to the Selwyn Valley. Water will be plentiful, and the proposed line of railway runs through the block. The township will be about forty miles from Christchurch.

For a person resident in London to send to Melbourne for his boots, says the " Argus," will be regarded as a somewhat startling circumstance. Nevertheless the ?henomenon has occurred. A bootmaker in lollins street has received a letter from a former customer, a well-known Sydney merchant now residing at home, containing an order for seveial pairs of boots. The writer added that he could get nothing* in London so well made as the colonial article. The letter is written in a plain business-like, straightforward way, which leaves no room whatever for the slightest suspicion as t» the writer's perfect sanity. 1

Mr Nuttall, the representative of the New Zealand Submarine Gold-mining Company, appears to have been very successful in his tour through the gold districts. At Mount Ida and the Lakes the matter has been warmly taken up, and a considerable number of shares have been sold. The people were quite enthusiastic at Queenstown, and speculated liberally,

The sum of LllOO has been collected in Christchurch in the course of a month, for the purpose of building a new Congregational Church.

. On Tuesday, the 15th instant, a fatal accident occurred at the Weka Past to Mr David Keen, formerly a partner in the firm of Keen and Jones, runholders, a gentleman well known in the Canterbury Province.*: It appears that he was riding a young, horse, when for some reason or another the. animal threw him, thereby fracturing his skull, and he lingered until three o'clock the following rooming.

Thirty pounds in bank-notes were recently found in two rat holes at Coromandel. If the notes were as dirty as bank-notes generally are in New Zealand,, it is probable that they were too bad even for the rats to eat, and hence their, preservation.. This supposition is borne out by the fact that the notes were slightly torn, as if the rats had tried to eat them, and had given them up in disgust.

Those who may have children suffering from whooping caugh ;or incipient diptheria should know that an excellent remedy ia the inhalation of the vapor arising from the gas as it passes through, the purifiers at the works. During the past week several children suffering severely from whooping cough have been subjected to the process at the Christchurch Gasworks, and the result has been most satisfactory, more especially in jone very obstinate oase. An attempt was made to rob the Bank of New Zealand at Macrae's, Ot»go, on Friday week. The perpetrators of the burglary had knocked a large hole through the sod chimney of the Bank, after which they had endeavored to pick the lock of the safe, but this they were unable to do, and accordingly gave up tho enterprise and decamped without leaving a trace of their visit with the exception of the hole in the chimney. No clue whatever has been discovered as to the offenders, notwithstanding a very strict examination of the bank building and adjacent ground.

The contents of a gizzard of a fowl, which • were extracted in Christchurch on Saturday ' last, were truly a miscellaneous assortment. ! They consisted of several large pebbles, a I piece of glass, three pins, about half a dozen ; brass rivets half an inch long, three or four ; fragments of some curious article of jewelry I in wrought gold, three nuggets of alluvial gold — one somewhat minute, another the size of a barleycorn, and another of a pea ; a shirt button, and a brass trowsera 1 button. The; fowl had b|en previously running among 1 others on the South Town belt, and was per- : fectly healthy and in excellent condition. \ A want which has been long and severely' felt by the bar of the Colony is a periodical containing colonial law reports and other in-, formation of interest to the profession. • The; expediency of supplying that want was recently brought under the notice of the leading \ members of the profession in Dunedin, and \ the result is a suggestion for the publication of a periodical to be based on the model of the English "Law Times," and to be equal in '. size to the monthly numbers of the "Law, Times Reports." The "New Zealand Law. Times" will be its title, and the iff its first number is announced to appear-in April next, i The names of its editorial managers are Messrß Macassey, Haggjtt, and G. Cook.

In a letter on the tobacco question, the: Lancet says :- ! " To the poor man, working! hard and living hard at the same tine— to.' the soldier, fatigued, cold, and ill-fed during! a campaign—tobacco is, we believe, both; useful and comforting. It soothes some ex- ! citable .men, and enables many another to, concentrate his attention on subjects requiring thought. If tobacco be the poison that ita enemies declare it to be, it is eminently slow in its action, for every workhouse, _ lunatic! asylum, and charitable institution has! its grey-haired votaries to the pipe." Is thiß sarcasm, or otherwise !

The medicinal properties of the blue gum seem' to be 'attracting the attention of the; medical faculty! in other parts of the world besides Europe", j Late San Francisco papers give interesting particulars of a discussion in the local Academy of Science on the tree. A Dr Stout stated that, he had constructed a respirator so that the fumes from the leaves might be inhaled, and had found it of great assistance in cases of sore throat and chronic asthma. For the latter particularly it was very effective, and will afford ready relief in case of an acute attack. He had strewn the: dried leaves in' the basements of houues where there were bad odours, and had found; it almost as useful as carbolic acid. "' ' j

The correspondence between the Governor and Mr Stafford 'has, by most people, how-, 1 soever politically disposed, been considered to have been creditable to his Excellency, ftot so iv Nelson. The "Mail" arrives at the conclusion that, as he did in Queensland,; so has Sir George Bowen done here— proved; hiaself utterly unreliable in a time of Wai,

Tekel, "thou art weighed in the balances and art found wanting," should, says the 11 Majy be the motto inscribed over the entrance to Government House ; and, under the circumstances, it would not afflict us greatly did we see another ominous word engraved on its portals— Mbnb, "Thy kingdom is numbered and finished."

A correspondent of the Canterbury "Press," who writes a good deal of truth disguised in humor, expresses a sound sentir ment on the subject of those stupid songs which h&ve lately been imported into the coir* nies from the London concert halls. He says :— l'm on the tiptoe of expectation. I'm shaking in my boots, as the saying is, until Wednesday next. On Wednesday, MrRickards, the greatest comic singer, in the woild, will appear before a Christchurch audience. I say, do you think he will be a superlative edition of what comic singers are npw-a-days.. Ido hope nob. I declare a comic song in theße times is nearly always one of the most painful things a man can listen to. " Walking in the Zoo," " Captain de Wellington Boots," and them sort, make me more inclined to weep than laugh. The majority pf comic songs now are only excelled in their inanity by the utter imbecility of the, gestures of the singer. Them's my sentiments, but I believe Mr Eickard's is really funny. If so, it will be a change. . .

Quite a, classical story unfolded itself lately before his Worship Judge Beckham, of Auckland. An artist brings a son of Neptune, in the form of a gallant sea captain (who was recently a harbor pilot in the North), to the studio of a photographic artist,. whose name is not Praxiteles, but M'Garrigle. "Mr M'G.," Isaid the artist, " Captain B. ;Captain £„ Mr M'G." Mutual salutations. Artist: "Captain B. wants, his : portrait, taken —in oil colors ; you are to do the photo, I the coloring and stippling. Whats the figure ?" "Never mind, ray dear sir. Sit down, Captain B." Captain B. sits* and the lens of the camera is turned upon him. "My dear fellow," said the captain, "will you take— scrip." The photographer preferred cash; but the captain said that Apollos would be in a few. days at the top of the market- The man of shadows took the scrip. He told the result yesterday ; "I took the Apollos. They served me shamefully; that scrip cost me L 40." "How?" asked the Judge, "3n calls," was the spasmodic and bitter reply-