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Hawke's Bay Times, Volume IV, Issue 186, 5 August 1864, Page 3

“ Notes.” —Nothing is more difficult than to return thanks neatly.—Lag not behind the wheels of progress unless you would have your eyes blinded by dust.—“ Don’t touch mo, or Dll scream!” said the engine whistle to the stoker.—An old gentleman of great experience says he is never satisfied that a lady understands a kiss unless he has it from her own mouth.—Some people are never content. After having all their limbs broken, their heads smashed, and their brains knocked out, they will actually go to law, and try to get further damages. —A word to our Provincial Council!—lf a flock of geese see one of their number drink, they will all drink too. Men often make geese of themselves.—You can stopatany moment, but you cannot stop a watch. The same remark applies to stopping the talk of a man or woman. He is a great, coarse, ugly machine, but you can silence him! She is a beautiful, fragile, jewelled thing but she will run on until she stops of herself. The Pope ax Executor.— The following anecdote of Pope Pius IX. is related in a monthly review entitled la Monde Judiciaire; —“ The Sovereign Pontiff, amongst his other powers, enjoys that of annulling the wills of his subjects. The son of a Eoman landed proprietor complained to his Holiness that his father bequeathed the half of his fortune of 40,000 f. to the priest who, on a particular day, and in a church named, should say the first mass. The Pope, not daring to cancel a will on account of an act of religious insanity, adopted another plan. He went himself at daybreak to the church in question and celebrated the first mass. He thus gained the 40,0001, which he then handed over to the grateful heir.” _ Chinese Pirates.— H.M. gunboat ‘Haughty’ (2) recently had a somewhat singular encounter with a Chinese pirate. The action is thus described “We arrived here (Amoy) on Sunday afternoon, and found the junks at anchor. As soon as they saw us one slipped her cable and ran on shore, the pirates running off up the country. I expect that the people murdered them all by nightfall. The bay runs a lo‘ng way back, is very shallow, so the other one attempted to escape by running into the shallow part where we could not get at her, but after firing six or seven shots at her out of our big gun we knocked away her foremast. Einding we could go as far up the bay as she could, I suppose, in desperation, she ran down to us, firing with her bow gun and preparing to board, all her men clustering about the bow's armed with all sorts of extraordinary weapons some of them Tike big toasting forks, muskets, &c. ; so as I was on the bridge steering the captain told me to run alongside, and we could board them first; but as soon as I got within ten feet of them I saw a man on her poop, with two large bags in his hand, about 18 inches square and as we ran alongside of her ho flung th cm amongst our men, all atthebowwiththeirriflesand cutlasses. You can imagine the effect of 51b. orGlb. of powder bursting amongst a crowd of men, and! after wounding four or five of them, the rest came aft out of the way. By this time the engine was stopped, and as the pirates began to get on the bowsprit to board, the captain and your humble servant had to lead the way and rally the men and we drove them over into the junk, but it’ was impossible to follow, for half of them wore down below out of sight, firing up through the deck; and to drive them out one would have to creep into a little place not big enough to swing a cat with perhaps four or five men in it. So we contented ourselves with bo-peep work from the bows I with my revolver and the men with their rifles. If you saw a Chinaman point his rifle at you," down you ducked out of sight, and took a steady pop at him over the rail. I shot three, but we lost one man, shot through the head close to me. Well finding we could not manage it, we hauled off and' commenced firing with grape and case from our 8 inch gun; but the junk being built in compartments she took a lot of knocking about, they returning the fire with all the horrible things you can think of iron bolts, rusty nails, grape and case, &c. Our rigging was a good deal cut about, but nobody was hurt. After this had gone on for half an hour they ‘ piped down,’ and we thought there was an end of it, so we went alongside, tow her on shore that wc might get at the dollars these pirates sometimes have. The captain told two men to go on board of her, and get one of her hawsers and pass it on board as a tow rope, but as those junks have an awkward habit of sometimes blowing up when least expected, they rather hun" back *6O X went to show the way. Well, we got the end’ of a hawser passed on board our vessel, and I had just stepped on board the junk again when I saw the muzzle of a rusty gun out of the fore-hatchway, not ten feet from mo, then a jet of smoke —and’ imagine the feeling of a blow with a sledgehammer on the jaw. As soon as the captain saw I was hit he cut off thojunk and sunk her with Mooraon’s shells. Just at the last, nine men came on deck and were made to jump overboard and come to us’ prisoners. Their history is soon told—their heads were cut off the day after we arrived at Amoy. By this time we had six men wounded— pretty well amongst forty —and one officer out of six, so we started for Amoy to get medical assistance, for my throat and tongue had begun to swell in a most alarming manner. The other men, with the exception of the one who was shot in the head recovered in a fortnight. They had been wounded by the stink pots. The one wounded in the head died the same evening.”