Untitled

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume XIII, Issue 585, 11 June 1868, Page 3

Most persons pronounce tho name of the English Premier incorrectly. His own way of pronouncing it is Diz-nry-el-ly. An illicit distiller in Chicago kept the revenue officers away by posting the sign “ small-pox” over his door. A aim, in New York has gained a verdict against an old bachelor who offered her a pony for a kiss, and then repudiated the payment. So pr.vit is tho destitution of New York that drunkards and vagabonds are being discharged from tho workhouses to make room for tho deserving poor. Captain Mackat was, on 21st March, sentenced to 12 years’ penal servitude. He addressed tho Court, and declared himself to be a determined Fenian, and advised Government to surrender.lroland quietly. The Union of the Kingdom of Poland with the other portions of the Russian empire has been formally completed by tho issue of a decree abolishing tho administrative commission which has hitherto governed that province. I think it must bo Leigh Hunt that, iu one of his letters, speaks of a day that would make no one but an umbrella-maker happy. During a series of such days, 1 ventured to congratulate my umbrella-maker. “ Yes, that’s all very well, sir,” he replied; “ but then there’s nothing whatever doing in parasols.”

Ax ingenious Yankee has modelled a gun to throw a shell five thousand miles, and large euough to destroy London atone discharge. This marvellous engine of war will bo mounted on a turret two miles Inch, now preparing for its reception in Washington, and in a recent speech General Grant advocated its use to dictate to Great Britain their terms for the settlement of the Seward-Train-Alabama question.

The cost of the Abysinniaa Expedition to the British Exchequer is enormous, and is likely to prove one of the most unsatisfactory and expensive ever undertaken by that Government. It is calculated that the number of fighting men originally engaged in the expedition was about 12,000, making the monthly cost £1,200,000, or £14,400,000 annually. The New Zealand Herald, 2nd June, says : —The Sturt left the wharf yesterday afternoon for Tauranga, with the Hon. J. C. Richmond, Commissioner of Customs, the Hon ColonelHaultain, Defence Minister, and Mr Clarke. We understand that the Sturt will remain at Tauranga until the arrival there of H.M. s.s. Rosario with his Excellency the Governor, when she will lleave for Wellington, the Rosario returning to Auckland.

Monsxeb Pigs. —Yesterday afternoon the shop of Messrs Fisher & Co., butchers, was besieged by a crowd of people, who were admiring the carcases of two monster pigs which were banging in front of their

establishment. They were as largo as many a bullock we have seen in Auckland, the largest of them weighing six cwt. We have seldom even in the old country seen

animals of the porcine species which reached such an enormous size. There is at present a great scarcity of hams and bacon in Auckland. Would it not pay our farmers to turn more of their attention tc the feeding of these valuable animals and the curing of bacon and hams ?—New Zealand Herald, 5Ui June.

The Lancet says the Pope is suffering from a return of eoilentic fits.

Out of the 600,000,000 letters posted in England per annum, guly 3,000,000, fail to be delivered ; in other words, not more than one in 200 letters fail, or half per cent.

A dattghtee of Charles Lever, the weiiknowa Irish novelist, whose musical talent is so well known, h is composed an Italian csnzonetta —both rausio and words.

Messes Napier and Sons, of the Clyde, are building for the Dutch Government a steam ram. of about 3.000 tons, and a turret shio of tnrin.

As a result of the several descriptions of ammunition for breech-loading rifles which had been accepted for competition, the committee by whom they were conducted have reported the ammunition submitted by Mr Daw has so far fulfilled the condi* (ions of the advertisement as to justify them in recommending that the prize of £4OO be awarded to him.

Sppee'jle Coijet, WELtnrarorr. —The criminal.sittings of the Supreme Court at Wellington commenced on Monday, Ist June, before his Honor Mr Justice Johnston. John Rurko, once a private in the Chatham Islands’ Guard, was sentenced to 12 months imprisonment with hard labor, for stealing a watch and knife from the dwelling house of John Fitzgerald, a Government Messenger. John Reynolds, who is described as “ a very oldand deero-pit-lookiug man,” was brought up on two separate charges of forgery, and found guilty in each ease. His sentence was postponed until the sittings of the court of Appeal. This being all the business before the Court, the jury were disrharged, —his Honor observing that these sittings were the shortest he had ever presided over in Wellington.

Fearful Sufferings in the Bush. — A Man Compelled to Drink his Horse’s Blood.—The Dubbo Dispatch contains the following account of a terrible suffering, supplied by a Bourko correspondent, who writes :—“ The report I to-day send you will serve to show what a man may endure in these sterile regions. I have had many cases of hardship to iccord; but this of Mr W. B. Bradley’s, of the firm of Cobb and Co., is certainly one the most fearful I have ever known. Men have wrestled with (he agony and died, but since I have been on the river, no one has gone through as much and lived to relate the event. I shall nothing extenuate or set down, but as near as possible tell the tale as I have gleaned it from the poor sufferer himself. He says:—l started from Yanda, on the Darling, about the 9th of I April last, with a buggy and two horses, jfor Glydagabambo, back country belong* ing to us south of the-Darling, a distance eighty miles without water. I had horses I depended on, but after going thirty miles through the bush one of them knocked up and I had tocamp. When I started Ih id only two buttles of water, winch were now consumed. This camp I considered about thirty miles south of Toorak ; I say south, but having no compass cannot bo certain. I started next morning, one horse still very well, and went about seven miles, when I believed myself to much to the East. Changed my course due South, or what I supposed South, and t -avelied forty or fifty miles, and found myself among mountains, i'lieso mountains or high ridges in all sorts of forms and directions, caused mo to admit that I was in an unknown country ; and no water. The day had been very warm, and a painful sensation in the throat and tongue was felt ; the horse was completely done ; here I camped. By daybreak I was after the horses, and found they had left mo in the night; found their tracks and with much toil (for I had eaten nothing since I started), in fact hunger I never felt, followed them for ten miles in a N.W. direction. About ten o’clock I came up to my best horse, the otherno where to be seen ; and being in a fainting state from thirst, opened witli my knife the neck vein, and drank more than a quart of blood. This horrible draught gave me much relief, but it was voided almost as soon as taken. I hero rested being quite exhausted, my poor horse never leaving me ; in fact, whenever I lay down, which I did towards the end of the journey every mile or so ho would stop, come back and neigh. When I again started 1 led him N.W., the course ha was going when I recovered him ; this point i felt sure was the nearest to the river. About 3 o’clock I found a kurra* gong tree, and as well as I was able—for my knees trembled and my arms felt powerless—stripped away some of its bark, which I chewed, and found the sweet moisture of much benefit in clearing my throat and tongue ; and I felt convinced should any one bo in the like strait and have strength to procure plenty of this bark, it would preserve life for a day or two. At 4 p.m. I again drank blood with exactly the same result; my poor horse Sydney, a TAS., was now literally staggering. All day it had been very hot, but at night it became quite cool, and I resolved to long-hobble my horse and follow him; the reason of my hobbling him was that, weak as he was, lie could outwalk me, and even then I had to follow the sound of the chains. After going about six miles thus, he started into a reeling canter and stopped in a dry creek called Muiranya ; here I knew where I was, and followed him to Marrandina and lay down; when i again started the horse was gone. Tea miles ihad now to be got over, which look me about seven hours, when I reached one of my own tanks at Nulitrania, fifteen miles from the Darling, where I had sheep. The horse, Sydney, likewise found the tank, drank, rolled, and died ; the other bursa Igot in the next day, and plunging headlong into the water, was drowned.