Hawke's Bay Times. Nullius addictus jurare in verba magistri. SATURDAY, JUNE 10, 1871.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 17, Issue 1039, 10 June 1871, Page 2

Hawke's Bay Times. Nullius addictus jurare in verba magistri. SATURDAY, JUNE 10, 1871.

Heavy rain set in this afternoon, and bids fair to continue throughout the night. Rather a painful accident took place pn the Spit at a late hour last night to a seaman belonging to the schooner Pioneer. It appears that he, along with several others, had spent most of the evening at the Commercial Hotel, and at 12 o'clock, when the house was plosed, went out together. Wishing, however, shortly afterwards, to enter the house again, the seaman of the Pioneer, named George Parker, chose as a means of effecting his object the climbing of one oi the balcony posts, j& which was affixed a bridle hook

for the purpose of fastening horses to. He accordingly set to work* and had nearly got to the top when lie began to pome down again, and in his descent was caught in the groin by the hook referred to, receiving a severe fleshwound. Dr. Spencer, who was sent,, for, was promptly in attendance, and sewed up the wound. The sufferer was removed to the Provincial Hospital this morning. From inquiry this afternoon, we learn that the wound, though severe, is not considered dangerous. The Wellington Advertiser, May 27, says :—As a specimen of how the Maori prisoners in Mount Cook Barracks are looked after, we may mention that on Thursday night the sentry over them took a comfortable sleep at his post, and a gentleman seeing this went up to him and took his, carbine out of his hand without vvaking him. Looking after prisoners in a nice easy manner sye call this. The system that would allow it must be perfect indeed; and how about the vigilance of the officer in charge, we should like to know 1 Was it a similar watchfulness that caused the celebrated escape from the hulk in our harbor, and shall we wake up some fine morning to find that our pet prisoners have taken their guard's carbines and French leave to the barracks ! But perhaps they know too well when they are well off. However, the fact proves what we before stated, namely, the necessity for the Government in quiring into the goings on in the barracks.

On Sunday, March 26, May Brothwood, aged 35, a married woman, died at the Cottage Hospital, Walsall, from the effects of burns. On the morning of Saturday, 18th March, she arose and told her husband he must not go to work, because if he left her that day she knew by a dream she had had she would be burned. On the husband trying to reason with her upon the sub ject she replied, " Well, you can go ; I shall be burned, and that will be the end of me." The husband, not wishing to furnish any grounds for after reproach, stayed with the deceased all day; but about 3 p.m. he said to deceased. "If you will give me threepence I will go and get a glass ot ale while you clean up the house," He went out, and on his return found his wife dreadfully burned. The ingenious device of the man who entered an omnibus, which was crowded, and in a minute secured not only a seat but every seat to himself, by informing the company that he was "just out of a fever hospital and rather weak," has not been thrown away on the London beggars. Their latest trick is thus mi described by a contemporary: —"The plan is to run alongside gentlemen, claiming pity and succour on the ground of having just come out of a smallpox hospital. The trick succeeds; it is dangerous to have one's clothes contaminated by a person rubbing close and refusing to be sent away penniless, and a hastily-thrown copper is the quickest talisman for despatching an unpleasant supplicant." Among the miscellaneous facts worth notice are :—That in 1870 the railways of the United Kingdom, a total length of 14,610 miles, earned £43,626,605 sterling; that in 1869 the number of miles travelled by all the trains was 157,532,255, and that in every three weeks of the same year a passenger was killed, while the average of passengers injured was three every day.—The waste sweepings of dockyard ropefactories, which have hitherto been burned, are now found to be worth «£ll a ton for the use of papermakers. On Sunday afternoon, March 26, a fire broke out on Chiselhurst Common, the gorse catching fire. Amongst the distinguished personages present were the Emperor Napoleon, the Empress, and the Prince Imperial. The Emperor took a lively interest in the extinction of the tire, and assisted personally in endeavoring to prevent its spreading A f personal" in the New York Herald a week ago stated that if " John Smith, formerly of Philadelphia, will call at Ixo. —, Blank street, he will hear of something to his advantage." John called. There were 250 of him ; and Ire has been calling every day at ihe rate of 47 per day ever since the " personal" appeared.

A case of suffocation from the fumes of fermented ale occurred on the evening qf the 9th April, at George Tans ley's Stag and Pheasant Piiblic-house, Loughborough. Mr Tansley had gone out to Prestwold, and about 6 o'clock Mary Ann Martin, aged 42,. who was occasionally employed as a charwoman at the place, and another-, named MaryBaker, entered the house. MrsTansley left to go to the cellar for drawing some ale. She had not been gone long when her screams attracted the attention of Martin, who found Mrs Tansley lying insensible at the bottom of the cellar steps. She went down to her assistance, but also fell insensible. She was followed by Baker, who shared a similar fate, and the three lay at the hot torn of the cellar steps for some time. Afterwards some men entered the house to have a glass of ale, but as no one answered the call, they went away. On returning about ten minutes after, and finding no one still in the house, they went into the yard to call out, and on passing the cellar head they saw the three women lying at the bottom of the cellar step?. One of the men, Edward Jarrom, went down, to assist them, but fell insensible. Another, Frederick, went and fetched Jarrom up, and an alarm was given to Police-constable J. Herbert, who was passing by. The officer succeeded in picking up the woman Baker. Several unsuccessful attempfs were made to reach the others, until at length Martin's husband arrived. After rushing some distance into the cellar, he was enabled to turn round with his back to the current of foul air, and was so enabled to face the bodies. He succeeded in lifting up Mrs Tansley, and she was dragged up the steps. It was some lime before anybody could be induced to go down for Mrs Martin, who was got out in a like manner, but she was dead. Dv Heaton, who was called in, attributed death to carbonic acid gas, arising lrom the fermentation of a vat of ale in the cellar. The remaining two men remained in a precarious state for some time, but are now recovering.

A late Evening Post says;— *' It really seems to us that Mr Fox and the other si aunch advocates of teetotalisin and the Permissive Bill, who are now waging such fierce waifare against al cohol, have mistaken, if not their voca tion, at all events their proper sphere of operations, as the evils tbey have to combat here are venial compared with those which present themsehes in the neighboring colonies. A contemporary tells us that the Sydney people are smitten with a mania for converting all saccharine matter into alcohol. It is discovered that the fiscal laws of New South Wales prevent the utilisation of a great deal of matter out of which spirits might be made, and it is proposed to alter those laws so as to allow of the molasses resulting from the manufacture of sugar from cane being converted into spirit. A veteran sugar maker has demonstrated the imperative need of such a change as will allow growers to utilise their damaged cane and the before-mentioned molasses. Then the growers of the "planter's friend " (a variety of sorghum) are apparently anxious to convert their whole crop into spirits ; and finally, a deputation from the fruit-growers of the County of Cumberland has claimed to be allowed to distil the large quantity of surplus fruit there produced, the market prices being wholly unremuneratiye. Amongst the fruits mentioned are pumpkins and melons." A doctor recently possessed a pet magpie, -which constantly hearing his master's advice-gratis patients repeat, in answer to the solicitous inquiries of a valet, "Ah, Henry, I'm very ill!" learnt the phrase by heart, so as to speak it with surprising distinctness; it was in fact his only form of expression. The magpie escaped to a neighboring rural district, and was shot by a sporting peasant. The latter ran to pick up his prize. The dying bird opened his eyes, and said, looking up dolefully at its murderer, "Ah, Henry, I'm very ill ! " The peasant's name was Henry He dropped his victim and his gun and took to his heels. William and Mary Howiit (says an English paper) are now (15th April) in Rome, where, on the 16th, they will celebrate their fiftieth—their goldenwedding day.

A .New York paper reports the following curious ease as illustrative of lite in thatfiiiy:--*A nigged little urchin, aged about 10 years, "was brought up at the Jefferson Market Police Court on the Ist of March, on a charge of vagrancy. He gave his name as William <Houghton, but refused to tell anything further concerning himself or his belongings. The officers, who arrest ed bin: deposed that* every night during the Bitterly cold wed ther of the pre ceding month they had seen him seated on a siool in front qf the Grand Opera Hounc, selling nuts, with a placard tied round his neck, stating that he had to, support a delicate mother, who had lost all her property in the civil war. Out of compassion they at rested the unfortunate little wretch, and he made his appearance in court in a miserable plight, shivering with cold. "While his oase was under hearing, "a tall and superb-looking woman," as the reporter describes her. dressed in costly velvets and furs, and decked with glittering jewels, entered the court, and, claiming the boy as her son, begged to ba allowed to take him away with her. The magistrate, astounded and horrified, refused to give her the boy, and sent him to the care of the Commissioners of Charity and Correction. Entreaties proving vain, she displayed a huge roll of bank bills, and offered to pay 100 dols. for his release. This failing she began to abuse the magistrate, and was turned out of cp.urt.

Four men, on a recent night, com-, initted a highway robbery, ior the sake of a bottle of whisky. It seems they met a rustic about a mile out of town, on the Dromore road, wending his way home peacefully, and crooning a rural ditty. From his coat pocket protruded the neck of a bottle, suspiciously like a flask of Cowan's No, 4. The ruffians seized upon the poor man, snatched away his bottle, and he left it in their possession and fled. The thieves proceeded to enjoy their spoil; they draw the cork, and taste. No smack of pleasure follows Lhe draught-, and the bottle goes round but once. What can be the matter 1 Suddenly there is a glint of moonlight, and they scan the label. Horror ot horrors ! it is a black mixture from the laboratory of Dr M'Clelland. "With mutual groans, the wretched quartette secrete the deceitful bottle, and hie to their homes with rapid steps. In the bosoms of their families they bear their sufferings, ignorant what to. take, for the man had run off with the. accompanying powders in his waistcoat pocket.— Banbridge Chronicle. For some time past many book-; have been missed from the Imperial library at St. Petersburg. Suspicion rested on one "of the librarians, a German theologian (a St. Petersburg paper gives the name of Mr Aloys Pichler), but his. high standing in the world of learning made it impossible to. act upon it. Some days ao:o, however, on his leaving the library, one of the servants who assisted him to put on his overcoat felt beneath the clothes on his back a large volume. The consequence was a domiciliary visit, which led to the discovery of about 7,000 volumes stolen from the library. Their selection bears an honorable testimony to the critical acumen of the learned thief.

According to a statistician, taking the mean of many accounts, a man fifty years of age has slept 6,000 days; worked 6,500 days; walked 800 days ; amused himself4,ooo days; was eating 1,500 days; was sick 500, &c. He ate 9,000 pounds of bread ; 14,000 pounds of meat; 4,000 pounds of vegetable, eggs, and fish, and drank 7,000 gallons. This would make a respectable lake of 800 feet surface and three feet deep. One of the hours each day wasted on trifles or indolence, sayed, and daily devoted to improvement, is enough to. make an ignorant man wise in ten years—to provide the luxury of intelligence to. a mind torpid from lack of thought—to brighten up and strengthen faculties perishing with rust —to nuike life a fruitful field and death a harvester of glorious deeds. The South London Press says : : —"At Norwood, a pauper aged 73, in receipt of half a crown, a week parochial telief, has married a female pauper aged 65, in receipt of two shillingH relief. The question the guardians have now to consider is—What amount- of relief shall be given to the happy couple ?•"

At the Manchester County Police Court, two men were brought up in custody charged with being drunk and disorderly. Mr Superintendent Pent said one of the two men in the_do<-k ■was a woman. (Laughter) When arrested on Sunday morning both prisoners were tespeetably . attired in male costume.. While they were at the station he was struck with the appearance of the smaller of the two, and said, " Why, you are a woman." , " No, Tarn not," the prisoner replied; but shortly afterwards, on an examination being threatened, she admitted the fact, .and stated that sixteen years ago she and her husband were schoolmaster and schoolmistress in a national school in Gloucester. Her husbancj lost his situation through drinking, and subsequently they both learned the art of House painting Her husband made her cut off her hair and sell it, dress herself as a man, and go about the country with him. She had worked with men on high buildings in London without fear of detection. She had been separated from her husband for some years. The other prisoner was her nephew, and she had always passed as his uncle. The usual penalty of 5s and costs was indicted. The prisoner left the court in her male attire.

At Bilston, a few days ago (.says a late English exchange), a young miner named William*", " for a lark," put a live mou>e clown the back of a girl 13 years old This had such a terrible effect upon the child that for three weeks she has been in a half idiotic >tate. Williams was summoned and lined 40s for a common assault.