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Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 17, Issue 1064, 10 July 1871, Page 2

"Do you think that raw oysters are healthy?" asked a lady of her physician. " Yes," he replied; "I never knew one to complain of being out of health in my life."

O.tago expects to produce 1,800,000 bushels of oats this year. At 2s 6d per bushel (a very low figure), £225,000 is the return to the farmers. In Dunedin oats sell at about 3s 3d, and large quantities are exported. Two years ago the quantity grown was 1,300,000 bushels, and seven or eight years ago Otago was importing oats from Tasmania, and paying 7s 6d a bushel for the same. A little examination into the method of making fine laees, at once discloses the reason why they are so costly. The manufacture of lace is carried to its highest extent in Belgium The finest specimen of Brussels lace is so compli-. cated as to require the labor of seven persons on one piece, and each operative is employed at distinctive features of the work. The thread used is of exquisite fineness, and is spun in dark underground rooms, where it is sufficiently moist to prevent the thread from separating. Tt is ?o delicate as scarcely to be seen, and the room is so arranged that all the light admitted sdiall fall upon the work. It is such material that renders the genuine Brussels ground so costly. On a piece of Valenciennes not two inches wide, from two to three hundred bobbins are sometimes used, and for the wider kinds as many as eight hundred on the same pillow. The most valuable Valeneienues is determined by the number of times the bobbins have been twisted in making the ground; the more frequent the twiste, the clearer and more beautiful will be the lace. A most mysterious affair occurred between three and four o'clock on the morning of June 23, at Greymouth, when a weatherboard hut at the head of the Government Beserve, at the east end of the town, was burned down, and the owner and only inmate of it, named John Mounce, was burned to death. The whole of the facts of this melancholy affair were fully disclosed at the inquest on the remains.—J. G. May, night-watchman for the Upper Ward, said : About a quarter before three o'clock on the morning of the 23rd I saw smoke across the bridge at the foot of Smith's terrace, and as I ran near I t*aw flames breaking out from the end of a hut on the bank of the creek. I kieked at the door and made a noise to rouse Hie inmates up, and awakened the persons in the adjoining hut. By this time the hut on fire was enveloped in flames. We commenced throwing water on the adjoining hut, and soon got the fire under by pulling the building down and throwing water on it. The door was not opened—it did not give way to the kick I gave it. There was no chance of getting in. I. think the door was fastened inside I saw the deceased coming out of Middleton's Hotel about 1 a.m., at the corner of ihe Custom-house; he was evidently going home. He was partially intoxicated, but quite able to find his way home- Sergemt Moller described the finding of the body after its having been reported. The clothes were completely burned off from the back of the body, from the waist to the soles of the feet, and on the front the clothes were on from the knees up to the neck. On the back the clothes were all charred ; the whiskers were all singed off; The body was lying in a crawling posii ion, with the head to the gable and the feet to the door. It was lying under some boards and sheets of iron, which were supported by an old table It was evident the fire had originated inside the hut. —Henry F. Andrews, Collector of Customs at Grey mouth, said: I have known a man named John Mounce for the last seventeen years. He was in the Customs service of Auckland in 1858 as boatman. He was a married man, with a family. They were living at the Thames, having separated owing to family trouble*. He was also a hotelkeeper in Auckland, in a good way of living, and was then a very sober man; but lately he was very much broken down and broken-hearted.—The jury found a verdict that the deceased met with his death by suffocation and burning, but there was no evidence to show how the fire originated. At the Mansion-house, recently, a young man, named Hassin Beedid Lucas, dressed in rags, was charged with vagrancy. On M onday afternoon the prisoner was seen by a policeman begging, carrying a board, on which

were these words :—" Siege of Paris. "My family are highly respectable, my father being a barrister, and my brother a member of the Stock Exchange. I am reduced to the last stage of destitution through an elder relative who has a prominent feature and squints with one eye. Having a young wife in the midst of the fire of Baris, I last week walked to Dover and Folkestone, in vain seeking a passage across to join the French array. Vive la France ! " The constable found that the prisoner's father was a barrister, and his brother a member of the Stock Exchange ; that for the last ten years ho had lead a profligate life; that three years ago he received £1,00.0, which he soon spent, after which his father allowed him fiVst £2 and then 30*,a week. The prisoner went from " bad to worse,'' and his father, through a friend, allowed him a ' .shilling a day to keep him from starving. He had thrice deserted from the army. The Lord Mayor sent him to gaol for .seven days.