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Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 18, Issue 1095, 16 August 1871, Page 2

The Dean of Christchurch, in a letter to the Lyttelton Times, says :— ■'* I have long come to the conclusion that so-called religious controversies in newspapers are not calculated to promote the cause either of truth or charity ; therefore I, for one, have done with them."

The Kyneton Guardian, in narrating the particulars of a school dispute at Lauriston, and a somewhat extraordinary public meeting held to consider the subject, says :—■" One gentleman gave an amusing instance of the curious ideas which some persons entertain upon the subject of education. He stated that one mother had complained greatly that herson had been set to learn adverbs. ' Now, 3 she said, " I ask you as a man of com s mon sense, whether it is at all likely that my boy will ever be required to know anything about adverbs ? " The Dunedin Evening Star says:—By the incoming English mail Mr T. Birch has received for presentation to the Caledonian Society, a copy of a reproduction of the original MSS. of " Tarn O'Shanter " and the " Lament of Mary Queen of Scots," forwarded by Mr E. Fox, welk known in Dunedin. The original manuscript is reproduced by the photo-chromo--lith process; aud speaking of the copies, forwarded the donor says :—" They seemed to me to be interesting, because it may be assumed that the reproduction is minutely correct; so that the work has much greater value than any mere imitation or copy on the part of the most skilful engraver or lithographer.'* Even more forcible are the opinions expressed in the introduction to the work itself—" To all who take an interest in autographs, these pages, with their blots* their erasures, and interlineations, are as. authentic and as valuable as if every marls had actually been traced on the paper by the poet's hand. Where he hesitated* where he erased, where he inserted lines, even where his hand faltered, may here be seen ; nor can the theorists who undertake to determine from hand-writing the character of the writer, fail to find in these specimens some support for their views; for surely the bold, decided, and esseutially legible character in which the weird story of the immortal Tarn and the tender lameut of the unhappy Queen of Scots are inscribed on these pages, has samething more than a fanciful affinity with the frank, generous, but rugged nature of Scotland's greatest peasant poet.

The London Morning Advertiser, pub«» lishes, the following story, but does not, believe it: —There is in London an. association ealliug itself the " Red Club," composed of Englishmen and Frenchmen, and when the proposition came before it that the Commune required funds to, carry out its programme, steps were immediately taken to procure the money. The money was immediately obtained, but how to send it into Paris was the difficulty. After long deliberation it was settled that some one representing an aged and joying Frenchman should he discovered at Versailles, The «'subject" was speedily forthcoming, M—«, a Frenchman, who is well known among the debating clubs of London, wa,s employed to play the role of a dying parent. Sovereigns numbering several thousands were stitched iuto flannel belts, with which he was swathed. Weary, worn, and aged, he entered Versailles, where at the abode of a merchand de vin he prof cured a bed. His symptoms grew hourly worse, and with apparently his last breath he implored to be removed into Paris to take a final farewell of his ouly sou. The Versailles Government granted him $ pass. He was so sick and feeble that he could not be removed from his bed, so, after the manner of an ambulance handbarrow, the bed and the sick man were carried to the neighborhood of the Pout de Neuilly. The fearers

the weight of their burden, and well they might, considering that the sheets and blankets were quilted with extreme care, every square holding its golden treasure. J)uring the conveyance from Versailles to Neuilly not a coin clinked on its neighbor to tell of its whereabouts. The cruelJiearted suppositious son never came to bear the parting words of his dying father, and the dying man, after having his swaddling bauds unrolled, leaped up like a giant refreshed, and drank a deep draught of Kossignol to the success of the Commune. A country American editor, puffing a jjew shop, says in conclusion, " We get a prime pair of boots for putting this in." Dr Griffin, when President of Williams College, convened the students at bis room one evening, and told them that he had observed that they were all growing thin .and dyspeptical from the neglect of the duty of laughter, and he insisted upon it that they should go through a company drill in it theu and there. The Doctor was an immeuse man —over six feet in height, with great amplitude of chest, and most magisterial manners. " Here," said he to the first, " you must, practise; dow hear me !" and bursting out in a sonorous laugh, he fairly obliged his pupils, one by one, to join, till the whole were almost convulsed. " That will do for once," said the doctor, and now mind you keep in practice."