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Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 18, Issue 1178, 22 November 1871, Page 3

Referring +o the collision between the ma'.l steamer Nevada and the collier barque A. H. Badger, the Otago Daily Times says ;—" About two years ago great indignation was excited in America by the conduct of the captain of one of the P. aud O. Co.'a steamers, which ran down the United States corvette Oneida near Yokohama, in not stopping to pick up any of the crew of the latter vessel. Yet it would appear that the Nevada did not stop for a moment to see what damage she had done to the A- H. Badger, though it was thought on board the iormer vessel that the latter had foundered, ff this statement is true, and we sincerely hope it is not, the parallel between the two cases is exact in everything except the magnitude of the disaster." Anecdotes of ihe se-sion abound in columns of our exchanges. Here is one from the correspondent of the Otago Daily Times:—The other night Mr Dillon Bell was placed in the humiliating position which I venture to say to a Speaker ever occupied in any Parliament. The House was in Committee of Supply, and some reference was made to the habit of successive Ministers sending special envoys to England, the Commissioners of 1869 and Mr Vogel being particularly referred to. Mr Gisborne, in his dreary way, replied to what had been said, but not at all effectively, so Mr Bell came to the rescue, and made a long speech, in the course of which he said something about "the colony sending home its "ablest men"—and then, breaking off and looking conscious, as though he was himself one of the men referred to, he said, " No I should not have said that." Mr Shepherd, who was sitting close by, remarked, "Ah, but you meant it," at which there was a roar of laughter. Mr Bell lost temper, and turned savagely on Mr Shepherd, accusing him of gross bad taste, and was begin in<* a regular scold, when the Chairman caTled " order." Mr Bell turned round and said, " Did I understand the chairman called me to order?" Mr O'Rorke replied, ** Yes I called the hon. member to order. Personalities of this kind cannot be tolerated in this House." A more cutting and humiliating rebuke was certainly never administered to a gentleman, who, from his position, should be a model of that order for the preservation of which the House looks to him.—We find a good story, too, in the Wangauui Chronicle. The correspondent of that paper, writing of Mr Gillies, after describing his opposition to the Government as being of such a nature as often to defeat itself, eontinnes : —Yet there were and will be exceptions to this kind of self defeating action—most of all effective when evolved by the force of circumstances. That, for instance, was a telling contre temps when, after Mr Gillies had quoted a sentence from one of Mr VogelN letters on the subject, the Treasurer {apprehensive of the attributed meaning of an expression when wrenched from its context) in an e\il moment demanded that the hon member should finish the letter. " I will," replied Mr Gillies, "it i* in these words—' I am, Ac, Julius Vogel'' " This was clinchthe nail with a witness—an unwilling witness —and so the House thought by the laughter which for a minute broke from roof to floor. The following incident, related by the Glasgow Weekly Herald as having occurred at Lanark, is not unlike the episode which forms <he groundwork of Dr. Norman M'Lood's charming story ( f " The Starling " :— <; On a certain Sabbath morning last month a canary, which had been hung outside a window, was singing in ail the gladness of a bright summer day, when a policeman found his way into the house and informed the owner of the bird that the magistrates (who are also the commissioners of police) were determined to prevent all profane warbling on Suuday! Tt is said that an ex bailie of Lanark was seen in the neighborhood just before the policeman made his visit," The manufacture of steel rails in England is in a very flourishing condition, and is considered likely to yield large profits for years to come.