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Hawke's Bay Times, Issue 1634, 4 December 1874, Page 449

A good deal of amusement has been occasioned by the, detection of some spiritualistic pretenders at Newcastle-upon-Tyne by a grocer named Auckland, who went to a seance provided with a bull's-eye lantern. Suddenly throwing a light on the subject, he greatly disturbed a " medium" in the act of producing the raps supposed to bo given by a spirit nrmed " Geordie." The Otago Guardian's English correspondent says :—" Of course the profane are rather elated by Mr Auckland's discovery ; but what if that honest man had had the bull's-eye of science turned, without warning, on any of the little dark seances in his back-shop or warehouse ? Fair play, Mr Grocer. It is a very good thing to catch a medium retiring to her seat, which she is supposed never to have quitted, and when we go to dark seances we'll have our bull's-eyes ready; but take care of the inspectpr when next you are putting the usual quantity of turmeric into the mustard, or selling beans for nutmegs."

The Ponsonby Koad Board in Auckland appear to have tried a very discreditable means of avoiding certain liabilities. We quote from the New Zealand Herald:—The time of the Resident Magistrate's Court , was yesterday again occupied by the defence of the Ponsonby Highway Board against the claim of the Southern Cross for advertising. The amount claimed was not disputed ; the advertisements ordered for insertion had duly appeared, but then the chairman of the present Board was not chairman of the particular Board in existence at the time the debt was contracted. In fact, it was not the same Board. It was now the Ponsonby Board. Previous to this it was the Dedwood Board and so, we may presume, when Miss Smith changes her name, and becomes Mrs Jones, she is not the same woman but another one altogether. The objections raised to the payment of the debt are very puerile, to put it in the mildest way. If a Board is not to be held responsible for the act of the chairman and members of the preceding Board, what contractor will care to perform any work unless paid in advance ? What would be said if nine city councillors, two years hence, were to dispute the covenants entered into by the existing Corporation ? or of one Provincial Government repudiating the liabilities of a previous one ? We should not have referred to the case if the debt had been disputed and was adjourned for further hearing; but the debt is admitted, and payment refused upon mere technical grounds. Had the old Board left a credit balance at the bank, we have as little doubt about the present Board accepting it as we have that all arrears of rates were hunted up for payment.

The following is from the Wakatipu Mail:—A Resident Magistrate, within a circumference of a one-hundred-mile-circle, gave a decision the other day that caused some surprise. The case is reported to us as follows:—Mr O'Flaherty, the well-known counsellor from Devilstown, was defending his client from certain charges for goods supplied by Taffy and Co. to a firm of miners. The learned and enlightened counsel was contending that the goods, being for the use and quiet enjoyment of a third party, his client was not liable for their value, unless it was proved that he was a consenting party to the transaction by a written document, as provided by the 3rd and 4th section of the Statue of Frauds, 29 Charles 11. "Mr O'Flaherty," remarked the grave dignitary, " I am astonished that you should attempt to deceive the Court, by quoting an Act that only applies to criminal offences like larceny,embezzlement,&c." Mr O'Flaherty remonstrated. He had come with a full and teeming brain ; was able to quote from it the wording of the sections of the Act; but he had neglected to furnish himself with the " lawyer's bible." All his argument was in vain, for, in the absence of the book of authority, the Magistrate decided against the unhappy lawyer, adding "that the common sense interpretation of the meaning of the words 1 Statute of Frauds' would show that the Act was not applicable to commercial transactions." Messrs Taffy and Co. uttered a hearty endorsement of course, and secured a victory. When this matter was afterwards related to an undoubted authority, he is reported to have lifted his hands in pious 1 ho:tor, and to have expressed aloud his wonderment as to what the country was coraiag to. ~.

NANA SAHIB. The real name of this atrocious ruffian was Doondoo, and he was the adopted son of Bajee Eao, the ex-Peishwah of Poonah, at whose death he claimed the reversion of eight lacs of rupees enjoyed by that chieftain. As he had neither a moral nor legal right to it, his application was rejected, and this is believed to have inspired him with an implacable hatred to the British, though he lived on the most friendly terms with the very people he afterwards se cruelly betrayed and slaughtered. He was living at Bithoor, only ten miles from Cawnpore, when the mutiny broke out, and he promptly marched upon that city, at the head of the 200 soldiers who constituted his retinue, plundered and burnt the treasury, and took possession of the magazine. Tho story of the gallant defence of the entrenchment, in which 900 human beings were congregated—lGo of whom were women and children—of the appalling sufferings they underwent, and of the miserable condition to which they were reduced, is too painful for repetition. In the dark hour at Gavvnpore, when the troops first wavered, tho Nana placed his body-guard at the disposal of Sir Hugh Wheeler, the aged veteran who was in command, and some of the most important posts were placed under his care. But he had already promised the sepoys his money and his men, and they had promised him a kingdom. When the regiments revolted and broke away, their plan was to march to Delhi. The Nana prevailed upon them to return after a two days' march and attack Cawnpore, where Sir Hugh Wheeler had been guilty of an act of folly that is almost incredible. He had abandoned tho magazine, with its vast supplies of guns and powder, and its easy communication with the river, and had removed to some hastily-thrown-up mud walls, 4ft. in height, outside the cantonment, enclosing two houses which were too frail to resist the poorest cannon shot. How the men fought the foe is well known, and also how the tenderly-nurtured ladies lay at last in the open air, under an Indian sun, amid the whistle of shot and the cries of their own wounded, and how the husbands and fathers a thousand times preferred death at the ramparts to one glance at the sight. Assault after assault was beaten back. But the day came when

the last two cannons were loaded with the last charges, for which the ladies had given up their stockings as cartridges, and the men could hut wait in stem silence for the foe. The Nairn's troops, however, flinched from a seventh or eighth repulse, and he sent an offer of " a safe passage to Allahabad" on condition that arms were laid down. Sir Hugh Wheeler wished rather to be thrown in the well in which ho had just placed his brave boys, but the mixed multitude of women and children on his hands induced him to come to terms. And the arms were no sooner laid down than the massacre commenced, under the superintendence of the Nana.

Those who were not killed were seized and carried back to Cawnpore, where the men were shot, and the women imprisoned. This event was celebrated by the issue of a proclamation, in which the ferocious butcher expressed his thankfulness to Almighty God that " the yellow-faced and narrow-minded people had been sent to hell, and Cawnpore had been conquered." General Havelock, who had just landed at Calcutta, pushed on with all speed to Khaga, Futtehpore, where, with 2,000 men under his command, he encountered and repulsed the rebels, driving them back to Cawnpore. Nana Sahib, finding that nothing could check the advance of the avenging column, gave orders for the immediate murder of tho European women and children in his hands, not one of whom escaped the massacre. Finally the Nana, defeated and desperate, ordered the death of the women. The sepoy guard took an oath not to kill thcm.j Five Mohammedans, three of whom were butchers, entered the women's rooms, and screams and groans were heard from the outside. Next morning the house was cleared.

" The bodies," says one who was present hroughout, " were dragged out, most of hem by the hair of the head. Those who

had clothes worth taking were stripped. Some of the woman were alive. I cannot say how many, but three could speak. They prayed for the sake of God to put an end to their sufferings. I remember one very stout woman, a half-caste, who was severely wounded in both arms, .who entreated to be killed. She and two or

three others were placed against the bank of the cut by which bullocks go down in drawing water. The dead were first thrown in. Yes, there was a great crowd looking on ; they were principally city people and villagers. Three boys were alive; thev were fair children. The eldest, I think, must have been six or seven, and the youngest five years. They were running round the well (where else could the}' go to?), and there was none to save them. None said a word, or tried to save them." When our soldiers entered the shambles, they found the place ankledeep in blood, and the plaster scored with sword cuts, "not high up as when men have fought, but low down and about the corners, as if a creature had crouched to avoid a blow." The night of the massacre the Nana left Bithpoor a fugitive forever. The women of his house had hidden away an English lady from an out-station who was near her confinement. She had just brought a child into the world, and the Nona's last act was to have the mother and child put to death before him. . "At this point Nana Sahib disappears from the scene, and has thus escaped the righteous retribution of his crimes for a period of sixteen or seventeen years, notwithstanding that a price was set upon his head, and tens of thousands of European civilians and soldiers were prepared to make any sacrifice for the capture of so consummate and fiendish a villain. At length, however, he has fallen into the hands of the people he had outraged and the power he has insulted and defied, and the story of his flight and concealment will no doubt prove to be as full of interest as his career has been pregnant with atrocious crimes."