MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS.

Inangahua Times, Volume III, Issue 64, 15 January 1877, Page 2

MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS.

The discussion of the prorogation qites* tion still continues in Wellington. Mr Fitzgerald in a seerind letter says i~". I, forgot to ask Mr Tracers when hef|dfiaW a client to commence proceedings igitflSt , a County. Councillor for ouster of' Office, ' as from the last paragraph of his letter I I presume he would do— first, whether he thinks he would be successful in per™ suading the Coart to give judgment under an Act which, according to his contention, is not in force ; secondly, how he can call on a Court to oust a man from an office to which, he has to contend, the man has never* been elected P" A correspondent signing himself " Quest " writes to the Times as follows r— " The points raised by Mr Travers have caused considerable uneasiness. Judging from the tenor «f his letter, he himself does not seem sure of his grounds. What good has be done by lending his name to suggestions which if they were authoritative must nevertheless be mischevious ? ** * The present discussion reminds me of a very un* just remark made by a friend of mine a member of the House of Assembly. He dropped into my house for a chat, after being bored by Bees, and commenced bis conversation by saying, ' Confound those lawyers; they are ajiaraya raising quibbles and taking gp the time of the house.'" It would appear from the following 'paragraph in the Otago .Guardian that the idea of sending a depntation to Lon« don, as recommended by the Otago Convention, is still seriously entertained .— " We have seen the telegram just received from Sir George Grey in reply to the latter from the president of the Otago Con* vention relative to the mission of Mr Maoandrew and Sir George Grey to England. Sir George expresses his mtire willingness to proceed on the mission stating that he will sacrifice all to a sense of dnty, and adding that it ' will be proper for all such as desire to serve New Zea« land to follow this course.' The absence and the illness of Sir George Grey have been the cause of the delay in this reply, a delay which has been made abundant use of by the enemy to try to throw discredit on the intention of carrying oat the resolution of the Convention. We understand that the applications for subscriptions for the purpose of defraying the cost of the trip have been met in the most liberal and enthusiastic spirit, despite the efforts that hare been made by Centralists to throw doubts on the carrying out of the object," At Auckland Edmond Draper, a student $ Oxford, well connected at Home, sent to the Colony for reformation, was committed for trial on four charges of defrauding the Bible Depot by forging receipts and pawning books. The following extraordinary letter ap* pears in the Taranaki Budget ;-*-Sir,— Being convinced that if the harbour never be finished, we, the undersigned^ able* bodied men hereby agree to give a day's labour towards commencing this most important undertaking as soon as we know where to begia. Here follows the names of nearly 100 citizens, among whom are two clergymen and two doctors. The Wellington Argus says :— Chas* land's has a singular history, The " Mistake consists of a series rocks ex» tending about three miles seaward of the headland from which they take their start and the title finds its origin thus**Chasland was a whaler who frequented the coast about forty years ago and made this particular spot his favorite cruising ground. Upon one very fine day Chasland was becalmed and in danger of going ashore. There was a very heavy swell setting in shore and ia the dip of a very large roller he saw something very distinctly just below the surface of the water. This was between three or four miles from the shore, and although the surmise was thought preposterous he felt confident it was a rock. The bearings were taken and Chasland getting safely away, the sunken rock was reported at Otago and other places. For many years the spot was surveyed, and by none more carefully than by the officers of H.M.S. Acheron,' but no trace of the rock could be found, and the vicinity has ever been known as*'Chas* land's Mistake," Whether the Otagd has been lost on this identical rock is not ascertained, but it is certain that she struck on the chain of reefs to which attention was first drawn by Chasland. ] The Bookseller states states that there is a Royal edition of the Daily Telegraph published daily, consisting of 25 copies, "especially printed on the finest, thickest, and whitest paper." The origin of this is that " on the death of the Prince Consort her Majesty the Queen accidently saw the Telegraph, and was so touched by the loy alty exhibited in its obituary notice that she ordered a copy to be sent daily to each of the royal palaces, I ' which has been done ever since. MissCarlotta Addison, actress of the Prince of Wales and Haymarket Theatres, has been married to Mr Charles Albert Latrobe, son of the late Charles Joseph Latrobe, C.8., once Governor of Victoria. The Examiner states that a most interesting observation, referring to the power of germination in seed which is hundreds and even thousands of years old, has been made by Professor Hendreic.h, of Greece: In the silver mines of Laurium only the

slags left by the ancient Greeks are at present worked off, in order to gain, after an improved method, silrer still left in that dross. This refuse ore is probably about 2000 years old. Among it the seed of a species of glaaciam or poppy was found, which had slept in the darkness of the earth daring ail that tiee. After a little while, when the slags were brought np and worked off at the melting ovens, there suddenly arose a crop of glanciua plants, with a beautiful yellow flower, of a kind unknown in modern botany, bat which is described by Pliny and others as a frequent flower in ancient Greece. At the Batenport Brothers* performance at Inglewood an junpleasant disturbance occurred. A correspondent of the Bendigo Adrertiser relates;—'' Professor Fay, as usual, made his appearance on the stage, and asked the aqdienee to select two gentlemen from their number to apt as committee. Instantly the hall resounded with the cries of " Jewel and Butcher." Professor Pay objected to any gentleman living out of the district coming on the stage to tie the Brothers, and more especially Mr Batcher, as they had had enough of him in Sandhurst, Were he tied them np in a most brutal manner* stopping the circulation of the blood, The cries of • Jewel and Butcher* continued. Mr Barstow rose and said to Professor Fay, * Yon asked the audience to select two gentlemen. They hare done so. Why do you object to Jewell and Butcher.' Professor Fay replied 1 that they most object to Mr Butcher. Mr Ira Davenport then stepped on the stage and requested Mr Butcher to clear off, adding that bis money would be returned if he would go out. The utmost confusion ensued. Butcher would not go out, and would not move, as the audience was with him. Mr Ira Davenport threatened to lock Butcher up, and fetched a policeman, when the audience still insisted on Jewell and Butcher tying the pevenports. Pro* fessor Fay said that sooner than the brothers should be tied by Butcher he would return all the money, and anyone that choose to go out could have his money at the door. Mr Jewell offered to tie them both, but this they declined. He then offered to tie them for a wager < on the stage ; this they declined. Mr Jewell said, ' Consider yonrselves bowled out. You have shown the white feath Throw up the sponge. Two»thirds of the audience got their money returned, and left the hall." The Pope was originally elected by the priests and people of the diocese of Rome ; but subsequently by the Cardinals. In the 11th century, Nicholas II conferred on the Cardinals the right of directing the election; and in accordance with his statutes, the Cardinals were bound to demand of the Roman people and the Roman clergy the ratification of their choice. To legalise the election it was necessary that the same name should obtain two-thirds, at least, of the voices of the Conclave, to* gether with' the suffrages of the clergy and people of Rome. This matter, however, of electing the Pope was found to give rise to dissensions, and, consequently in 1226, on the accession of Gregory IX., both the clergy and people were excluded from all participation in the election. The election of the Pope now is by scrotmy or ballot. Each Cardinal writes his own name witn that of the candidate he proposes on the ticket. The tickets are deposited in the consecrated chalice which stands on the altar of the chapel where they sit ; and each one approaching asd leaving the altar, kneels and repeats a prayer. After a pause the tickets are taken from the chalice by Cardinals ap» pointed for this duty. The tickets a» compared with the number of Cardinals present, and when it is found that any one of them has two-thirds of the votes in his favor, he is declared elected. If no one can show the requisite number of votes, another proceeding is gone throujjhi This proceeding is the election by access so called because any Cardinal has' the right to accede to the vote of another by altering hia ticket according to a prescribed form. As soon as the ehwtiea is ( declared the ticket* are. burnt. Pits E$ f who is the 267 th Pope, was elected" b> unanimity. Only ei|b£svt of the , sixty*! one Cardinals who elected -the present Pope, are still living, the eldest -being Fillippo de Angeles, the first Cardinal priest, born in April 16tb, 1792, who is consequently four weeks older than the present pontiff. A horrible case of cruelty was heard at the Armidale (N.B.W) Police Court recently. A woman (half-caste) named Ann Alcorn, who was married to a shepherd employed by Mr J. GUI, of Brookstead, was charged with skinning a sheep while it was alive. When asked why she did it she merely laughed. The only defence attempted was to urge that the sheep was dying, and that as the shepherd was accountable for the skins he left bis wife behind to flay the animal while he went on with the flock. The police magistrate who heard the case said, he could not re» alise the unutterable cruelty and shocking deprivlty of the act, the animal remain* ing alive after it had been -flayed. He sentenced the woman to pay a fine of £5, in default to be confined in gaol for one month.