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Kumara Times, Issue 257, 1 August 1877, Page 2

“ But wa’n’t there the devil to pay ■when the train got to Ungo Station, though!” said Conductor Cheney. “ How ?” I asked. “ Why, six masked men stopped the train and robbed the express car; two men went through the express safe and three men went through the passengers. But, Oh, didn’t they play h—l, though ! Wn’t it glorious 1 “No they didn’t ’zackly rob ’em, but they frightened ’em almost to death and then laughed at ’em. They’d stick their blunderbusses into the car windows and shout. ‘Throw up your hands!’ to the passengers - and their hands would go up like pumphandles, The Kev. Winfield Scott, a good old minister from Denver Was takin’ a quiet game' of poker with another passenger at the time. He had just got a full hand on the three queens* and was rising’ the ante to fifteen dollars when one of the robbers pointed his pistol at him’ and sang out: “ Hold up your hands! or I’ll blow your head off!” “No, you won’t,’ * says Parson Scott, standing up in his seat—“ hot by a dang’d sight. I’ve been a preacher of the gospel going on twenty years, and I’m ready to die in harness, and I will die, and any man can shoot me and be danged, before I’ll throw up such a hand as that—two trays and three queens!”’ Colonel W. K. Stuart tells the following story of a -Scotch subaltern at Gibraltar. The latter was one day on guard with another officer, who unfortunately fell down a precipice 400 feet, and was killed. Non-military readers should understand that in the guard reports there is a small addendum—viz, “N, B.—Nothing extraordinary since guard, mounting”—the 'meaning of which is that in case anything particular should occur the officer commanding, the guard ,is bound to mention it. Our friend, however, said nothing about the accident that had occurred to his brother officer ; and, some hours after, the brigade-major came to his quarters, on the part of the officer commanding, with the report in his hand, to demand an explanation. The brigade-major, addressing him, said, “ You say, sir, in your report, ‘ N.B.—Nothing extraordinary since guard mounting,’ when your brother officer, on duty with you, has fallen down a precipice 400 feet, and been killed.” “ Weel, sir,” replied B—, “ I dinna think there’s onything extraordinary in it ava; if he’d faun doon a precipice 400 feet, and no been killed, I should ha’e thought it vary extraordinary indeed, and wud ha’e put it doon in my report.” The following paragraph from a Philadelphia paper illustrates the extent to which the telegraphic cable is being used by the American Press; —A poem by Tennyson is an event in the literary world, although be has written a good deal more than his quota recently. The sonnet addressed to Victor Hugo, which we publish to-day, will appear in the forthcoming number of the “Nineteenth Century”, and was . cabled to this country by the London, correspondent of the. “ New York Herald.” It has no doubt suffered by the sea voyage, but the “ Herald" is none the less entitled to credit for its enterprise iu a new field.