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Kumara Times, Issue 1017, 5 January 1880, Page 2

The Local School Committee will hold their ordinary monthly meeting at the Town Hall this evening, at the termination of the meeting of the Children’s Picnic Committee.

As shewing how little reliance can be placed on cable messages we notice that the Christchurce Press of tho 2nd inst., under the heading “ Reuters telegrams” gives the names of the horses placed in the Champion race as follows First King, 1; Wellington, 2 ; Martindale, 3. The extra day’s sports held in Main street on Saturday last was well attended, and the events keenly contested. A full report is held over until our next issue.

A good illustration of the peculiar cunning with which the celestial vegetable purveyors are endowed, as also the means they adopt to test the honesty of their European customers, was afforded in this town on Saturday last, Stopping in front of the house of a female customer whom John detected standing in the doorway, and with whom he was in no way on friendly relations, he hastily, placed clown his basket of vegetables, and, darting into the road, snatched up what appeared to be a coin of the realm exclaiming “Little sovereign! welly good; me finde, me keepe.” Instantly his female spectator was in the road demanding the supposed coin, and emphatically declaring she had unfortunately lost it the previous evening. With a grin of the most sardonic character John held up a shankless brass-button, and, pointing to his interogatoi’, exclaimed, to the amusement of the on-lookers and the discomfort of the party in petticoats, “ You one bad woman ; you one rogue ; me catche you dis time.” It is needless to observe that a hasty retreat was the order of the day for one of those present.

Very few games have been played daring the holidays in the handicap chess tournament, the majority of the competitors preferring the lighter amusement of witnessing the out-door sports which have for the past week or more attracted public attention. We may, however, remind the players that three games a week on an average was one of the stipulations of the match, and as the match commenced on Monday the Ist December, 15 games

should now have been played by each competitor. There are 23 games in all to be contested by each man ; and the tournament should be completed by Saturday, the sth February, at latest. A' consultation on the Dunedin Cup for £5003 is announced by Mr A. Cameron, of Dunedin. The; fastest run on record of a steamer was that of the Durban, from Table Bay, Cape of Good "Hope, to England—6ooo miles in 18 days IG hottrs actual steaming, an average of 13.1 knots an hour. It is far easier to run 3000 miles in 9.days than 6000 miles in 18 days, because of the extra weight of coal that must be carried. A Southern exchange narrates what befel a man who was silly enough to “stop his paper.” It appears that the Hon. W. S. Peter, of Mount Somers in a fit of indignation during the late general election, stopped his subscription to the Ashburton Mail. A horse belonging to that hon. gentleman, worth £4O, was recently sold in the Ashburton pound for £lB, unknown to him, owing to the pound notices which appear in the Mail having failed to find their way to his station. He thus not only lost his paper, but his horse, and the Mail was amply revenged. It is to be hoped that the moral derivable from this “frightful example” will not be lost upon newspaper subscribers generally.