The Kumara Times. Published Every Evening. SATURDAY, MAY 15, 1880.

Kumara Times, Issue 1132, 15 May 1880, Page 2

The Kumara Times. Published Every Evening. SATURDAY, MAY 15, 1880.

The Christchurch coach, with four bags of mails but no passengers, passed the Bealey at the usual hour this morning.

We would remind those who wish to hear Mr R. J. Seddon’s post-sessional address that he will deliver it at the Adelphi Theatre at 8 o’clock this evening.

The annual election of two auditors for the Borough will take place on the first of next month, the nominations of candidates for that office being received at the Town Clerk’s office, on the 22nd inst.

Monday next being Whit Monday all the local Banks will be closed.

The Oriental Exhibition was again well patronised last evening, the stereoscopic views attracting especial attention, as could be noted from the fact of the number of persons who patiently awaited their time just to get “one peep” through the instrument. The Exhibition will remain open until 10 o’clock this evening, when those who have not already inspected the exhibits should take this opportunity of so doing. We understand that a drum and fife band has been organised from the scholars attending the State School, which will be in connection with the local Rifle Contingent. This, besides being an acquisition to the corps will also at the same time be the means of teaching a number of boys the rudiments of music, which may be of service in future days in learning other instruments. A committee has been formed to take the necessary steps to procure the instruments, and we have little doubt if the matter is properly taken in hand, we shall yet be able to boast of the 'first State School Band on the West Coast. The review of the various Volunteer companies in Westland, to take place on the Greymouth racecourse on the Queen’s Birthday, promises to be a great success, should the weather prove favorable. The Local Contingent, we learn, will be strongly represented, as the directors of the Greymouth and Kumar a Tramway Company have very considerately, so as allow of a large number attending, arranged for special trams for Volunteers travelling in uniform on tbe occasion, at a groat reduction on the ordinary fares. We have often heard of a man being compelled to “sell his shirt,” but we never, no, never or hardly ever-, conceived for one moment that in the discharge of our journalistic duties we should be called upon to chronicle the painful fact that any person should be reduced to such dire extremes as to render the disposal of his mnnentionables necessary also. Talk about tbe famine in Ireland after this ! Could a “clearing off” sale be more complete. And yet, strange as it may appear, this monstrous fact occurred in the heart of this populous city, and in this wise : —A lady requiring a small supply of cloth for the purpose of repairing some of her son’s wearing apparel, interviewed a well-known connter-keepev for that purpose. Of the article required, however, ho had not a fragment, but if his fair customer would only wait a minute he had “ just vat you vant.” Imagimation can only depict the horror of the expectant awaitest when, shortly after, the man of clothes returned holding in his hand a pair of the most extraordinary unmentionables, which he assured her she should become the happy possessor of for two

shillings, as he had not required since he was “vun soldier” at home. The bargain is still on hand. This is how the Liberals in the old country work the oracle. As a set-off to 100 faggot voters created by the Duke of Bucceleugh, Lord Rosoberry has, as if by a sudden touch of enchantment, thrown up IGO cottages near Edinburgh, on the Tyne side, to house 160 working men and add 160 to the Liberal constituency. . The work was pushed on in a most picturesque and energetic manner, four contractors taking each forty tenements, and a force of 500 masons, bricklayers, laborers, and so forth, relieving each other in relays night and day. Not only did the Falmouth electors reject Sir Julius Vogel at the General Elections, but some of them were so rude as to publish the following squib just before polling day “1. Are you one of three or four land speculators who stand to make £BO,OOO by the sale of a huge rabbitwarren to Englishmen through the agency of the New Zealand Agricultural Company! 2. Have you not received absolute instructions from the New Zealand Gevernment to clear out of that Company forthwith ? 3. Are you not aware that your mere election move of substituting Falmouth for Plymouth for the calling of the outward-bound emigrant ships is universally laughed at in New Zealand ? 4. What guarantee do you give us that, even if we will swallow the bait, any real advantage will accrue to us after you have secured your end—a seat in the English Parliament? 5. Is it not a fact that your candidature is strongly condemned’ by the New Zealand Government ? 6 Is it not consequently tolerably certain that if we are foolish enough to sell you our votes for some imaginary advantage, that in reality you are without the power to give, and we shall find ourselves at once both bought and sold ? 7. Under all the circumstances, would not the constituency which distinguished itself by sending a brother speculator, ‘Baron’ Grant, to Parliament, be a more suitable one for your particular genius to operate upon I” The New Yorkers are independent of the weather so far as skating is concerned ; for they have now a fine artificial ice-rink, presenting an unbroken sheet two hundred feet long by forty feet broad. The rink was opened during the present winter, and, fortunately for the proprietors, the season has been so mild in New York that would-be skaters were compelled to patronise the glaciarum or give up their pleasure. The ice is formed by circulating a very cold liquid through a series of iron pipes immersed in the water contained in a shallow basin. When the ice surface is cut up it is swept and flooded with water, which speedily freezes. Particulars as to the cost of working have not baen published, but a liquid has been found which, in the refrigerating apparatus, can be easily reduced fifteen or twenty degrees below the freezing point of water, and consequently, as it circulates through the pipes, it quickly congeals the water outside them.