Notes and Events.

Manawatu Herald, 4 June 1892, Page 2

Notes and Events.

. An extremely interesting discovery Has lately been made at the Pireus, close by the ancient Theatre of Zea, of a very fine Eoman mosaic. The whole forms a square of about three yards, in the centre of which is a circular medallion slightly over two feet in diameter, on which is represented in almost full face a Medusa head, winged and surrounded with snakes. The head is a noble style. Details and effects of light and shade are admirably rendered by means of various coloured marbles, at least nine varieties of which are used, and by the minuteness of the tesserae. As a work of art this mosaic is said to be unique. The cable news recently announced the arrest and sentence of the editor of the English Anarchist paper, "The Commonweal." The following is a sample of its method of commenting on the Walsall trial :— " Surely those who desire to act can do as John Felton did when, alone and unaided, he bought the knife which struck down the tyrant." This is a pretty straight tip. But the writer makes it plainer. " Are there no tyrants now?" What of the Jesuitical monster at the Home Office who murders men for taking a few head of game ? What of the hyena who prays upon the bodies of hanged men, and whose love of a gallows a few years ago won him the title of ''Hangman Hawkins?" This brute while prating on his 1 humanity, 1 sends our comrades to ten years in the hell of the prison. What of the spy Melville, who sets his agents on to concoct the plots which he ' discovers.' Mr P. C. Burnand has been interviewed by the Pall Mall Gazette, but the result is hardly so good as we should have anticipated. We get an amusing account, however, of how Burnand, at an early period of his career, tried the Bar and had to give it up. He says :— " I made a fearful hash of a case of forgery in which the wife was committed with her husband. I had to defend the wife. Besley was for the prosecution. It will show you how much I knew about the ways of the Court when I tell you that I aotuallw asked Besley what to do. He wrot'Jr back on a slip of paper. ' Just get up and say " Coercion by husband." I did. Eussell Gurney, the Ee-< corder at once discharged her, The ungrateful women was so cross at being separated from her husband that she took off her boot and threw it at me. With the throwing of the boot I threw np the Bar." Another good thing is Mr Burnand's answer to the question ' How does one become a humourist ?' *Oh ! was the reply, ' it comes from having a serious turn of mind and not yielding to it. 1 possibly this applies to some our politicians who set up for being wits. In that case, however, we cannot help wishing that if they do possess a serious disposition, it would be better if they would condescend to yield to it occasionally. — Christchurch Press.