MISCELLANEOUS.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume IV, Issue 224, 13 June 1873, Page 3

MISCELLANEOUS.

The adaptation of the Southland district for construction of railways is exemplified in the fact that a twenty-two mile section pf the Winton-Kingston line was' taken for £12,000, while the same length of line, between Tokomairiroand Lawrence (Tuapeka), is estimated at ' at cost of £BB,ooo.—' TnapekjwTimes/ It is a remarkable fact that, although most persons would . feel themselves grossly insulted if their remains were denied the rites of Christian, burial, yet if a leg or an arm is cut off at an hospital the patient, seldom or never takes the trouble to enquire what is.the fate of the amputated limb, nor cares to stipulate that it shall be properly buried. The Irish, however, it seems, not satisfied with, the row they make at the wakes when they are altogether gone, have a ; hankering, for ante-mortem, funerals in the case of several members of their bodies. At the Glare Assizes a young man named Bryan Carney was charged with having ; fired .at Mr., Arthur G-ettin Creagh. It ' seems that the father of the. accused had been evicted by Mr. Creagh, and on the occasion when the alleged crime was committed Mr. Creagh, at a short distance from his house, heard a shot, and immediately saw a man running away. " He could not identify his assailant, but a human finger was found uear the spot that had apparently been blown off by the bursting of a gun. This finger exactly fitted a vacant place in Carney's hand, that gentleman being arrested at a doctor's house, whither he had gone'to get his hand dressed, stating that he had lost a finger by a portion of "a wall falling on him. The jury, however, acquitted the prisoner, notwithstanding the evidence, and at the close of the case his counsel asked Mr. Justice Fitzgerald to give directions to bury the finger, but his lordship said he had no power to give any such direction. The finger should,Jie added, be returned to the owner. Unfortunately, no one under the circumstances likes to claim the finger, or even to follow it to the grave, and it therefore stands a poor chance of being decently interred.