Miscellaneous Items.

Manawatu Standard, Volume X, Issue 1504, 12 November 1885, Page 4

Miscellaneous Items.

An observant employee m tho officer o£ the lle.gistrar-iGeneral nt Melbourne has been the means of unearthing- a scandalous case ol decep bion. The sadden exhibition of a placard at a house m Napier-street, Fitzroy, announcing that *J births, marriages, and deaths," were registered there, then che arrival and departure of a young couple 1 m a cab, and then the sudden withdrawal of the placard attracted his attention, and prompted him to make further inquuy, particularly as he happened to know that no new registrar had been appointed there. The landlady of the house said a room had been hired by a gentleman who said lie was a clergyman about to marry a young couple privately, then the cabman was found, and from him 1 it w,as; learned that he had taken the couple to Richmond, after the "ceremony," m which he was enlisted as a " witness.'' The police went to Richmond, and there found two pen sons, one named Turner, the " bridegroom," and the other Riley, "the bride." The upshot was an admission, from Turner that the affair was a sham, that he had paid a person a sum of money to personate- a clergyman, and that die room had been hired F<»r the occasion. It is said that both the par ties are theatrical people'; that Turner is m reality a niarried man, and that the sham marriage was resorted to allay any qualiiis of conscience of the. female, with wliom he had been intimate. Mock marriages have been the recourse of gay Lotharios m every age. ' "Talking about funny things," said a big, bronzed, bearded man m a read ing- room of an up-tovra hotel the other night,"the funniest thing I evei heard of happened m my; saw-mill out m -Michigan. We used a heavy upright saw lor sawing timber.; One day not long ago the men had all gone to dinner, leaving the saw, wlii?h van by water-power, going at full speed. While we were away a big black bear came into the mill and went nosing around. The saw caught his fur and twitched him a little. Bruiu did'nt like this for a scene, so he tinned .around aud fetched the saw a lick wi'Ji his paw. Result— a badly cut paw. A blow with the other paw followed, aud it also was cut, The bear was by this, time aroused to perfect fury, and rushing at the saw, caught it m hi^ grasp and •gave it a tonumdou-i "hug. It was his last hug, acid we lived on; bearstakes for a week. When we came up from dinner there was half a bear lying: on each side of the i saw, which was going ahead as nicely a* though it had never seen a bear. This is. a fact, so help me bob," and the big lumberman bit off a fresh chew of tobacco. Marcus Clarke, m " His Natural Life," makes Sarah Purfoy, who was the wite of the convict Rex, but was engaged to *he wife of Captian Vickers as a governess, the author of the mutiny which took place on board the Malabai*. The Christian Colonise remarks : — "How true thi- is to life appears iv the following incident related m the sketch of the. late Captain Thomas Allen, an old colonist who died on Se.pt 14 at Alberton, 'Tasmania. He took the last i batch of convicts from Port -Adelaide to Hobart. Among them was a resident of Adelaide who had an important position, but, having embezzled a large sum of m one} 7 , was transported for life. His wife was also on board} with the ostensible purpose of taking out her husband as an assigned servant oa their arrival. Her .constant visits to the prisoners excited ' the captain's suspicions, and under the inspiration of that mistrust he politely asked her for permission to inspect a large chest which she kept m . her cabin. She indignantly refused, but the captain ordered the carpenter to force open the cabin door, which she had locked m deSance. On breaking open the chest the captain's suspicions were more than verified, for, instead of- its contents being lady's wearing apparel, arms, ammunition, charts, .sextants aud other essentials necessary for the capture and navigation of the vessel, were revealed. The secret was out ; further protest was need ; less ; the intention was evidently to seize the vessel and set all the convicts free by sailing to some unknown port." Sir Henry Thompson, the eminent physician, says m a recent number of the Nineteenth. Century that "it is raie now to .find-, anyone well acquainted with physiology, and capable of observing and appreciating the ordinary wants and usages of life around him, who does not believe that, with few exceptions, men and women are healthier and stronger, physically, intellectually, and morally, without such drinks (alcohol ic| than with them." Bub he adols that he has been compelled by facts' " to accept the conclusion that more mischief m the form of actual disease, of impaired vigour, and of shortened life, accrue to civilised man, so far as I have observed i> our own country, and throughout Western and Central Europe, from erroneous habits m eating than habitual use of alcohoiie drink, considerable as I knowtbat; to be. lam not sure that a similar comparison might not be made between the respective influence of those agencies m regard to moral evil also." Sir Henry has also a quarrel with the dentist. Nature, he says, shows, by allowing our teeth j to decay as we grow old, that she means us to give up eating meat, but the dentist clap.-? them m agaiu, when we immediately begin to dig pur graves with them. . ; . ;