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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume I, Issue 14, 20 March 1866, Page 3

A convict who was about to be sent to the House of Correction was told they -would set him to pick oakum. " Let 'em try it," said he ; " I'll tear it all to pieces." Grey mouth seems to be infested by a gang of scoundrels, which renders it unsafe to be out after dark. Several cases of sticking up are reported. jp. The natives of the New Hebrides are polygamists; they kill or cast out to die their infants, especially females ; the women are degraded to the position of slaves, and are much maltreated ; women are strangled on the death of their husbands ; the men delight in war ; the sick are neglected ; the old and deformed are ridiculed and despised, and cannibalism, even of exhumed bodies, prevails. 'Ihey have idols, principally of stone-, these idols are the supposed residence, of spirits, all of them malicious, each having a particular power in a certain sphere. At times they have . feasts, where large collections of food, animal and vegetable, are made. Dancing and singing and beating of hollow logs are also practised at night when the moon is at the full. They have some traditions of the Creation, the fall, and the flood. They also believe in a future state, in which the sin_ that will be most grievously punised will be stinginess. There are men among them who may be called priests and makers of wind, disease, and all sorts of calamities. It is a fixed article of belief that neither death, disease, nor any calamity is occasioned by natural causes ; they are all produced by sorcery and witchcraft. The missionaries are regarded as sacred men; they administer medicine and profess to cure diseases, and the natural inference is 1 hat if t! ey can curethey can also cause disease.— Missionary Copeland.