The Nelson Evening Mail. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 5, 1870.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume V, Issue V, 5 January 1870, Page 2

The Nelson Evening Mail. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 5, 1870.

We are indebted to Mr. Bennett, the purser of the Charles Edward, for our files from Dunedin and Lyttelton. Scientific Association. — The usual monthly meeting of this society will be held at the Government Buildings this evening, at 8 o'clock. Clifton Flowek Show. — We would remind intending visitors to this attractive show that the steamer Lady Barkly has been laid oo specially for the occasion, and will leave the wharf at 9 o'clock to-night. The Lighthouse at Cape Campbell will shortly be completed. It is an open wooden structure 60 feet high and the light will be a revolving white one, visible at 19 miles distance. Aurora Australis. — This beautiful phenomeDOn was plainly visible for several hours on Monday night, and reached its greatest brilliancy about one o'clock yesterday morning, when the light was so great for a few minutes as to be almost like the break of day. The Wangapeka. — Mr. Marchant, the General Government Surveyor, arrived by the Onaeo yesterday, and will shortly proceed to Waugapeka, for the purpose of layiug out the line between the miners' Mount Owen and Mount Arthur. Christ Church. — To-morrow being the Epiphany or manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles, divine service will be held at Christ Church, at 11a.m. Attention is particularly drawn to this day for its intimate connection with all the missionary labors and operations of the Christian Church. — {Communicated.) Motueka Sunday Schools. — We understand that a tea party in connection with these schools is to be held in the School-room, Motueka, on Wednesday next, 12th instant, when the chair will be taken by the Bishop of Nelson. It is hoped that all residents in the neighborhood will, by their presence on this occasion, show that they are not indifferent to the highly important work of Sunday School teach ing. British and Foreign Bible Society. We are requested to call attention to the advertisemeut calling a meeting of the Committee of the Nelson Auxiliary of this Society, to be held in the Diocesan Room, to-morrow affernooD. An error unfortunately occurred in the advertisement as published yesterday, the compositor haviDg left out the words "Nelson Auxilary of the " whereby it was made to appear that the whole committee of the Society were invited to meet ; this mistake has been rectified in to-day's issue. A Christmas Goose. — The Resident Magistrate was this morning occupied in deciding the important question whether a man was to be permitted to slay his neighbor's goosd with impunity. The facts of the case «;were as follows : — A well-kuown auctioneer residing in this town keeps in his back yard a flock of geese; one of these birds, apparently of an enquiring turn of mind, wishes to enlarge his experience, and with this view pays a visit to a neighboring garden, the property of a celebrated jeweller. Once there he first looks at, then smells, then tastes the vegetables which their proprietor raises for " supplying his own table." The jeweller witnesses the unwarrantable depredation thus impudently committed upon his garden produce, and, in a fit of wrathful indignation, be rushes oat, stick in hand, and there and then commits an act of what he considers to be justifiable avicide. A little later, conscience stricken at the awfulness of the deed into which his fiery passions have led him, he proceeds to the owner of the bird and confesses the crime of which he has been guilty, bat without expressing the slightest

contrition. This rouses the choler of the individual who owns the murdered biped, and, uttering the terrible threat that the malefactor shall be brought to justice, he throws the corpse over the fence into the yard of a respected blacksmith who resides iu the neighborhood Vulcan sees the tempting'morsel lying there and with the permission ot its owner takes it home, has it cooked, aud finds, as he stated in Court upon his oath that "it ate very well and didn't disagree with him, not a blessed bit." Hereupon the jeweller declines to pay the price demanded by the outraged owner of the feathered biped arguing that since he had the trouble of killing it, he ought if he had to pay, at least have had the option of eating it. The Magistrate, however, decided otherwise, and the discomfited jeweller was compelled to pay five shillings the price of the goose, and all the attendant costs. Of all those connected with the transaction, Vulcan has decidedly come off best, a Christmas dinner being found him gratuitously, and eight shillings paid to him merely for going to Court, aud statiog that on the whole the goose was not to be despised. An Angry Councillor. —Mr. FrankJyn, the newly elected member of the Council for the Grey Valley, seems to be a little annoyed at something that has been said of him in the papers, for we find him addressing the following letter to the Westport Times : —Sir, In your issue of to-day I read aa extract from the -Grey River Argus, being a report of a meeting held at the School-room at Cobden, and presided over by the late defeated candidates Wilkie and Boase, aud at which these two coal-heavers appear to have used my name pretty freely. Naturally my first thoughts, on reading this report, were to write to you explaining fully what I acfually did say and what I did not say. On reflection, however, I think my most sensible plan ia to leave these Cobden squalling demagogues to their own devices, but at the same time to renew publicly au expression lam stated to have made —that I held the Ranters of Cobden in the utmost contempt, and that I despise and defy them. Let ma tell these spouting dolts that a man like myself, who carries the good opinion of five thousand miners on these goldfields, is not to be put down by five or six psalm-singing hypocrites belonging to sueh a miserable hamlet as Cobdeu. —lam, sir, yours faithfully, W. N, Franklyn, M.P.C. for Grey Valley.