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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume V, Issue 30, 5 February 1870, Page 2

The Auckland papers suggest that the General Government might materially assist the numerous unemployed workmen at the Thames by at once disbanding the Waikato militia and hiring as many unemployed miners in their place. The four shillings a day (says the Herald) ■which is a mockery to the Waikato settler, who, by losing his harvest, is at a loss of pounds, would be a godsend to the starving Thames man.

Says an Auckland contemporary : — lf you by chance enter into conversation on the native subject, your man says : " Oh, Te Kooti, has got; away again ; I never expected anything else ; our native allies have a ' Faugh-a-ballagh ' of their own, which like a charm clears the way for them most thoroughly. They've no heart in the matter ; what fools they'd be to give up so much a day and rations."

Another very serious complication (says the Auckland Herald) has arisen in the case of the unemployed miners, or labourers rather, at the Thames— for real quartz miners can command their Bs. to 10s. per day. These men, who are mauy of them doul.'i less reduced to severe distress, are clamorous for the opening of Ohinemuri, and to put pressure on the Government, threaten to rush the Upper Thames. A deputation of three men waited on the Superintendent and alluded to what these men would do if they were supported by the Government in rushing Ohinemuri. The Superintendent acted wisely infirmly and decidedly telling them that so far from being supported by the Government ia their illegal proceedings, the very contrary would be the case. It would be a rather novel thing to see McDonnell and his men for the nonce fraternising with Te Hira and his Hauhaus for the common object of driving back the Shortland fillibusterers, but this is really what the Superintendent meant, and what the said fillibusterers would find to their cost.

At the last sittings of the Supreme Court at Taranaki the customary pair of white kid gloves, "emblematical of the morality of the Province," was, on the occasion of there being no prisoners for trial, presented to the judge by the Sheriff

The detachment .of the 18th Royal Irish, lately stationed at Wanganui, left that district some time since. The Herald says that " the men of the regiment seem much attached to the ladies resident at Wanganui, as several desertions had taken place since the order for their removal to Sydney."

The Alphington, from London to Nelson, got into collision ou November 20, in the Downs, with the Danish brig Marie Louise from London for Cardiff, and lost her jibboom, cathead, stanchions, bulwarks, &c. • the brig received but trifling damage. The Alphiugton put back at once, but sailed again ou the 28th.

The petition of working men to the Queen to preserve the Colonies inviolate as the common inheritance of Englishmen has already received more than 30,000 siguatures.

A Servant girl in Altoona recently tried whisky to kill rats. She sweetened it, soaked bread in it, and then left the bread in the cellar where rats *' most do congregate." She had been upstairs not half-an-hour when she heard laughing, singing, and a general hullaballoo down stairs. She accordingly went down to see what was the matter. Imagine her astonishment to find about a dozen rats gloriously fuddled, engaged in throwing potato parings at each other, and hauling one another up to drink.

Recent experiments in France have shown that a message on a telegraph wire travels several times faster than does sensation through the nerves of animal organisms. The time required for electricity to pass through one hundred feet of wire is so small that it can hardly be estimated; but were a whale one hundred feet long wounded in the tail, one second would elapse before the brain would be conscious of it, and another second before the tail could be made to lash in response to the injury.

Notices relative to the Australian meat movement have been placed outside the churches, aud several of the London clergy have alluded to the subject in their sermons.

The German press has taken up the matter of the Australian wine trade, and devoted considerable space to discussing the quality and merits of the various colonial vintages. The demand for the wines of the Adelaide district is especially active and inceasing.