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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume V, Issue 244, 15 October 1870, Page 4

The Government of New South Wales have placed the sum of £17,500 onthe e-tim.ites, for the Californian Mail Ser- \ ice. A Conrs lias been formed in Melbourne to be called the " Telegraph and Torpedo" corps. Their duty will consist of the ar-i-MU<ietnetit of torpedos and their explosion, t' lejjraphing, and signalling. The Fenian General O'Neill, taken prisoner during the late raid on Canada, has b^en sentenced to ten years imprisonment in the State prison. Messes. Collie, Stewast, & Co. of San Francisco, lave announced their inieution of despatching a regular monthly line of packets to the Fiji Islands, calling at Marquesas, Society, and Navigator's. To Siudents in the Museum of Geology. It is generally believed that "you cannot get blood out of a stone." How then do you account for the fact that so many mvi bies aro full of veins ? Ministers and Editoes. — The Rev. Dr. Price, of Aherdare, speaking of his ■recent visit to America, says : — "All he could say as to the American people themselves was that they are a noble race of people. Their hospitality was unbounded. The railway, boat, and Government authorities all paid more respect to religion than in this country. Friends coming up from the country to attend religious public meetings only pay oneway. Ministers and editors travel half-price. Stopping on one occasion at a junction, he went to the hotel close by and had an excellent dinner. Afterwards, going into the clerk's oflice he entered his name, 'Thomas Price, Baptist minister, Aberdare.' 'Oh, Sir,' says he, 'I guess you're a minister.' 'I guess so too,' said I. ' Well,' he says, 4 you have only half to pay. The dinner is eighty cents ; if you pay forty you get free of the other forty.' 'On what principle is that,' said I ; and he said, 'We give fifty per ceut. off to ministers and editors.' 'Indeed,' I said, *I happen to be an editor too.' 'Editor of what?' 'Of Seren Cymru? ' Don't know the paper — where is it published ?' 'In Wales.' 'I don't know it ; but you are an editor, are you ? ' ' Yes, I am.' ' Well, I guess we are about square, exactly.' I said, 'I really think that I will come again on those terms.' ' Corae whenever you like, and we will treat you on those terms.'" An Ikyentive Genius. — It was in the autumn, a dead season of the London press, when the political and fashionable and professional classes are "out of town." A reporter, who had been called to the bar, but had never been employed by any oue, not finding any news, resolved to make it. He invented a dreadful murder, attended with romantic and mysterious circumstances, and described it, very fully, as having taken place in a remote suburban district, for which he manufactured a Saxon name. He manifolded it to all the daily papers, only one of which accepted it. He" supplied additional details; gave evidence at the inquest before an imaginary coroner ; published a verdict of " Wilful murder against some person or persons unknown ;" described the funeral of the victim ; lengthily and legally went into conjectures as to the motive of the crime and the identity of the murderer, complimented the police, who, be stated, were ou his track. He had " a clear stage for some ten days, until the Home Secretary thought it his duty to enquire into the case, and soon discovered that it was a fiction from first to last. The newspaper was laughed at, but tho imaginative reporter, who had done nothing for which the law could punish him, was allowed to escape. Years passed by, and the next time I heard of him he was attorney-general in one of the Australian colonies, finally rising to a seat on the bench. I last saw him in 1847, when he visited England on official business, and we had a good laugh over his remarkaide "Murder in Essex." — Dr. Shelton Mackenzie, in the Newspaper Press.