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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VI, Issue 77, 1 April 1871, Page 2

The Cornwall Chronicle quotes a case in which a Melbourne passenger, landing at Launceston from a steamer the other day, with a bat-box in bis hand, found that this article had to pass through the Customs. "Without mentioning names, we give the items as follows : — Entry, 3s. 6d ; wharfage, Is ; duty, 8s ; total, 12s 6J.' 12s 6d for the privilege of briugiug one's bell-topper to the noble town of Launceston ! Much as we advocate protection principles, and much as we admire Tasmanian-made hats, we fancy this is carrying the joke too far." A moke fiendish crime (remarks the Age) can scarcely be conceived than that ' of which Alexander Smith was convicted, at the Criminal Sessions on the 15th inst. For the sake of obtaining a reward of £500, offered by the Government for the discovery of a murderer, he deliberately invented a story to fix the guilt upon a j perfectly innocent man, one Field. But for the fact that Field was a prisoner in Pentridge on the day the murder was committed, it is extremely probable that | he would have been hanged for the crime, i at the instance of the man who attempted Ito make him a victim. Such an atrocity makes the flesh creep. Smith now stands ■ remanded for sentence on conviction for perjury, the jury having found him guilty without even leaving the box. Under such circumstances, what adequade punishment can be metsd out to him ? They make shirts by lightning now. An electric battery applied to a sewing- | machine drives the needle with astonishing rapidity, and at little expense. A St. Patrick is evidently wanted in India as much as ever he was in Ireland. 1 During the year 1869, no less than 11,416 persons in the Bengal Presidency died ', from the effects of snakebite.