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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VI, Issue 109, 10 May 1871, Page 2

<; .2Egles" writes as follows in the Australasian: — A little Chinaman caught near the gaol with some little packages of opium and tobacco which the police .shrewdly suspected he intended to throw over the prison-wall for the comfort of fellow-Chinamen incarcerated within, ia recompense of his suspected beuevok)^rce, was sentenced the other day to sixjjrfonths' imprisonment. The intention o^mie little Chinaman was not proved^True, he dropped his little parcels aad ran away at the sight of a gigantic^police-constable, and that was highly^uspicious, although not altogether unnatural. But looking at his case in the very worst light, and assuming the extremity of his guilt, is it so very heinous an offence against the law thttt an ignorant foreigner, who could hardly speak two words of English, should be thus made to feel the majesty of the British law. I don't know that there is anything in the decalogue which could be construed as prohibiting the casting of opium over a gaol wall to a distressed prisoner. In fact, the little Chinaman rather resembles the favorably pourtrayed Samaritan who spent twopence upon the traveller who had fallen amongst thieves. If this little Chinaman had been of Caucasian instead of Mongolian desceut; if he had received a liberal education; if hie had held a Civil Service appointment with about £400 a year; if, /or some purpose outside of his daily necessities he had abused the trust reposed in him, and had embezzled any sum from £500 upwards; if his offence had been proved beyond doubt, then he would, under these aggravated circumstances, have been punished with a term of imprisonment of just one-half the duration of that to which he is subjected/ for incautiously 1 carrying opium and tobacco in his pockets when taking a constitutional in the neighborhood of the gaol. Or, 1 amplifying further upon the case of this diminutive Tartar, compare his conduct and punishment with the conduct and np punishment of one of the dominant race residing near Sandhurst. How will it contrast with that of the savage Marr, who drove his wretched daughter in the pangs of labor from his door, and left her to experience the anguish of maternity in a deserted pig-stye ?. What idea can the disciples of Confucius form of Christianity as practically exemplified by its professing adherents ? Captain Travers, of Rochester; New York, has made a wager of 25 dollars that, he will, at the distance of 36 feet, with a pistol^ shoot from the top of a wine bottle a cork on, which is placed a bullet, drop-! ping the bullet into the bottle and not breaking the bottle. , .. He has twelye shots, and engages to perform the feat four times. '.;,-.,. I , , Fitz,Hugh,Lui>low- in his. narrative of travel <■ iv : " The : Heart of the Continent," tells of an eccentric genius^ who improved on the old yarn to the effect that '' the weather would- have been colder if the 1 ? th'ermomeier had been longerj" by saying he, had been where " it* was 'so' cold that the thermometer got down off the nail."