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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VI, Issue 262, 6 November 1871, Page 4

The Wanganui Evening Herald publishes a statement, together with accounts, wherein it is shown, that in the estate of a deceased person named Adamson, a piece of land waß sold for £100, on -which the expenses of the sale were £14 10s, and law costs,, £82 14s 2d, the available balance being £3 Ids. A Fouk-oabed Race for a prize of £150, in money or plate, is advertised to take place in Canterbury, on the estuary of the river Heathcote, in January next. The race is to be open to all members of rowing clubs and any description of boat may be used. The entrance fee is fixed at five guineas. Speculation in Victoria. — And still the talk is of quartz. As to the number of persons who are coining money — as you ere confidently and confidentially assured — by speculating in shares, from merchants down to errand boys, it is beyond calculation. On a small scale we are repeating in this colony ;; the events of 1846-7 in: England, when railway scrip was. the newly discovered philosopher's stone/ and everybody was going to beoome rich without toil atid without flelf-denial( and all

sorts of staid steady-goiDg people lost their heads. So long as the share market^ in Melbourne and Sandhurst continufs to rise, of course all will be well. With prices steadily going up, buyers cannot go very far wrong; but when the turn comes what then ? When stocks in purely problematical undertakings take to sinking, and panic-stricken holders meet other panic-stricken holders, and everybody is. wanting to convert scrip into cash, long faces will be pulled, and there will be just as irrational a depression of really sound securities as there is at the present moment an irrational inflation of those of an altogether speculative character. — Australasian. The Youth of Australia. — What is the reason, asks the Melbourne Argus, that the young man of the period — in this city at least — is almost invariably a runt ? If you go to a public or private ball and watch the heads of the youthful malt) partners — many of them bald while yet on the suniiy side of 30 — bobbing up and down, you will perceive that they are mostly on a level with the ladies', sometimes below them. If you walk down Gollins-slreet between the hours of four and five, when the banks and the puhlic offices have disgorged a crowd of nicely-got-up young fellows, you will be struck by their uniformly low stature. From sft. 4in. to oft. 6in. appears to be the average height. How is this to ba explained? Is it arrested development, and if so, what is the cause ? Is there any process of physical degeneration going ou, and if so, to what circumstance is it attributable? Or is there a tendency — as there is said to be oa *he part of the native-born population of the United States — to revert to the aboriginal type ? The aborigines of this part of the Australian continent are mostly short. A black man or woman upwards of oft 6io. in height is a rarity in Victoria; and. so far as present appearances can be trusted, the Anglo-Australiaus in this colony promise to be as stunted in their growth as the former possessors of the soil. Cannot ow physiologists throw any light upon this phenomenon ? The following extract from a letter received by a gentleman in Auckland from an old Lew Zealander, now resident in San Francisco, is published in the Southern. Cross : — " San Francisco, September 12, 1871. — I am duly favored with yours of August 10. lam getting along very quietly here, picking up daily fresh acquaintances and information. I now feel completely at home with the Yankees, and begin to like their ways. They are shrewd and quick ia business, and partake more of a Liverpool. London, or Glasgow style than you are accustomed to find in old New Zealand. They require to be carefully watched in trade, and you must keep your weather-eye open in all the transactions you may have with them. One grand thing pervades trade here, and that is the short credit given ; in fact their payments nearly amount to cash transactions, thirty to sixty days, more frequently the former. You would be much surprised to see on pay days (called here ' steamer days ' from the custom before the railway was opened of always collecting the day prior to the steamer for New York leaving) hosts of fellows running about with canvas bags, collecting the ' almighty dollar.' All accounts here are paid in gold, no greenbacks being taken, unless by the Customs, Postoffice, and other Government offices. Indeed, ou all billheads it is distinctly stated, •' Payable in U.S. gold.' Since I last wrote to you we have had a most sensational time here, the state elections having come off, resulting in the defeat of the Democrats by the Republicans. You have no idea of the high pitch, to which politics are carried here. For several nights prior to the election day, grand torchlight processions, with rockets and blue fire, perambulated the principal streets; cannons, fired, and mo end of bands of music. Both ' old ' and 'young' America revel in processions ; nothing can go on without them, and the money that is spent in getting them up is something marvellous. The Democrats here are chiefly old secessionists and Irishmen ; the latter . call themselves . ' Dimokrits.' Republicans favor strongly protection, and are all in favor of an extended system of education." The Spectrum Analysis, which has hitherto been looked upon more as ascientific plaything than anything else, has been usefully brought into play by Professor Church. There was a weir in a crowded court, where typhoid fever was rife, and it was suspected that there were , some nitrogenous compounds in the well which had no business. there. It was suggested that the contents of a neighboring urinal leaked into the well; and to discover this, Professor Church introduced tw« grains of lithium into, the urinal. Two hours later' he examined the well by the spectroscope, and then detected the presence of lithium, bo that it was perfectly clear where all the mischief iifacwe.' ■■■■••'.■■•■., •• ' ■■