The Nelson Evening Mail. SATURDAY, JANUARY 6, 1872.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VII, Issue 6, 6 January 1872, Page 2

The Nelson Evening Mail. SATURDAY, JANUARY 6, 1872.

Dunedin Gas Supply. — The following telegram has been forwarded to a gentleman in Nelson from Dunedin : — The City Council here have decided to erect iheir own gasworks. The price to consumers will be 12s. 6d. per 1000 feet. j A Literary Gem. — The following is a verbatim copy of a letter received by a i gentleman in business in this town from a country customer who, it is scarcely I necessary to say, is not of English ex t rae- j tion : — " Sir, — A chele bi at Nelscne vouen the Engliche maile arrive et A comtne te si you bote date acconte. hopine you coite voile A reiwembre yoa votre tres humble." &c, &c. Artizans' Association. — One of those pleasant entertainments for which the Nelson artisans have uow become celebrated was given at the Oddfellows' Hall last night, in the presence of a crowded audience. The first part consisted of a miscellany of songs, choruses, readings, and instrumental music, and the loud applause and repeated encores lhat greeted the performers must have perfectly satisfied them that their efforts to please met with the appreciation they deserved. The Society ranks among its members some very capital soloists, whose songs it is a real pleasure to hear, and the choruses ore, as a rule, rendered with both care aud good laste. The performance concluded witii tiie arousing farce entitled "Turning the Tables." To /fttt&empt lo describe tbe acting of a farce is : a iWWjSI unsatisfactory task for the writer of ,u np,t,i&e like this, as he caunot hope to do jjustitie,(.9 jLbose who had taken part in it, While be se-ldjoin convey* a thoroughly correct irapressicvn nf it to the miuds of his •readers. AH the little jokes and by- play that are the life of a farca caunot be set down od paper, and therefore wa mean to

I I say no more now thaii thut the acting £eue- | rally was last night very creditable to all | concerned. Hawke's Bay. — A telegram in yesterday's Colonist stated that, some natives bad made n raid on Mr. Cash more' a premises, at, the Bier Bush. They tore up the tramway, nnd did considerable damage. Karaitima had given Mr. Cashmnre permission to cut timber iu the bush, the Supreme Court having discharged the District Court's injunction in favor of Wftikn. This latter person now defies the i Court, and takes the law into hia own hands. FiSii. — The Wanganui Chronicle has the following respecting fish : — " Tbe largest number of fish that has ever been j netted at one time in the Waugnnni river j were got on Monday morning. The boat I was loaded with beautiful kawai — a great : help to the purse of the fisherman, and ! a seasonable addition to the food of the ! population. Thero must be an inexbausj tilde store of fish «ju our coast, and yet as | an article of diet, although of the most ! valuable character, it is scarce, and consequently clear. We wish something more j was done to develop this industr}'. ! The Echo ascribes the decline of marriage in New Zealand to defective knd laws: — '•'One of the most deplorable results of the absence of a good liberal law for settlement on the land, is that the marriage market — if the irreverence may Ibe pardoned — is just as much locked up as ! the lands; and it really — to one unacquainted with our system of misgovern- ; ment and its relationship to our soci»l ! position — would seem strange to see so many eligible young women as one does see here — where there are ten men to one woman — doomed to ueedlewovk as a substitute for (lie position of a wife. In the overcrowded old country, this would be lhe natural sequence of the existence of thousands of hereditary monopolies; but here, where the race is more even between monopoly and tho day-laborers, where the merchant of to-lay may be the hardj worker of to-morrow, and vice versa, it ! does seem strange that our young women, j instead of having homes nnd husbands, I should be, apparently, condemned to pass life behind a sewing machine or behind the bar of an hotel. If it be said that necessity is at the basis of this seeming anomaly, our reply is that a hundred evidences would show tbat marriage and not celibacy would — if tbere was no prevention — be woman's choice."