Untitled

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VII, Issue 40, 15 February 1872, Page 4

The export of coal from the United Kingdom exceeds a million and a quarter tons per mouth. Pbepabations are. already beginning to be made in England for the military manoeuvres of next autumn. A " Modified Form of the MartiniHenry rifle is about to be adopted in Prussia as the national weapon. . The money and property of the late Sir Roderick Muchison are found to amount to nearly £250,000.

A German correspondent writes tbat a ! great rise in the prices of Rhenish wines is tuking place, as the vintage of 1871 is completely lost. Within the laßt ten or fifteen years the University of Oxford has devoted £200,000 to the endowment of physical science teachers. Five thousand sheep were • burned to death by a fire on a station in Riverina. The manager went out of his mind in consequence. Alarm is being caused in England by the injurious effects on children of milk from cows suffering from foot and mouth disease. Dr. Short, the Superintendent of Vaccination at Madras, has trained a number of women as vaccinators to attend on native ladies. The Theatrical Critics of the London newspapers are reported to have entered into a compact to discourage all kinds of burlesques as much as possible Their object, it is said, is to elevate the drama, and improve the tone of stage plays. An old Maori, named Pipi, living in Wellington Province, has shot himself under rather peculiar circumstances. He was suffering from a kind of low fever, which has carried off many Maoris about Otaki and the neighborhood, and hearing that his malady was catching, he shot himself, in order to prevent it spreading among his people. The Chillicothe (Ohio) Register contains a "notice to the wives of intemperate men," asking them to leave the names of their husbands with the Secretary of the Liquor Dealers' Association, and promising that no liquor shall be sold to those so reported. The dealers take this method to protect themselves from prosecution under the State law, giving damages to the wives of men who buy liquor. Dr. Moran, the Catholic Bishop of Dunedin, says in a recent pastoral : It is necessary to remind you that the Society of Freemasons is condemned by the Church, and that all its members are ipso facto excommunicated. Should any Catholics, then, unfortunately belong to to this society, on which has fallen so heavily the anathema of the Church, we earnestly exhort them, as they value their salvation, to abandon it at once and for ever : for should they continue members of it, she will refuse them her aid while j living, ahd deprive them of Christian burial when dead. Wife Selling. — Wife selling it seems is not unknown in Victoria. The Kyneton Observer, 3rd February, thus writes : — * c A woman who described herself as a bushwoman, was fined for drunkenness, and in default of payment went to gaol. Her husband, it appears, deliberately bargained with another bushman for the release of his wife. The parties proceeded to the gaol, but the man who had gained the right by verbal agreement to the impounded, wife found that in addition to the fine of Ss. there were other fees to pay, amounting to another ss. However, though he grumbled, he was not the man to stand nice about trifles, and the fees were paid. The woman was released, when she turned out to be anything bqt the beautiful creature the vivid imagination of the bushman, had . pictured. ,With seme expression of contempt and disgust, he left his purchase in the hands of her original owner, , who, appearing to know all her good points, took her off, apparently well satisfied."

The following particulars, relative to the work going on at the wreck of Rangoon, are given by the G-alle agent of the P. and 0. Company, under date December 27, and are kindly placed at our service by the Melbourne agent of the company: — ' The diving operations at the wreck of the Rangoon have been more successful than could fairly have been anticipated in view of the great difficulty of the work. Up to the present time there has been recovered 442 bags and 28 boxes of mails (the whole number on board at the time of the wreck being 648), and 34 packages of baggage. The divers have suffered considerably from heated air, the pressure of tbe water, and the severe nature of the work, so much so as to oblige them to lie up occasionally, and at tbe present time two of them are too ill and exhausted to go on with the work. From their reports I do not anticipate that many more packages of mails can be found, many of them having been lost from the bags bursting and the contents washing away." — Argus.