TELEGRAPHIC INTELLIGENCE.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VII, Issue 171, 19 July 1872, Page 2

TELEGRAPHIC INTELLIGENCE.

[Pjek Gretille's Telegram Company.]

the case is "wholly misunderstood. No one here speaks of "objections" to (he contract. The agreement was laughed out of existence directly it "Was made known. It fell stillborn, and never breathed for a moment. It was destroyed by its mere publication. It Was at, once seen to be a gross, inconceivable blunder, and the first feeling of astonishment at Mr. Voxel's successful cleverness and Mr. Duffy's — good-nature, having passed away, the matter dropped out of discussion altogether. No one ever ventured to say anything in its behalf. If the Duffy Cabinet had endured for years, it is scarcely likely that we should have ever heard anything of the unlucky contract again. Mr, Duffy could hardly have had the assurance to come to Parliament and gravely ask that it should ratify his crowning effort at diplomacy. If he had, nobody doubts what the result would have been, So our New Zealand friends may at any rate rest certain of this, that the YogelDuffy contract is dead and gone, that no possible changes in Victorian politics can ever resuscitate it in its old form, and that the recollection of it will only serve to illustrate the fact that the twe negotiators •who were its authors equally failed in their object, though in different ways — ours because as a business man he proved himself incompetent for his task, and theirs "because his overreaching astuteness was only too successful, and like "Vaulting ambition •which o'erleaps itself And falls on the other side." "Atticus," writing in the Melbourne Leader, wants to know, "How do medical men contrive so frequently to marry money ? Is it a knowledge of the constitutions of their female patientß that gives the profession an advantage over other people ? I know of one surgeon whose wife married him out of gratitude for a successful cure, and of another who led to the altar a confirmed invalid because he wanted to obtain an accurate diagnosis of her case. An up-country practitioner was a few months ago consulted by a young squatter as to whether Miss Croesus was suffering from phthisis, for if she were not he should certainly propose. The doctor looked oracular, shook his head, and recommended great caution and a little delay. Rusticuß went back to his station disconsolate, and tried to occupy himself with extra attention to foot-rot and scab. Six months afterwards he received by poßt the wedding cards. His lady-love had accepted the medical man whose advice he had asked. Fancy the poor fellow's feelings." Operatic Oscultation. — The following little episode has just occurred at the Imperial Opera House in Vienna. In Lortzings " Waffenschmied," there is a scene where Count Liebenau, Herr ' Neumann, has to kiss Irmentraut, Mdlle. j Gindele. The kissing cannot be omitted, because in the two following scenes the conversation is continually turning upon it. After Irmentraut has commanded the Count to kiss first her right and then her left hand, she winds up by saying " And now the lips." Full probably, of his part, Herr Neumann, in reply to this challenge, gave , Mdlle. Gindele, at the first performance, the kiss specified in the stage directions. The lady was so incensed, that she complained to the management. Everything like argument to the effect that the person on the stage was Irmentraut and not Mdlle. Gindele proved perfectly unavailing. She declared she felt insulted in her honor as a womaß, and that if she could not obtain reparation from the management, she would seek it from the law. At length the " Waffenschmied" was again put up. All the initiated were very curious to kuow how the kiss-scene would go off. After Count Liebenau had kissed Irmentraut's right right and left hand, the lady said : '• There; I will not trouble you for the kiss on the lips." Herr Neumann hereupon -quickly replied : " Thank Heaven that I have not to kiss that fright." Mdlle. Gindele became so excited that she had to be carried in a fainting state to her room. She has again complained to the management. Stage jurists are deeply interested in the matter, for they want to know whether a kiss given in character to a lady on the stage can be regarded as an insult to the recipient.-PaM Mall Gazette. The last modern instance of absence of mind is that of a Vermont waggoner going to market, who lifted his horse into the waggon and tackled himself into the traces, and did not discover his error until he endeavoured to neigh. A Bouncer.— A story told of man in Germany who fell from, the roof of fivestorey building to the side-walk, but as he struck on the thick soles of his rubber shoes, he, bounced back; within, a quarter of an inch of the roof, and so continued to bounce, decreasing by only a qauarter of an inch each journey. He subsisted on hash enclosed in rubber balls, which he managed to catch on the bound, and at the end of a. ; month he was stopped; and restored to his iamiiy. :

Theke seems to be an encouraging prospect that by the time the construction of the Overland Telegraph is completed it will all have be done over agaiu. A danger which has before been casually alluded to has, upon further experience, grown to appear much more serious than was at first thought. The danger is from the voracity of white ants. These pests of all tropical climates seeni to exist in great force in South Australia. A writer to the South Australian Register describes their ravages in a very graphic manner. Ifc appears that they devour the growing trees, and sometimes eat off the living boughs. The rapidity with which they consume even well-dried timber is astounding. It is put ioto a roof to-day, and before a week fine powdery dust is observed falling from it as the minute agents of destruction are at work. Wooden buildings must be renewed every three or four years at the farthest. But this interesting insect appears to have an' especial down on the telegraph poles. Manyof them are scooped out and honeycombed, and now stand mere shells, waiting for the first strong wind to blow them over. The insulation pius are coated with a non-conducting varnish, but it makes no difference, they are riddled and eaten up bodily by the ants. They seem not yet to eat the wire, but it seams likely that very soon there will be nothing left but the wire. It appears that before long it will be found needful to reconstruct the line with iron posts through the territory thus infected. — Australasian.