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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VII, Issue 284, 28 November 1872, Page 2

Some interesting particulars regarding the Maori school at St. Stephen's, Canterbury, are given by the New Zealand Church News. The publication says : — "The Maoris, by the payment of a nominal fee, can now not only educate their children but themselves, as adult classes are held on several nights during each week. The instruction is conveyed entirely in EDglisb, and the course is the same as tbat pursued generally in primary schools. Tbe school was opened on the 2nd September, and the result of the first month's trial of the new system is every satisfactory. It was feared that the change from a boarding to a day school would result in failure, as the Maoris are

so very irregular in their habits, but tbe daily register shows that they have kept well to their work. Of one boy, who rpjoices in the honoured name of Captain Cook, and who was set down as hopelessly wild, his father remarks the. other day tbat 'he sleeps standing,' so eager is he to get back to bis lessons. The arrangement of the school-hours, which allows the children a lon* afternoon for play, seems to satisfy tbeir wild propensity, and to reconcile them to the succeeding morning's confinement. In tbe adult class, old Jacob, upwards of sixty, sets the younger men an example of diligent perseverance. Going home a few nigbts ago, he was caught in a fog, and after wandering about, took up his abode for the night in a flax bush. But* nothing daunted, he was in bis place next evening. Though still floundering through the multiplication tables, be hopes to reach the compound rules before death overtakes him. Mr Beassby's Navvies.— Mr. Brassey, M.P.. has just published a memoir of his father, the great contractor for railways aod bridges all over the world, in which he thus speaks of the greater capability of men for hard work, and tbe beneficial results of trades' unions when well managed. "It is creditable to the leaders of trades unions that they have strenuously exerted their influence to suppress the cause of drunkenness. In spite of the development of industry in this country, the constantly increasing employment, and general increase in the rate of wages, we have to deplore the existence, side by side with this prosperity, of that which we think is inevitable pauperism. Do not the statistics of the consumption of intoxicating liquors, and the expenditure of £100,000,000 a-year indicate an excessive indulgence in tho use of stimulants ? The taste for drinkiug, which unhappily still prevails in this country among a large number of the laboring people, has been excused on tbe ground that hard work renders a considerable consumption of beer almost a necessity. But some of the most powerful among the navvies have been teetotallers. On the Great Northern railway there was a celebrated gang of navvies who did more work in a day than any ofber gang on the line, and always left off work an hour or an hour-and-half earlier than the other men. Every navvy in this powerful gang was a total abstainer." For continuation of news see fourth page.

Fortune. — There are men in London •who make no Hying impression upon their age; who are rarely capable, of a glorious act, and yet in strange ways make splendid fortunes." A few years ago a clothier in the New Cut purchased Garrick's Villa and its classical grounds, in the village of Hampton, for £30,000. Mr. Herbert Ingram, who originated the Illustrated London Neios, and subsequently represented his native city, Boston, in Lincolnshire, made his wealth by the sale of antibilious pills; and now we hear of Professor Holloway, as he styles himself, ■who is about to erect, at his own expense, a Middle-class Asylum at Virginia Water. The Asylum will cost from £70,000 to £100,000, and will accommodate 200 patients. It will be maintained for a year by the Professor, after which it is expected to be self-supporting, and will be handed over to the management of trustees. This, we believe, is tbe first noble act ever made by a. pill- manufacturer; but Holloway basks ia wealth, and lives in the most princely style hard by the royal residence of Queen Victoria, at Windsor. Royalty and Quackery occupy the extremes of the forest; the castle and mansion seem to vie with each other in material adornments. Professor Holloway has gathered a large harvest by his pills and ointment through the happy medium of advertisements, and has been providentially sustained, for the good of the people we presume, up to three score years and ten. Some twenty years have passed since the great Professor purchased his magnificent estate at Blacknest, on the verge of Virginia Water, the favorite resort of the royal sensualist, the Duke of Cumberland, brother of George 111., ■whose Culloden statue occupies the knoll at the end of the Long Walk. There is the finely timbered estate of the prodigious pill-maker, who from its gates lolls to and fro from the Windsor railway station day by day, in his carriage drawn by a pair of the finest horses in the country, with attendant liveried menials. Such is the worldly condition of the old gentleman who spends at least £20,000 a-year in advertising his pills and ointment, which together, he affirms, form an infallible cure for all the physical ailments of the human race. A Maoki Vision of Another Woeld. —The present appears to be an era of wonders and portents among our Maori neighbors. We alluded, the other day, to the circumstance of a prophet, a miracle worker having arisen at Paki Paki; we have heard since of a case of trance, accompanied with visions of other worlds, at Wairoa. A Maori there— we have not been able to learn his name — lay recently in a state of complete unconsciousness, without motion and apparently without life, for three days. , Towards the close of the third day, his neighbors began to think that it was about time to bury him, and proceeded to put him into a . coffin preparatory to doing so. On their lifting him, however, to their no small astonishment, he moved, opened his eyes, and at last woke up. After partaking of some refreshment, he proceeded to inform them what his wairua (spirit) had been about, all the time that his body lay unconscious. He had passed across the bridge that connected this world with the nether one, and on reaching the other side saw a lake of fire before him. It was intimated to him that he must plunge in, and he did so, and swam across to the other side, his sensations during the process being of a very excruciating character. Oa reaching the opposite bank, he was led by the angel of death down along a steep dark pathway, till they reached a cave in which all manner of hideous slimy creatures with malevolent eyes and cruel fangs were -winding lost human beings in their loathsome folds. His frame thrilled with horror at the fate which appeared to be awaiting him ; the angel, however, told him he might pass on for this time. They possed on till tbey reached an enormous staircase ; ascending it they. found themselves before the massive golden gates of heaven. 9 These were flung open and they entered, and heheld our Lord seated on a great white throne. Oour Lord addressed him in gentle and merciful accents, bidding him go back to earth and tell his fellow-men what they had to except in the next world if tbey lived a life of sin in this, and, on the other hand, -what happiness and glory they might look forwaid to as the reward of a life of virtue. He is now, we hear, preaching repentance to the other Maoris at the Wairoa. — InA Locomotive Nuesery is one of the most recent of ingenious novelties. _An enterprising proprietor of perambulators in South London sends out his children, each with a double-seated large perambulator, holding' four, babies, callings from 'house '.< to ; house; ,tp; 'collect infants whoae parra^ wish to, give •- their : children ■ • ■;an3; !airing^:dbnnig -the day, vand ' cannot command the services of a 'nurse*