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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VIII, Issue 94, 19 April 1873, Page 4

Village Greens foe New Zealand. — At the last meeting of the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury, Mr F. E. Wright read a paper "On the desirability of dedicating to the people of New Zealand small areas of land assimilating in character to the village greens of England, " in the course of which he said, " The Waste or Crown lands of New Zealand are rapidly falling into private hands without, so far as lean learn, any reserves being made at all analogous to the village greens of old England. Parts of this province (Canterbury) are already completely fenced in, and many districts are now so much enclosed that a game of cricket can only be played in them on the sufferance of the owners of suitable paddocks. It is already a thing of common occurence to see in the daily papers accounts of games of cricket &c, being played in paddocks kindly lent by A B or C. The villages will soon become populous, and the village children of this Britain of the South will, in the vast majority of cases, have no place in which to enjoy in freedom the hours at their disposal for play. Every place will be closed against them, excepting the long straight and dusty roads ; and the love of country, which would have been engendered by the remembrance of happy hours' spent on the play ground common ' to them all, will find no place in their hearts. lam well aware that the larger cities and towns are in many cases liberally .supplied with parks, gardens, cricket grounds, and racecourses ; but such places of recreation and amusement are necessarily not to be found in country districts ; and were they so found, they -would not adequately answer the purpose of the reserves which this paper is intended to advocate, for I would have in them no trim walks, no flower beds or gardens, nor would I have as a maker of right any grazing cattle or tethering of horses, but the reserves should be play grounds common to the district, and 'left in a state of nature, excepting the necessary levelling of such small portions as the Tillage club might be desirous of adapting for comfortable playing at their various games. Were this idea carried out, the present and future generations of the youth inhabiting a great portion of this highly favored country •would have the opportunity of enjoying their pastime with the exhilirating feeling of independence which would prove concomitant with the knowledge that e 'the land on which they trod belonged to each and all of them. If the present course be persisted in, even though gentlemen continue to be willing kindly to lend their paddocks, it will turn out in practice that the proprietors of the land may object to the presence of different youths for various : reasons; one youth may be objected to because the owner is on bad terms with his father; he may not like the look of another, and so on; and, under the most favorable circumstances, the ground would only be available on. occasions. The owner, too, would have all the time to be keeping a watchful eye to the safety of his fences and stacks; and this supervision, • however slight, would tend greatly to mar the pleasure of the young people. " Tee London correspondent of the Otago Daily JV«te* writes as follows s— "lt is;

rumored in Dublin that the Prince of Wales is about to visit Ireland, and that he will be installed President of the Order of Chivalry, a new grade recently established or revived in Masonry, and that the event will be celebrated by a grand Masonic entertainment and ball at Dublin. The London Daily Telegraph of the 28th December contains a letter from Mr A. Trollope, but signed" Antipodea," written from Auckland in October last, at the close of which he says : — " With reference to the choice of the North or South Island by intending emigrants to New Zealand, T think the man with capital should go to Canterbury or Otago, the poor man to Auckland or Wellington,." . The Marriage of our new Goyernor. — Referring to the telegraphic announcement of the marriage of Sir James Fergusson, the Melbourne Herald of the 15th instant mentions that Miss | Riehman, the bride, possesses great per- ; sonal attractions, and ia understood to have a fortune of £50,000. There is some romance in this alliance. Miss Riehman was for many years engaged to her cousin, a Mr Fleming; and affairs went smoothly enough during the time that Mr Fleming remained in the colony. He took a trip to Europe, however, and during Bis absence Sir James Fergusson saw the lady, and admired her, and sought her hand. It would be difficult to say whether the lady at first reciprocated this attachment. Sir Jam9s seems, however, to have won the good opinion of the young lady's guardian, her uncle, a rich Moonta proprietor. He favored the distinguished suitor's addresses, and finally Miss Richman gave her consent. Sir James left for England, and shortly afterwards Miss Riehman followed, accompanied by her guardian. They had scarcely left Adelaide when young Fleming arrived, and his consternation was great at finding that the dove had flown, and that Miss Richman was on the way to Europe to become Lady Fergusson. The bride's fortune, it is understood, is not held in her own right, but is a marriage portion bestowed by the uncle and guardian. A Railway Train Stopped by Locusts in Victoria. — The statement that a train had been stopped by a host of locusts will seem to most persons to be one of a most extraordinary exaggerated nature, and yet the Bendigo Advertiser is assured that such is the fact on the line between Castlemain and Sandhurst on Saturday night. As the 45min past 7 train did not arrive to time, the station-master communicated with Castlemain by telegraph, and j was informed that it had started at the usual time. Having waited for some time he ordered a special engine to be got ready to proceed down the line, but before it could start the train arrived, being half-an-hour behind time. The guard reported that when near Harcourt the train was suddenly brought to a standstill, and on inspection it was found that an obstruction had been caused by an immense accumulation of locusts on the line, covering the ground to a depth of four inches. As the insects were crushed under the fore wheels of the locomotive, the iine became so slippery that the driving wheels would not grip. The rails were sanded to no purpose, and at last small pebbles were used, and even then four trucks had to be left behind. The trains which arrived later, reported that they had not experienced any such difficulty, the locusts probably having cleared off the line. How they got there in such numbers it is not very easy to guess. It was raining at the time the 7.45 train encountered them, and it is most likely a heavy flight of them had been driven together by a strong gust of wind, and been beaten down by the rain. From this strange occurence, people unacquainted with the dense fights of locusts with which many of the provinces have been infested of late, will be able to gain some idea of the immense numbers in which they frequently pass over the country. Recipe to make a Fashionable Woman — Take 991bs of flesh and bones — but chiefly bones — bore holes in the ears, cut off the small toes, bend the back to conform to the Grecian Bend , the Boston Dip, the Kangaroo Droop, or the Saratoga | Slope, as the taste inclines ; then add three yards of linen, 100 yards ruffles, 75 yards of edging, 18 yards of dimity, one pair of silk or cotton hose, six yards of flannel, embroidered, one pair of Balmoral boots with heels three inches high, 41b of whalebone in strips, 260 yards of steel wire, half a mile of tape, 21b of cotton or wire hemispheres, 50 yards of silk or other dress goods, 100 yards of point lace, 400 yards of fringe and other trimmings, 12 gross of buttons, one bos: of pearl powder, one saucer of carmine, one bushel of " store '! hair, frizzled and fretted a la maniaque, one quart of hair pins, lib of braid, one lace handkerchief nine- inches square, with patent holder; perfumed with attar of roses, and— "clear the track."-— New York Science of Health. ' (