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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VIII, Issue 226, 19 September 1873, Page 2

"An Australian Squatter" has written for the Sydney Morning Herald an account of his journey from Sydney to Vienna. With respect to the railway journey across Egypt, he tells the following little story:— "One of the Calcutta pussengerp, a retired Indian Jud«:e, did rather a clever thing. Previous to our reaching !-tiez wo were all requested to form ourselves into parties for the railway transit across the desert, to the number of six in each carriage, and put, our names down on a list prepared by the purser. This list was copied, given to the railway authorities, and the names a,nd numbers of eich party pasted up ou each curriage window, In passing to my carriage I was stopped and invited to enter another, the doors aud blinds of which were shut and pulled dorvn, and carefully guarded hy my Calcutta friend, who called my attention to the names pasted on the winnow — 'Mrs Reynolds and five children.' I immediately declined with thanks, not having the pleasure of that lady's acquaintance; but he whispered a few words ia my ear which had a magical effect upon me, and induced mo to enter his carriage. I soon discovered that Mrs Reynolds and her five children did not exist in the flesh, but only in the fertile imagination of my learned friend, who by this somewhat questionable manoeuvre secured a carriage for our two selves all the wny to Alexandra. I may add that during tho night frequent teuder inquiries were made in very audible tones among tho passengers after tbe health of Mrs Reynolds and her numerous family, but that lady made no sign." For remainder of news see fourth page.

A Wellington paper says that as come bullocks were being driven to the slaughter yards at Ivu'warra last week, they li look to the eea, and swam out a distance estimated at four miles. After being in the water more than two hours ihey wore afc length brought back by means of boa*. and safely yarded." It this be perfect iy true, those bullocks ought to have been cut up immediately into joints of salt beef.

"Snyder" writes as follows to the Auckland Herald, with reference to New Zealand spirits: — I am always pettin<r mystified and involved about things I don't understand; but then I havo so many intelligent friends to set mo to rights that life, which would otherwise he a burden to me, moves on with a cheerful serenity known to few nnd excelled ly nonp. The last few days I lmve been reading in the Herald — that's the paper my philosophic disquisitions are allowed to appear in — of the larfzo sums of money which are paid to the Custom-house officers as duty for colonial distilled brandy, rum, and whisky. One day it's £90, another £120, and co on, which I was delighted to see, because, why ohould we spend our own money out of the colony ior anti-permissive drinks, whan we can eet them quite as good or worse of our own cultivating ? Then I thought I should like to sample some colonialdistilled rum, gin and brandy. So I rnlied at the spirit merchant's with a request to send me a few bottles for trial. But all the merchants, as I went one by one to them, fired up and looked quite snvage)ike,°and wanted to know whether I meant to insult them by asking for colonial manufactured spirits, which t ey wouldn't deal in on any account, not if it was given to them for nothing, duty paid. Then I thought I would try the hotel-keepers and I went round or sent round to the whole of them ior a bottle of Colonial brandy, and if they hadn't got brandy for a bottle of colonial wlmky, but wns no go. I wns told I could have Hennessy nnd Mariell in brandy, and Glendronanh or Isley in whisky, but no one kept the colonial doctored-up stuff. I sent round the suburbs, I tried the country, but it was all to no purpose. There was none — no not not one, kept the class of coods I had been enquiring for. Then I ask, and I think it is only a fair and reasonable question to ask, who does keep colonial-brewed grog ? or what becomes of it nil ? I had at one time come to the conc'usion that, people paid duty for fun and then threw tbe spirits away, but I am informed by a number of the hotel-keepers and spirit merchants that I am altogether nnd entirely mistaken.

The Pall J all Gazette says : — A new sensation in Ethiopian entertainments is now given in London. The burnt cork and horse-bair wig ia discarded nud a troupe of real niggers and half-casts are introduced. This troupe of Tennessee Minstrels who lately arrived in London, under ihe auspices of the American Missionary Society, Pive concerts in aid of the Fisk University, Nashville County, and have been well received in England. There are only a few of those Jubilee Minstrels who are as black as the Moors and Burgess, and one or two of the ladies approach very nearly to tbo Spanish complexion. Their voices are extremely mellow and full, and ibeir singing quite re resiling in its freedom. It has a. certain culture, and a culture quite unobslrusive in its unstudied grace. The me'ooirs r-'semMe all fatly popular tunes, being constructed on an imperfec.' scale, and they 1-ave an impression on the far like the wilder Scotch tune, with an undertone of pathos. " You'll Hear the Trumpet souud" was sung nt Hanover Square rooms by one of the? ladies with great effect; nothing could exceed the wildnpHS of "Didn't my Lord deliver Daniel?" shouted out with extraordinary vehemence. As in all sudden and rugged effects, the sublime and tbe grotesque seemed to be close together. The audience, who did not seem to enter into the spirit of rude dauntless faiih expressed by the chorus, "Yet He delivered Daniel from the Lions' Den, Why not Every Man ? " adopted the notion that the whole thing, instead of being intensely eolemn and pathetic, was serio-comic, and whenever the* passionate refrain came in the public laughed and applauded. Whst the Jubilees make of it we cannot tell. These men and women, who once were slaves, have no doubt long since found out. that, In religion at least, the white man's ways are not as the ways of the darkies. The white man paints the devil black, and the black man paints bim white. "Five uf them were wise when the bridegroom came, Oh Zion, when the bridegroom came," shouted funny to the white man, although our Jubilee friends san" it with all the fervour jmd reverence due to the great Christian parable. Altogether, the singing is strange, pathetic, and impressive.