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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume IX, Issue 62, 13 March 1874, Page 2

1 _ The following hints from "A Retired Murderer " appear in the Pall Mall Gazettes — " You were good enough on a former occasion to permit me through your columns to protest against a practice indulged in by young and inexperienced murderers of hacking and mutilating tho remains of their victims, and thus naturally exciting in the breasts of the pablic a disgust not generally awakened by a simple assassination artistically effected without undue violence and with a proper re-

gard for the feelings of the Burvivors. I venture, therefore, on behalf of a growing and important class — the murderers of London, in whose reputation I sball ever feel tbe deepest interest, havinc; spent some of tho happiest days of my life in their society — to trespass ngain on your kindness while 1 beg the pubiio to believe they have no hand whatever in a practice which it appears from certain remarks made by Dr Lankester at an it-quest held by bim lately, prevails in the neighborhood of tho Regent's Canal of taking outof that convenient receptacle the bodies of murdered persons or suicides, robbing them, and depositing them again in the water. A more cootemptible form of crime cannot be conceived than the system referred to; and I would implore the public lo believo that no murderer worthy of the name would so far demean himself as to rob the remains of one in whose removal to a better world he had borne a part. So far from tbe London murderers as a rule approving this practice, they would, I feel assured, willingly lend the police (whom they cordially admire, and for whom indeed they are begiumug to feel a sincere affection) every assistance in bringing to justice the low scoundrels who thus disgrace the criminal classes I only point to tbe neat and peaceful manner iv which babies are now despatched, and their bo lies Cpacked in lime) deposited under the various noses of the police, to prove that murderers not only know how to perform disagreeable duties in an orderly fashion, but that tbeir is an openness io their proceedings that speaks volumes for the nobility of their nature. Mdlle. Albaui seems to have taken the Russians by storm. At St. Petersburg, after a perfoimance of the mad scene in "Lucia," she was recalled twenty times, and, thinking the opera was over as far as she was concerred, she changed her dress, nnd prepared, to leave tbe theatre; when, at the conclusion cf the opera, there were cries for " Albaui," and she had to appear on the stage in her walking-dress no less thau nine times. Tben, at Moscow on November 27tb, after a performance of "La Sonnambula," she was recalled forty time?. The newspapers are as enthusiastic in praising her as the Russian audiences are in applauding. Here is a sight that would delight the heart of any agriculturist. The correspondent of the Mount Ida (Maerewbenua district, Otago) Chronicle writes: — At one company's farm, in the Cave Valley district, the crops are being cut down at a wonderful rate: 16 reaping-machines, attended by over 200 men, account for 170 acres per day. This company has over 2500 acres, mostly under wheat, which promise to give an excellent return. The grain is well filled, and a good deal of it looks as if it would give a return of 60 bushels per acre. lam told that an average of 45 bushels is looked for as a certainty. Labor is plentiful, the supply being almost out of work requiring hands in other parts. On another estate, Mr Menlove's, in Cave Volley, 154 hands were busily employed. Looking at the stout and stalwart horses, and the rate nt which they were kept going, the men appeared to have a hot time of it. On this estate, 1500 acres are under crop, nearly all wheat, the whole looking equally well, nnd promising good returns. A most useful invention for nursery use, called "a baby washer," isreported from America, where it has been patented. It is described by the inventor as follows: — "You simply insert the begrimed and molasses-coated infant in an orifice which can be made any required size by turning for ten minutes a cog-wheel with electric attachments. The ohild glides gently down a highlypolished inclined plane; his lips are met at its termioance by an indiarubber tube, from which the infant can draw lacteal nourishment of the purest and moßt invigorating character, secured for the special purpose at great expense, from a choice breed of Alderney kine raised on tho estate of Her Majesty Queen Victoria, in the Isle of Wight. While in this compartment, which is lined with plate-glass mirrors, tho perturbed spirits of the infant are soothed by its frantic efforts to demolish its own image, reflected in the glass, with a nickel plated combined tooth-cutter, nail- knife, rattle, aud tack hammer, which is thrust into the baby's hand by an automaton monkey. . Fatigued by its destructive tfforts, the infant falls to sleep, while the organ attachment playa softly the ravishing melq^y of 'Put me iv my little Bed.' Then it slips'iuto the third compartment. Here the baby is washed. Another small tube administers a doso of soothing syrup, and tho infant glides from the machine, its eails pared, its hair combed, if it has any, and ready for the habiliments rendered necessary by the fall of our first parents."