The Nelson Evening Mail. THURSDAY,OCTOBER 8, 1874.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume IX, Issue 239, 8 October 1874, Page 2

The Nelson Evening Mail. THURSDAY,OCTOBER 8, 1874.

Meetings of Electoks.-— Mr Curtis aud, JVf r ; Richmond, invite . tt^eir constituents to meet them to-night, the former at the Provincial Hall, and the latter at the Star and Garter, Rich-; mood. >' What mat Happen to a Man iri Nelson. — Our contemporary, no doubt with the beet of intentions, endeavors this morning to pat a totally different 'coloring 1 upon the affair we reported yesterday ;under, the above heading, but, unfortunately, he is entirely wrong in bis facts. la the first place we find, the following:— "A voucher was passed from th6"ProvinciaiEngineer*Bvoffice to /the Provincial Secretary's office conf i^ernin'gtlie, wprk", , This would make it appear that the voucher bad Wen transmitted from one of these depart^ ments direct to. the other, whereas, it .was ijothing of the kind. The document rwafl sent by Mr DobsonV through the post addressed to MrKnyvett, who ,left it, at the office in the morning for rlbjs ownj convenience, and was, without question, entitled to regard it as his own property, until the money,, for which it was an order, was paid. The Cto/oaw/ farther, denies that Mr Kny vett was ever given in charge. It is a fact that his name, age, occupation, &c,, were asked him by the Sergeant in charge, and the replies entered in a book. Is it a customary thing at the Police Station to pay these delicate little.attentioDs to caeual visitors? It is a fact that there was a certain time, no matter how long or how short, when he was not at liberty to leave the station. If this was not being in custody, we should like to know what is. Nelson Volunteers. — Major Gordon's report on the Volunteers of- the colony has just been published, and from it we take the following extract referring to the force in Nelson: — With the exception of the corps in outdistricts, the companies are in a very creditable state. 'The Artillery Company is a new otic, and, unlike many other companies of a similar arm, it has not neglected its infantry duties by confining itself exclusively to gun drill. The City Rifles and City Cadet Company are in as good order as the Artillery Company, and, besides performing well and steadily ordinary J company movements, all their companies requested me to maboeuvie them in battalion drill, in which they acquitted themselves in every way to t my satisfaction. The Stoke Rifles, Stoke Cadets, Waimea Rifles, and . Wakefield Cadets, moved very indifferently. The three districts of Westland, Nelson, and 8 Marlborougb, are without paid commanding officers. I think the service would be benefited if they were made one

district under an active officer, one capable of imparting instruction. Nelson particularly, although it is possessed of a very efficient drill-sergeant, requires the supervision of a competent officer, and the Volunteers there deserve one. A Dunedin telegram in a Well i up ton paper of Saturday last, says: — Captain Clark telegraphs that if the Tararua can force her way through the pale aa far as the Solander she will save the mail, but that it is very doubtful. The Hon Mr Fox has made over a number of sketches of New Zealand scenery, painted in water colors by himself, to the Wellington Good Templars, and they propose turning them into money by means of an art union for the purpose of aiding the building fund of a Temperance Hall. In Napier now potatoes are £15 a ton, and butter is scarcely to be had for love or money. Estimates are made that 30,000 tons of barley will be shipped from California this season. Over 2,000,000 trade dollars were coined at the San Francisco mint during the present year. It is a curious fact that while we in England are more and more heating house and hall with the dry arid air from hot cas (-iron pipes and American stoves, our Transatlantic couainß themselves have denounced their cast-iron stove and furnace- pipes as the Juggernaut of America, which in the city homes, in rural dwellings, in public offices, in churches, in railway stations, cars, steam-boats, and the like places, make winter like a burden. "Carl Benson" tells them the proper mode of heating a room is by wood or bituminous coal fires, there being no way of getting warm and keeping warm so pleasant or so healthy as that by radiated heat. — The Builder. /The " Great Empire Derby Sweep " on the Melbourne Cup, has been drawn at Hokitika. The favorite—Goldsborough — fell to that lucky individual, U. Sharp, who pocketed £1000 by a lucky venture on (he same race when The Quack won. He offered a share in five tickets that he held to more than one person, but without success, till Mr L. Eirwan accepted _his offer, and handed over the the yiree notes, which will very likely land him in a partnership of £500. An extraordinary occurrence is reported from Abbeyfeale, county Limerick. Two daughters of a farmer named Murphy were taking a walk through. the fields a few days ago, when they saw four men approaching, bearing a coffin on their shoulders. The men, haviDg placed the coffin on the ground advanced towards the eldest girl, and attempted to lay hauds on her. She shrieked, and her sister, terrified, ran off for ossistance. When assistance had arrived the men and the coffin had disappeared, but the girl was found dead in the field. This is the story as related by the surviving sister. ', A marvellous story comes to a Queensland paper from the South Seas. We should certainly doubt its truth had we not the greatest confidence in the veracity of our informants, says Our contemporary. It is said that a woman , a native of Tanna, gave birth to an infant. Not being satisfied that it was as black as it might have been, she, in her disappointment and shame, buried it alive. Some six hours afterwards, circumstance came to the knowledge of Mr Bebblewbite, who, with the asjistance of another settler, exhumed the body, and to their astonishment found the child still alive. The resurrectioned babe was, by latest accounts, in robust health, and had suffered no incou- | venience from its premature interment. A fresh argument in favor of the federation of these colonies is furnished (says the Melbourne Economist) by the recent report of the Melbourne Mint. That institution cost, we believe, £80,000, and its business is so small that its annual expenditure exceeds the, income by £10,000. Taking the interest on the money spent, it may be therefore reasonably concluded that we lose £14,000 a year by the concern, or £280,000 in twenty years. The mint was never required. One mint is mor? than enough for Australia, with itjs failing gold yield. Now if the colonies had federated, we would have been saved this needless loss. It would have been better for our miners to pay the' freight of gold to Sydney at a very slight loss than for the colonists to contribute £14.000 a year to the revenue to maintain a white elephant As days pass, the advantages of federation are more powerfully impressed upon our minds, and we dread the enormous provincial expenditure that will be incurred if the rivalry between the colonies go on. Until we have federation, vast sums of money will be thrown away for no gold, as has been tne case in regard to the Melbourne Mint. Among the works disposed of nt the recent sale of Sir William Tite's library was a copy of the first edition of Miles Co verdale'e English translation of the Bible, printed in 1535. This work is so rare that no perfect copy of it is known. Sir William Tite's copy fetched £150. In the House of Common?, on the 291h April, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir Stafford Norihcote, stated the total amount of the national debt at £778,294,000, of which the sum of £723,514,000 is funded, the sum of £4,479,000 is unfunded, and the sum of £ 52,000,000 is in the form of terminable annuities. '