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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume X, Issue 87, 12 April 1875, Page 4

A Wanganui correspondent writes that the smartest craft in the river there, and the beßt hurdle racer at the late meeting, was called Julius Vogel. The Auckland Echo saya : — " Some of tbe importations recently arrived seem to be a nice lazy lot. They are to be" found lying about on the grass, in sunny spots, basking like a lot of cicada, and never dreaming of seeking for work. The favorite position seems to be wrong side upwards." A telegram from London, of March 2nd, in the American papers, says :-— iV/TJhe _ World has been having a little chaff at Mr Yogel in a political article

apropos of the leadership of the Conservative and Liberal parties in England. It alludes to a joke put forward about a politician who, baving carried all before him in the colonies, had come to England in search of new fields of victory, and was yet in a state of uncertainty whether to fill the vacancy caused by the retirement of Mr Gladstone or to supercede Mr Disraeli. Apropos of Sir George Grey's ridicule of the " titles " given to colonial statesmen, tbe Auckland Echo mentions a circumstance wbich shows tbat some of the best of our public men failed to appreciate the doubtful honors offered to them. Mr Stafford received the offer of what raay be termed the " colonial " order of knighthood some time ago, but he failed to appreciate this inferior order, and wrote a very indignant letter declining the offer. A similar offer was also made to Mr Fox, who adopted a different tone in his reply, and filled a page of foolscap with banter about the offer of a knighthood which could not be recognised in England. He failed to see it, Mr Barry Sullivan, -well known to all Australian theatre-goers, has been guaranteed £10,000 for 150 performances in New York, and £30 for each matinee. In tbe Tagblatt, of Vienna, is published a singular telegram from London, stating that Prince Louis Napoleon and bis mother, tbe Empress Eugenie, bave contracted witb certain English bankers a loan of three and a-half millions sterling, that Queen Victoria gave it a , moral guarantee, and that the affair was conducted by the financial agent of the Prince of Wales. In New Zealand no entertainment is so universally popular as nigger minstrels. In reference to the original author of those favourite entertainments we clip the following interesting paragraph from an English exchange:—* E. P. Christy, the original negro minstrel, attempted to commit Buicide by jumping out of the second story window of his residence, at New York, on tbe Bth instant. His story is a singular one. He made the first success of the African opera. He was from Buffalo, a rough in that place, with a good voice; he got up a company of singers. He picked up a boy named George, to whom he gave his name, and he made it famous as Georee Christy. Succeeding so well in Buffalo, Ned Christy determined to try a larger field, and came to New Yoik. Here he was almost drowned with success. Crowds thronged his place nightly, and hundreds were turned away because there was no room. He coined money, and was enabled to ep^rt diamond breastpins and ringa worth 5000 dols. Women fell in love with him. He was the rage. He bought^ houses — owned John BroughmanV theatre — kept race-horses — bought heavily in stocks — gave magnificent feeds — and this continued for years. When the war broke out, he took it in- ; to his head tbat the rebels would land! in the city, capture it, and deprive him; of his property, in consequence of his endeavors to make the negro character, of consequence. The result was very distressing. In the midst of affluence, he thought of nothing but his probable poverty, and he who had caused millions to be convulsed with laughter, sat by his own fireside, day after day, a picture of the deepest woe. If the times are hard in New York, there appears to be plenty of money in the hand of some people, at least, and they know how to spend it. On Thanksgiving Day the sum of 47,000 dollars was spent in amusements alone. Of tbis great sum, Barnum's Hippodrome got nearly 10,000 dollars and Wallack's theatre some 4,000 dollars The twenty places of amusement were all full. Walking on Broadway, or going to Stewart's great store, it seems as if the wealthy classes never dressed so extravagantly before as they do now. The most costly furs, as seal skin, sable, mink, otter, and silver fox, are worn as never before. A few days since, Mrs Benjamin Wood, wife of the editor of the Daily News, paid thirteen hundred dollars for a sable muff and boa. A fur store on Broad-, way bad an order from .he wife of a Fifiy avenue millionaire for a crown Russian sable cloak, which will cost four thousand dollars. For an ostrich ekin robe the modest sum of one thousand dollars is asked. Fur trimming for ladies dresses, made of silver fox, sells for twelve dollars a yard, and is very fashionable. The strip of skin to which tlie fur is attached is less than an inch wide. While there is a general cutting down of the prices of labor all over the city, and a discharge of employes, the prices of the necessaries of life remaiu at war figures, and luxury and extravagance run riot. It remains to be seen how long this state of things will continue in New York, or any part of the country. If we escape bread riots, bank suspensions, violence, incendiarism, and pestilence during the long, cold winter at hand, we shall be fortunate, and may thank Providence.