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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XI, Issue 117, 9 May 1876, Page 4

I; The.pelebrated "Polly Plum" .(Mrs! Colclough), the Colonial woman's- 1 rights advocate has reoeived the ap-fi pointment of teacher to a district school B in Canterbury. | A curious fate of a railway is men- II tioned in the Tasmanian papers. Then Mersey and Deloraine line, upon which ■ a company has expended about £50,000, was offered last year, (states tbe Cornwall Chronicle) to the . Govern ment, I with the 21,680 acres of land granted to the company by Parliament, for £25,000. Thiß was a gift to the oountry, but the Government was not authorised to accept it, and now the land is placed beyond the reach of then Government, and the negotiation is ati an end. Mrs Foster, widow of the latefi Mr John Foster, the owner of the line and the land, has made over tbe 21,680 acres to her children, and the few miles of line formed and now in ruins, with I some old rolling stock, are all that can be purchased. The line and the land would have been cheap at £50,000 ii they had been purchased, as they might have been, three years ago. An Englieh paper publishes the following from its London correspondent : — " Details about the row on board the Serapis have now reached England, and are being freely talked about. It seems that in the temporary absence of Dr W. H. Bussell from his cabin, Lord C. Beresford and one or two othertried a' praotical joke upon the great journalist, which tbe latter resented. They emptied everything out of hie oabin; so tbat nothing was left but bare boards. Dr Russell immediately reported the circumstance to the Prince of Wales, who suggested that as it was only a boy's trick he should take no notice of it. But Dr Russell verj properly declared that he was no boy, and that unless the two chief offenders made an ample. apology he would quit the ship at Aden. The Prince thereupon requested that the amende should Bbc made, aod made it was. The offenfidere, however, had not counted upoD ■any action from Captain Glyn, the cap Stain of the ship, and were rather ■astonished one morning to fiad theroHselves summoped into his presence. g Without in any way consulting th BPrioce, and in tbe discharge of hie ■duty, Captain Glyn ordered tbe offenfiders before him, and intimated to them ■ that a repetition of such practical [■joking would lead to the offenders being ■ landed at the first pert the Serapis ■called at." ■ Illustrative in a small, but striking ■ way, of tbe effect of the working ofthe ■ Native Office, an anecdote was related! ■in the report of the Good Templar Par-I Bliament just held at Taranaki. A M aoriß 9 Lodge was formed on the East Coast, fl Band, delighted with the prospect of re-fi Adeeming the natives from drink, Sirfi ■Donald M'Lean at once oame to thefi ■front. There was no pretence of poverty fi Hon the natives' part. Tbey are iofi-fl finitely better off ahd better able to pro fl fivide for themselves than many of theirfl K white brethren. A sum of £20 of the I ■ public money was sent to them by Sir | ■Donald, nevertheless, to buy the regalia I Efor their new lodge. Mark the result 1 I ■ The Maoris, deeming it only one of g ■the customary departmental bounties, 1 ■divided^ it among the hapu, and thefi ■money intended to buy the regalia offi

I a Good Templar's Lodge (says theffl Worthy Grand Templar in the report) ,B was actually spent to a large extent injfl drink. The worst of it is, that theffll Maoris became demoralised by the trao-jjfij saction, the Lodge fell through, andß Good Templaristn on the East Goasin has not yet recovered the blow. H