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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XI, Issue 140, 5 June 1876, Page 4

A very pointed conversation was overheard in the street recently. A joung man had just come from tbe theatre, and was in the act of seeing his beloved to her home. As they passed up tbe street tbe conversation turned to the play which they had just enjoyed. Judging from the conversation, he was Boding fault with the scene between Charles D'Arbel and Hortense. " I could do better than that myself," the young man remarked. "Why in heavan's name don't yon, then?" she replied. Then there was a long pause. , Tbe Atlantic telegraph cable has been broken three times within four months. The London correspondent of the Melbourne Argus gives some particulars, from which we learn that on the second occasion the ruptured parts presented the appearance of having been torn asunder by the violent strain of an anchor, but competent judges assert that this could not have been the case, and say that the ruptures were intentionally made. Professor Thomson and Mr F. J. Bramwell. in a report on the subject, says: — "It seems to us clear that with wind enough to render a speed of five or six knots attainable by sail, a sailing vessel of 80 tons could, if handled for the purpose of doing so,, break the cable without lifting it to the surface, and that with a steam vessel so handled the operation would be still more easy." On tbe third occasion the cable was, as has been clearly proved, lifted to tbe surface and deliberately and maliciously cut either with a hatchet or an axe. A large reward has been offered for tbe discovery of the perpetrators of this infamous act, and tbe authorities are understood to be on the track of a suspected vessel. The Daily Neios says with reference to the matter : — "lt follows from this report that very probably a new kind of piracy has commenced on the high seas, which tbe leading commercial nations should make arrangements as speedily as possible to check. Both for the sake of protecting valuable property,! and on account of the public interest in keeping open cable communications, means should be devised to keep an efficient police on the high seas, so as to prevent attacks on e&ble property. As tbe attacks are on property not under any flag, it may, perhaps, be necessary to extend by international convention the definition of piracy, but it has certainly become expedient, after the evidence now supplied, that some action should be taken and the pirates hunted down." How protection in the United States operates to put a half-penny worth of bread into the Treasury, and to furnish gallons of sack to the fortunate nurselings of the Legislature, is thus illustrated by the New York World: — " The wild American of tbe sea-coast snuffeth up the east wind, and is afflicted with pulmonary disease, whereupon cod-liver, oil is prescribed. It is clearly a luxury and ought to be taxed. It is, and 206,252d015. are annually taken put of the sick man's pockets. The paternal Government needs but the odd dollars for its expenses, and generously returns the 200,000d015. to Mesarß Powers and Weightman (the manufactures of the oil). Thus there has been an equitable division of labor; the consumer, pays, the Government collects, and the monopolist pockets the tax. It cannot be abolished, because this is, or rather has been, a Government of the people, by the monopolists' partners, for the monopo-

lists." Then, again, there is the artiole of gypsum. " This produoed 7282 dols. to the. Federal Treasury as revenue, and then 'produces' at least 200,000 J018. out of the pockets of our builders into the pockets of a few owners of gypsum quarries, already protected 20 per cent by tbe freight charges from Nova Scotia. But Uncle Sam is rich, therefore let us pay a few gypsumists 200,000d015. for the privilege of collecting less than 7300d015." And so the game of " beggar my neighbor" is being played all round.