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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XII, Issue 55, 5 March 1877, Page 2

The Wellington Gas Company are about to erect new buildings afc a cost of £13,000. Legs of mutton from the Tauuere'nikau Boiling Down Works are now being retailed in the Waiararapa townships at one shilling each. " A Dunedin telegram dated Thursday says: —At the volunteer monthly battalion parade yesterday the bands outnumbered the rank and file. There is great disgust afc Otago aot winning the champion belt. An authenticated ghost story" comes from Port Chalmers. A lady who died suddenly a few days ago stated to several persons before her illness that she heard her father lately deceased, to whom she was much attached, calling for her. The Eden County Council have adopted a seal representing Eve's fall. There is a serpent wound round a fern-tree, and a nude female figure standing in a flax-bush reaching afc apples from a canophy overhead. The Star suggests that the Council may be liable to prosecution- for circulaing an obscene publication. News from the Thames goldfiold, which %vas not so very long ago a place where fortunes were made by numbers of men, and where general prosperity prevailed, is to the effect, that it presents a most miserable appearance, and that shops are closed and houses deserted in all directions, whilst grass is growing on the footpaths. A cheerful prospect. Mr Vesey Stewart has written to the Bay of Plenty Times a letter, charging its Auckland correspondent with making a false statement, and casting a libel on the Katikati settlers, in the telegrams forwarded to the Times, re the non-fulfilment of conditions by seventeen families. The editor, appends a strong foot-note, vindicating the Auckland correspondent, and giving the names of the seventeen persons alluded to. He also points out that Mr Vesey Stewart himself is not oc his land, having built elsewhere, and ends by saying that if the Waste Lands Board carry out the letter of the agreement, Mr Vesey Stewart with the others stands a fair chance of being disqualified. The protected industry of manufacturing woollen cloth in Victoria, does not in some instances pay. The half-yearly balance sheet of the Ballarat Woollen Company shows that on a capital of £27,000 the operations of the last six months have resulted in a loss of £915 12s. And there is one very significant fact in connection with this company. Some of its goods are unsaleable; not on account of anything defective in their quality, for the Ballarat flannels are unsurpassed in fineness of texture and durability of wear— but because the local market is overstocked. The Melbourne Argus attri butes this evil result to 'protection, and saya that it will surprise no one who is cognizant of the very obvious circumstance that the same fiscal barriers which keep out imports keep in exports."— Post. *

A Dunedin telegram of Friday last says: — Mrs Ramplinj a veteran lady, aged 88, has ] ust died. She was all through the Peninsular war, and has a daughter born in the •Fyrennees. She remembered the siege of Badajos, at which she was present. Her husband wa3 at Waterloo while she remained m Antwerp. Our telegrams informed us the other day that a warrant had been issued for the arrest of Pooley, oue of the English cricketers. A message to the _lror« s gives tho following particulars:— A most brutal and cowardly assault was made on Mr Donkiu, Assistant Railway Engineer, while that gentleman, in company with a friend and Charlwood, of the English Eleven, were on their way to the iheatre Royal. The assailant was Pooley, one of the English, cricketers. It appears that on Saturday last Pooley, who stopped at the same hotel as that gentlemen, said he would take odds of 6 to I that he (Pooley) would name the scores for the Canterbury Eighteen. Mr Donkin took him up, thinking that the bet was a perfectly bona fide one, and that Pooley would place the exact number of runs to each man. It afterwards turned out tbat this was a "catch" bet Pooley boasting that he "had" Donkin by placing a duck's egg to each man. Hearing this, Mr Donkin was heard by many to declare off, before and after the match began. Last night Pooley met Mr Donkin in the smoking room, and demanded £36. The latter refused to pay, when Charlwood (who knew Mr Donkin's relations at home) took that gentleman away, as his friend; and it was while on their way to the theatre that the assault was made. Unaware of his approach, Pooley caught hold of Donkin, and before anybody had time to collect their senses, struck him violently three times in the face. Being thrown down, Pooley jumped on him and continued striking until he was pulled away. Threats being held out, Air Donkin, by the advice of his friends, slept for the night in another house. This was not the last of it. The room at his usual place of abode was forcibly entered and every part of Mr Donkin's wearing apparel torn to shreds, and some important plans partially destroyed. The public indignation at the outrage is intense. The law has been set m motion, and it is riot unlikely that oue, if not more, of the English cricketers will pay another unexpected visit to Canterbury, Ihe Martin's Bay settlement, in the Province of Otago, the population of which has been on the point of starving so often, appears to have entered upon a new phase of excitement. Instead of being excited about an occasional starve, they appear to be in a fair way to become affected with the gold fever. Recently two Otago settlers left Cornwall for Martin's Bay for the purpose of examining the district as to its eligibility as a place of settlement, and intending to put up a saw mill if they saw sufficient prospects of the venture proving profitable. A brief examination of the ground showed these two visitors that a large portion of it was highly auriferous. The ground skirting I Big Bay down to the beach, for several miles, • they proved to contain at least an average of one grain to the dish. They estimate that each acre of land contains at least 200 ozs of gold. They also found true coal and abundance of mountain limestone. Since then evidences of auriferous country havo been found in the interior; so that there is ground for hoping that the days of starvation for the Martin's Bay settlers on tbe West Coast of Otago are at an end. ,„ In _ he Sydney papers, of the I4th instant, the death by chloroform, at Sydney, of William Robertson, auctioneer, from New Zealand, is recorded. Robertson had been at the theatre on the previous evening and on coming out stumbled and broke his ankle, lie was taken to the infirmary, and thore put under the lufluence of chloroform previous to reducing the fracture. The broken limb had scarcely been set when heavy breathing, and his face becoming rapidly livid, told of the man's danger. He died almost instantly never having recovered consciousness. The doctors at the inquest stated that he had died or sanguineous apoplexy. It was stated that deceased had been, before going to Sydney fourteen years in New Zealand, and had previously lived in Melbourne. There he had" arrived from India. His age was given as sixty-five years, and it was stated that he has left a widow and family in some part of New Zealand. A London paper, the Hornet, has the following:—Miss Alice May, the new American prima donna has made a decided hit at the Gaiety, and she is to be heard again on several afternoons in this week. She is youug, clever, and gifted with a fine voice while she evidently possesses rare intelligence as an actress. « ¥J lt £ n x thon y Trollope was here, says Atticus," I would give him thia paragraph instead of using it, and only ask him in exchange for a presentation copy of the three volume novel he would make out of it A good mauy years ago in the old country a professional gentleman, who is now practising ■ near Melbourne, was compelled from the delicate state of his wife's health to send his infant daughter out to nurse. The father and mother travelled for two or three years leaving the child with the foster mother, and | only took her back when about to. sail for Australia. Since then the girl has lived with them, but it was a subject of general remark that she was totally unlike any other member of the family. Some months ago the nurse found herself dying, and on her death bed made a declaration to the effect that the child she had given up was really her own while the girl she had always passed off as her own was the one she had been giveu to nurse. Tbe real eldest born has lately rejoined her family, and from her voice aud appearance can be recognised as belonging to them, by even comparative strangers. Ihe bare facts of the case as I have given them might suggest to some gentleman of an imaginative turn of mind a series of complications that might be worked up into a capital plot for a novel. The own correspondent of the Ota"-o Giurdian thus speaks of society in San Francisco:— Everything is overrun in this place, and unless you are absolutely able to turn your hand to downright manual work there's nothing but the veriest skeleton of a chance for you. Oh, yes, though—l forgot there is still one occupation that only a man of refined taste can touch witliout soiling his hands, and with a little perseverance there is a good chance of getting plenty of work. I now refer. -,to the "professional assassins," of which there are many in this city. The price of the undertaking depends almost entirely on the difficulty of the job: if the party be a woman, 40 dollars is a reasonable figure; if a man, auother 10 is generally added, and so on— each variety of undertakings having their specified scale according to the danger and chances of detection. A real man and dog fight has beee celebrated m America with fatal results. A man named Connolly, whose recreation was the worrying of rats after the manner of a terrier, being in a state of intoxication, offered to fight any dog in the place, Port Jams. Curled under a small table asleep was an English bull-dog of harmless disposition, and John Connolly selected him for his opponent, and made a savage attack upon him. When once roused to fury the poor beast fastened on the man with a grip which all the efforts of the spectators could not loose, and was not relaxed even when the owner, drawing his revolver, and saying that it was a pity to kill the better of the two to save the worse, shot the unfortunate creature dead, Connolly's wounds proved fr.tal three days afterwards, ,

A few Sundays back (says the Australasian) an hon. member of the Legislative Assembly residing at St. Kilda was informed by the par or-maid that seven or eight gentlemen were in the drawing-room waiting to see him. Somewhat surprised at a visit upon the day of rest, he hastened to ascertain its cause His surprise was increased when he saw that bis visitors were persons with whom his acquaintance was of the slightest description. After some commonplace interchanges of civilities he asked to what he was indebted for the compliment of a call. " The fact is," said the man he knew least, "Mr , you voted for the Sunday closing of publicho'uses. We wanted a drink, and we thought that the least you could do, nnder the circumstances, would be to let us have the refreshment you have debarred us from buying." And that weak-minded M.L.A. accommodated himself to the situation. Thia, indeed, is only one of many instances of the extreme suavity of legislators contemplating another throw in for the Parliamentary stakes. ._ Th ?r- following curio «s letter appears in the Wananga-.— " This is auother word to you. I have a female pig, which you can notice in your paper for the information of the Maori and European. This pig has had young ones, twelve iu all, two of which have been eaten by another pig. I uow have ten young pigs. One of these, which was born with the rest, has only three legs; the fourth leg was not made complete by God. Hence I think I ought to let this be known. The fourth leg was placed close to the tail. It was born in December last, on the 20th day in the year 1 876. I have not spoken of this before, as I wished to see if it would live. *_ is _ livin S at Kaiiwi now. I think this is the first of such which has ever been seen there. But here is also another thing I wish to be known. We have a dog which has two noses, but only three nostrils; and a fowl with two heads; and an egg with two yolks. Also, a caterpillar which came from the clouds. It has two bodies, but only one head All these things are from this place only But all have died, and the pig only is alive! Ihese were sent by God. These are all the words from Tuwhawhakiaterangi, of Kaiwhaiki, Wanganui." " The Rev. Dr. Tristram, Canon of Durham (writes the London correspondent of the Otago Daily Times), a naturalist of acknowledged standing, touched upon the avifauna ot New Zealand in a lecture delivered under the auspices of the Edinburgh Philosophical Institution, on the Ist December. In a lecture delivered three days previously, Dr. Tristram expressed it as his belief that the scattered jslets in the Indian Ocean, such as Mauritius, Reunion, Rodriguez, &c, were the remains of a submerged continent, which had formerly extended to New Zealand, this opimon being chiefly based on the evidence afforded by the peculiar forms of bird life found in those islands. In his second lecture Dr. Tristram said he believed New Zealand to be the very oldest laud on the globe He deprecated the introduction into new countries of animals, &c, which destroyed the native birds, and with them the evidence on which many interesting facts regarding ages of remote antiquity rested. He especially regretted that cats and European bees had been introduced into New Zealand. (For continuation of News see fourth page)