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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XII, Issue 60, 10 March 1877, Page 2

The traffic returns of the Canterbury railways for January, 1877, are as follows: — Passengers (88,570), £7935; parcels, £2238; goods (24,341 tons), £11,514. Total, £21,687. Mr Justice Richmond is to take the April sitting of the Circuit Court iv Wellington. Bishop Selwyn preached sermons in aid of the Melanesiau Mission in the churches of St. Peter and St. Paul in Wellington last Sunday. The offertories amounted to over £72. . „- . Although Sir Julius Yogel only arrived in England in December Ue seems to have lost uo time in getting to work. It is stated that by the last mail a gentleman in Wanganui received a letter from him stating that he had done his best to, place the Wanganui Municipal debentures, .but had not succeeded. He had almost concluded a negotiation when the proposed purchaser drew off on two grounds: First, there was insufficient information to give him as- to the state of the waterworks, and the revenue derivable therefrom; 2nd, there was au ill-natured paragraph in the Times' City, Article, reflecting on the Christchurch Drainage Loan. Ithasbeeu recognised that the great obstacle' to the sale of the debentures is.. the fact, .that they are not quotable on the Stock Exchange, the smallness of the amount preventing compliance with the rules'.— Argus. " '",',' A most distressing story is told by the Duhedin newspapers. Mr J, 11. Pope, long connected with the Dunedin High School, was offered ti similar situation. in "Victoria. He sold his property, and went across to Victoria, but through bad faith did not obtain his: appoiutment. This preyed upon his mind, he went mad, and is now an inmate of the Kew Asylum. The Victorian Government wished to purchase one of - the elephants in Cooper and' Bailey's Mammoth' Menagerie, but the price asked, £2000, was considered too high. For a middle-sized elephant they; asked £800, and for a ♦« baby" £400, but these offers were declined. A large leg-bone of a moa has 'been taken to the iv or th Otago Times office by Mr A. V. Johns. , It wa,s : . found at Maerewhenua, 70 feet below the surface, aud petrified to the hardness. of. bluestone. . : ;, The Marlborough Express says: — We learn that the captain of the Avalanche paid a visit to Spring Creek this week in order to purchase stores for the outward, voyage from Wellington, he' 'having been advised to try the experiment by Mr H. Redwood. The result was that he laid iv a quantity of live stock, forage, &c, to the amount of a few hundred pounds. We hope other captains will follow'his example, and by that means the rings existing iv Wellington will be best brought to their senses. As an instance of the, latter a large shipment of damsons, peaches, aud apples from Nelson was sold there a few days ago at 2s to 4s per case of about 7Olbs; yet fruit ' of all kinds is both scarce and dear there in small quantities. The Auckland correspondent of the Otago Duly Times writes:— Although no direct information has been received relative to the rumored death of Mr and Mrs H. H. Hall, careful enquiries afford strong presumption that they were among the lost in the Ashtabula railway accident. . It is stated that the Halls were known to be on the train, that they were expected to leave by that month's steamer for Australia, and that they have not since been heard of. If they were on the train they must have been lost; certainly they are not among the survivors.. One hundred areknown to havebeen killed, but very few were recognised. Of fifty bodies of the remains first taken out all except three were maimed or mangled so horribly that identification was out of the question. No list of th,ose oil the train has eyer been published, . , '.[ ' ' „ .

Here is an eye-opener for New Zealand shorthand writers—" Mrs Amelia Berrian, a phonographic writer of New York, wrote the other day the extraordinary number of 1054 words in four minutes, an average of 263£ words a minute. She wrote 307 words in one minute of the four. .The meteorologial observer at .Graham*town, sends the following interesting notes respecting the recent severe thundestorm and flood there:— "l never saw such rain as then fell; it came down at times in sheets of water, and during the whole of the week it had been thundering and lightning, the lightning being principally forked, garden near where i live was struck by it, and its course was along two rows of raspberry bushes, cutting them clean to the ground as if clipped off, then along two rows of potatoes and burning one side of a peach tree and a pear tree in its course. The trees are still alive. It struck another garden and furrowed it up in five or six places, leaving a hole in one place two or three feet deep. I have not seen such lightning since I was in the Straits of Sunda." Within the last few days (says the N. Z Herald) a proraiucnt man amongst the Kiugites has made a proposal which some are sanguine enough to think may lead to the re-establishmeut of the entente co.diale between the races. Before the war Mr Henry Hardingson had a good deal of conversation with prominent men amongst the Waikatos about establishing a grand race for Maori horses at Kangiawhia, and within the last few days, Wiremu Toitoi, a prominent man amongst the Kingites, has written, re-opening the subject. It is though that if a race meeting were established, at which especial prizes should be awarded to. Maori horses, the Kingites would come in and compete, that an interest would be excited, and that by-and-by all differences between pakeha and Maori would vanish. On this point we can hardly profess to speak, but if there is any hope £100 for a prize would be well spent. (For continuation of Newt see fourth page)