Untitled

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XII, Issue 78, 2 April 1877, Page 2

The proprietor of a well-known oyster saloon iu Sydney has been fined for tarring and flouring the face of a customer for alleged nonpayment of a bill. A Victorian miner named O'Rorke was robbed of £59 at au hotel in Sydney and his mate is iu custody on suspicion. The performance of " Madam Angot " at Adelaide was abruptly terminated before the quarrel scene the other night, owing to Miss Lewis leaving the stage consequent upon a difference with Miss Lambert. At the beginning of the voyage of the ship Bangalore, from London to Adelaide, two sailors quarrelled on the main-top and fell. Both were killed. A train on one of the Canterbury lines recently ran iuto a flock of sheep crossing the line. Several of them were killed, and others scattered in all directions. The locomotive took away with ifc traces of the slaughter, but the machinery was in no way injured. The Manawatu (Wellington) County Council has passed a resolution in the following terms:— "That iu the opinion of this Council the Rating Act now in force is bad in principle, inasmuch as it taxes industry, and bears unfairly on settlers with small holdings, aud therefore tends to retard the progress of the colony. That the chairman be requested to write to the chairmen of the various Councils and Road Boards in the Provincil District of Wellington, asking their earnest co-operation in urging upon the Government and Parliament during its next session the importance of having the said Act repealed. That so far as rural holdings are concerned the land be classified, and an acreage rate be substituted in lieu of the present system, and that a circular be printed embodying this resolution." At Deborah Bay (Otago) a woman burnt down her hut because her husband gave her the slip and went to the races. In 1875 the profit on the various railway lines in New South Wales was £318,474, or equal to £4 7s lid per cent on the capital expended on lines open for traffic. With reference to a statement made by a Christchurch paper that the alleged libellous letter in the Waitangi Ti ibune was originally intended for a leader in the that paper, the editor gives the following explanation:— The article was intended by Sherrin for a leader, but we distinctly refused to publish it in that form, and the writer put his signature to the copy. In that shape the article was given to the compositor; but, when the proof came to be read, Sherrin erased his name and wrote " Auckland" on the mrrgin. For the further iuformation of our contemporary, we may state that Mr Sherrin obtained a copy of the issue in which his production appeared, marked the article, and sent the paper to the editor of the Guin'ian, the consequence being that Mr Reed, knowing the handwriting, lost no time in takiug steps to have his " f liend" apprehended. A most ancient and respectable inhabitant of Versailles has recently given np the ghost. This is an orange tree more than four centuries old, far older than the chateau and as old as the family that built it. The Queen of Navarre gave the original orange pip to hergardnerin 1421; he sowed it at Pampeluna; from there the orange tree was moved in the days of its youth to Chantilly, where ifc was the property of the Constable de Bourbon, whence its name of*" Le Grand Constable." Francis T. seized it and transferred the tree to Fountainbleau, when its master turned traitor, and went over to Charles V. Louis XIV. transferred it to Versailles, where it has survived some half dozen revolutions, two or three invasions, and nearly two hundred winters. But the third republic has beeu more than ifc could bear, and ifc has died without giving any previous signs of ill health.— New York World. Some time since (the Hobart Town Mercury says) a letter appeared in the columns of one of our Southern contemporaries, stating that if gum leaves were placed in drawers and boxes where linen was kept the silver-fiish would beat a hasty retreat and never re-appear. Several people in this town also, who were terribly annoyed by the "fish," tried the remedy and found it to be a perfect cure, and we make t- e results of their experience public, so that those who have an objection to see holes eaten iu their silk dresses and black coats by the destructive insects may try this apparently almost certain panancea — the gum leaf. Place half a dozen leaves between the sheets or blankets or on a mattress, and fleas will disappear. That one Parliament can create innumerable Boards is certain, but that fifty Parliaments cannot make them do their duty when created, is a new reading of the old proverb, whichisaptlyillustrated by the Hokitika Local Board of Health. The W. C. Times says:— The Public Health Act is treated almost as a dead letter by the local authorities. A flagrant instance of neglect has recently occurred in the centre of the town. A child died from scarlet fever a few days ago, after a short illness. Not the slightest effort was made to isolate the case, and during the patient's illness, and after her death, the house in which she lay was visited by numbers of women, and even by some children. The result might have been easily foretold. Several other cases occurred immediately afterwards, and at the present momeut there are perhaps half a duzen cases of scarlet fever iu the town.

During the Arctic expedition there was on appearance of the sun for 142 days. One^oE the survivors says : " This is the longest period that we know of that any mortal being has spent without the sun." A navvy was bitten by a snake near Wallacetown, N.S.W., and he fell soon after into a state of coma. Dr. Hillias injected into a vein, and the man almost instantaneously revived. His recovery was completed by the administration of brandy. All the difference.— "What's the use of makiug such a fuss about a little water?" said a judge, before whom motion after motion had come in a case where a small spring was the object of contention. " The parties are both milkmen," quietly said one of the lawyers. "Oh, I see!" said the judge. A woman, testifying on behalf of her son, swore " that he had worked on a farm ever since he was born." The lawyer who crossexamined her said: "You assert that your son has worked on a farm ever since he was born?" « I do." « What did he do the first year?" "He milked." The lawyer kerflummixed. One of the living curiosities at Barnum's menagerie and circus is a man tattooed from head to foot. His name is Coustentenus, a Greek by birth, and it is stated that he was one of the party who penetrated Chinese Tartary for mining purposes some years ago, and engaged in an insurrection there. The natives captured him and two of his companions, and instead of putting them to death, adopted the more cautious plan of tattooing their bodies and setting them free. The process of tattooing occupied six hours a day for three consecutive months, and the torture inflicted was so severe that the captives used to beg for death instead. Captain Constentenus was the only one of the trio who survived the ordeal, and he carries about on his person one hundred and eighty-eight pictures of men and animals and geometrical figures. Statistics published in [the Scotch papers illustrate the extent to which London is dependent on the North of Scotland for its Christmas beef. Not less than £30,000 worth of fat cattle left Aberdeen alone on Thursday, the 7th December, for the Metropolitan Christmas market, held this week, and a further supply, valued at about £10,000, was forwarded on the Bth instant. The stock sent South on Thursday numbered 700 prime animals, and were conveyed by five special trains in about 150 trucks. In addition to this enormous consignment upwards of 350 head were sent from Inverness aud Ross shires by the Highland Railway on Thursday, and the same line was to carry about 250 animals from stations in Morayshire on tho Bth. This makes a total of about 1500 head, and, averaging each animal at £32, represents about £48,000 sterling. Avery curious circumstance occurred (says the Rockhampton Argus) to which we were eyewitness. A thoroughbred gamecock was busily engaged with his wives picking a bone which was lying on the grass. About fifty v yards distant was a brigalow tree, and on one j of its branches was seated a large hawk, watching the fowls very attentively, and apparently envying them their feed. The gamecock, on his part, kept his eye upon the hawk, occasionally crowiug and showing symptoms of wanting a fight. Suddenly the hawk flew up in the air, described a circle, and, with the speed of light, shot down among the frightened fowls. But blood was to the fore— the cock stood his ground, as the hawk approached him, he flew at him, and hit him so hard that he brought him to the ground, and before those who were looking on and wondering could reach the spot, the hawk was as dead as Julius Caesar. We have heard of a sparrow-hawk killing a gamecock by lying on his back and ripping him up with his talons when his enemy spurred him, but we are of opinion that the above tragedy, the truth of which can be vouched for by several eye-witnesses, is without parallel." Mr E. L. Blanchard, writing to the Birmingham Gazette, says:— "An odd story conies to me from the North. A regiment quartered at a certain city in Scotland had among them an expert gymnast who taught his brother subalterns how to walk across the barrack-room on their hands. While thus engaged the other eveniug the door opened and the colonel, a stern disciplinarian, entered the room, looked attentively at the inverted company, shook his head calmly and departed without uttering a word. An order to be on parade next day was the least expected for this breach of discipline. Some days passed, however, and no notice being taken, it was thought an apology and explanation should be offered by the prime instigator of these unsoldierlike movements. A reference being made to the memorable night, the colonel amazed the iutending apologist by exclaiming, 'Hush sergeant, I would not not have anybody know it for the world. The fact is I had been dining out with an old brother officer who had served with me in India, and 'pon my life I had no idea the wine could have had such an effect upon me, but when I came to see if you were all right in your quarters I could have sworn that I saw you all upside down.' " The Empress of Brazil has presented "the Queen of England with a dress the equal of •which has never been before seen. It is woven of spiders' webs, and is, as may be imagined, a work of art as regards quality and beauty. The handsome silk dress cannot be compared with it; but it can only be admired, hardly imitated. There have already been many attempts to make use of the threads spun by spiders, but up to the present the experiments have not been satisfactory enough to ercourage any further efforts in this direction. In the year 1710 it was discovered that to make a piece of silk it would require the webs of 700,000 spiders. The Spaniards had already tried to use the spiders' threads and made gloves, stockings and other articles of the sort; but even these were so troublesome and yielded so little profit, that, in sp"te of the fabulous prices paid, they were obliged to abandon the trade. In certain parts of South America garments made of these threads are worn; but the spiders in these lands are unusually large. It is likely that the above-mentioned dress was made of the smaller snecies of the Americau spider. There is, therefore, some hope that the time is not far distant when thanks to the progress of modern industry' fashionable ladies jay have the satisfaction of wearing elegant silks of the same delicate texture. — Court Journal. A Host an Breakwater:— The bursts of rain in the Carnatic are tremendous. As much as five inches of rainfall in a single night is not infrequent, and Sir A. Cotton has known as much as nineteen inches of rain to fall in that time. The smallest rill that is allowed to trickle over the edge of an earth bank wears itself a passage and becomes a destructive torrent with extreme rapidity. On one occasion the water in the Veranum tank is said to have overflowed the whole twelve miles of the bund, and to have breached it in thirteen places. On another occaision the engineer in charge of the bund finding the water rising with more rapidity than he was able to meet by the supply of earth, made a wall of the bodies of his laborers, causing them to lie down close to one another on the top of the threatened part of the dam, and thus keeping back the two or three inches of water which if unchecked would soon "have wrecked the whole bund and ruined a wide district, until their places could be supplied by baskets full of earth. It was an original expedient but it saved the district. What the laborers said about it we have not heard.

Some of the mirrors in the Baldwin House — -it new hotel in San Francisco— are 72 inches by 144 inches. The firm of Guinness, of Dublin, has been dissolved, and Sir Arthur is to. receive froni his brother one million seerling; . \ Y Paris has a social scandal about" a " lady in high life" who was discovered selling flowers in the street. She was looking for an unfaithful lover. A Chicago woman has been the wife of four brothers. She began with the oldest ten years ago, when she was seventeen years old and he died. She soon married the next younger and after three years got a divorce from him, and the third was divorced from her after about the same period of wedded life. She is now the wife of the fourth, aud they seem to live contentedly, possibly because there is no fifth brother for her to capture. A dentist at Dundee, who has just retired from a busy practice of fifty years' duration, has erected a singular record of his past labors. It consists of a summer-house, on the walls of which are arranged, in various devices, all the teeth he has extracted during his half century of work. In this pel ghastly retreat, worthy of a Dyak skullhunter, the retired wielder of the forceps proposes smoking many a meditative pipe during the pleasant summer hours. Warning to Young Men. — A young exquisite, who was anxious to raise up a ferocious crop of whiskers, and was told that bears' oil would facilitate their growth, went to a druggist and procured a bottle of oil, which he put profusely on his face when going to bed. Next morning on looking in the glass he was horrified to find either side of his face covered with a thick coat of white feathers. The druggist made a mistake, and had given, him goose oil instead of bear's oil. One of the sporting fraternity who swarm upon every race course with tables for " under and over," roulette, or "Spanish and American silver and gold," was neatly caught the other day at a little race meeting in Wellington Province. He was doing a fine business, much to his own satisfaction, when one of the victims happened to look under the table, and there saw a secret spring, which enabled the proprietor to suit the fortune of the game to his own advantage. In a second tbe table was overturned and smashed to bits, the hawk collared by the raging rustic, and a policeman called upon the scene. TJpon the swindler's person £l_ was discovered. Mrs Uuntoon, a sister of the Eddy Bros., was detected while personating spirits at Webster, Mass. She had been invited to hold forth at the house of a person named Flint. A circle was formed, the lights were turned low, the curtain was drawn aside, a low bending figure appeared, and finally it was announced that the spirit of Mrs Eiint's mother desired to communicate with her daughter. The lady drew near the curtain, and the fluttering hand of the spirit made desultry attempts to grasp tbe daughter's hand. "Is thia my dear mother?" " Yes, lam your mother." Mrs Flint seized the. spirit's hands and held them. A lawyer turned on the gas, and Mrs Huntoon was revealed struggling in the arms of the courageous lady. " Spiritualism (says the American paper from which the above is extracted) is fast becoming the stupidest humbug of the century."