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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XII, Issue 156, 4 July 1877, Page 2

, ' "*" ■— »— « l _t■— I _-_. <^_-_«i»_^_tl» t The recent ridiculous fashion of ladies having pockets outside of their dresaes, and behind, instead of at the side of the skirt, has been rewarded in one instance in Dunedin by enablingta pickpocket to make* a respect-" able haul. A lady who went to inspect some furniture at a saleroom- discovered that from her pocket, so placed, a purae containing £7 had been abstracted. - ..- «? . .. jSome of the residents of Timaru adopt eccentric method, of ' alleviating the ennui of existence there. J The foUowing appears in the limes of Thursday :— At eleven o?clock this morning, in pursuance of a bet made between Mr J. W. Hill and Mr E. Ball, the former took up his .position on the [roadway, between the Ship and .Clarendon Hotels, in full evening dress and, white gloves, broom in hand: and swept the crossings, between these two hotels, and afterwards between the Clarendon and the Old Bank Hotels. There was a large crowd of persons to witness the event, and on his plucky conclusion he was loudly cheered. The bet was fora new hat and ss. During the operation ! several coppers were thrown to the sweeper, who afterwards handed them to some children who were amongst the lookers-on. The "Loafer in the Street " writes in the Christchurch Press:— Me Fox [declines to be a member of committee to conduct a colonial regatta at' Wanganui on the score that there will be a. publican's booth at- the Regatta,, besides thimble-tagging, betting 6a tiie events; prick the garter, and "other concomitants which his soul abhois. The first meeting of the committee is to be held in a public h6use, which is a practice Mr Fox says he always protests 1 against. I can understand this. Mr Fox is certainly consistent, bnt I dou't go with him when he wants.ns all to be as even total abstainers as he is himself. I came -very hear being a convert- the other day thotfgh. -* My conversion was nigh on ddting from 'the hour in which I perused a pdmphlet Entitled, -*■«*• Does oiir Liquor Expenditure pay?" I learned from' thisbrochure;that; oner-fluid bunce of alcohol equal* to. t\yo glasses of wine or one of .whiskey will cajuse the heart to beat 4300 times more in a d4y than iv a -normal condition it would do, being workjin gqual to .tte lifting of 3£ tons one foot. A friend of mine to whom I showed it reckoned that he was a moderate drinker, and calculated his heart would thud about 86,000 times in excess, and raise 70 ~ tons a day. vl Wouldn't bear overworking =myheart in ; tha>s.sf yle, Apropos p$ this agthjcflfc a friend of mine rebukes me for always, as he! says, writing bacchanalian paragraphs. I don't.admit the sof t impeachment; but even ; if ft'were ao- what a popular subject it is. ■ You^ust. study your readers a { little; and thfe number of people interested in drinks here is astonishing. I like one myself. At a, ploughing match yestejday (says the Pres-i) two beardless youths in charge datable, on which was displayed ; a variety of spurious jewellery and two or three watches, were' detected while managing a- lottery bag * iv the act of putting the principal ticket for a watch in.jp * a secret pocket in the bag. Thus, whilelpersons paid a shilling for the chance of winning a "vatch," which was declared to' be represented by one of the ; tickets in the drawing, they wera, by 'the foregoing process deprived of any chance of ever drawing it. In a recent breach Of promise case at home \ it trauspired that the gentleman (a clergy- " . man^ who'. 'was sued by his disappointed ? fair ,r Had"for 30 years taken 5 pills a day regularly. The clergyman although comparatively young was stated to have looked . about 90 years of age. The Judge remarked that it was no wonder he looked so old, for by calculation he (the Judge) reckoned the defendant to have swallowed no fewer than 54,750 pills daring the 30 years. No wonder Professor Holloway et hoa gerus omne thrive. In concluding a powerful article on the proposed new Native Lauds Bill, the Lyttelton .Times thus denounces the measure aud its framers:— "On the whole, we regard with the gravest apprehension the possibility of the passing of this Bill. Itis a Bill for the fcup-' v pression of settlement and for the promotion of land jobbing. It is a Bill for scattering broadcast the seeds of fatal dissensions between the two races. It is Bill for pauperising natives and for enriching speculators. We fear both the giver and the gift. In a late issue, of an Auckland newspaper we saw that Professor Hankey had been giving a private exhibition to Mr Whitaker and to Mr Fenton of his great; trick with an empty box in which a young lady suddenly appears. They are greater artists than the Professor himself. This Bill is their box. 'There is nothing in it,' they say, 'to excite alarm, and we mean to fill i. with good things.' The colony, on openim? it, will find that it is like the box of Pandora full of woes, and, unlike it, without the consolation of hope at the bottom." The number of electors in the colony of Victoria is 181,209, and it has been ascertained that during the recent elections no fewer than 120,000 recorded their. Totes.

. The North Otago Timet very justifiably remarks { --«We do not think we are going outside the proper limits of Journalism when we say that we think far too much prominence is given by the Press of Dunedin to fche lectures of men like Mr Bright, vor Walker the trance me'diurru Ifc is a cheap mode of advertising a species of entertainment of a very doubtful moral tendency." A man named William Blackburn met with a terrible death recently afc the works of the Airsida Hematite Iron Company, Leeds. He had gone to sleep on some slag at the fodfc of > a ,MP>" and before he was observed a mass bf redhofc slag was shot down. He was observed to look up afc fche moment of tipping but before he could effect his escape was overwhelmed by an avalauche of incandescent metal and burnt to death. His skeleton was dug oufc soon afterwards. In a speech to the Auckland Volunteers the other day Major Lusk aaid he had received a letter from their late commanding officer, Major Gordon, who was now in Sydney! That esteemed officer, amongst other things informed him thafc Sir William Jervois and Colonel S.cratchely, the gentlemen despatched by the Imperial Government to reporfc upon fche defeqec of the colonies, would arrive in Auckland in tho mouth of August next,and that it was not generally known fchafc part of fcheir dutywas to report upon the Volunteer lorce. , ' ' '■ .' - 7Says the Anglo-American Times, "The New York Herald has just outdone the man who b-eafc his own shadow in a foot race. On Saturday mdrnihg, the 24fch of March, afc 8.51. a.m., the Oxford and Cambridge boat race ended in a tie. At 4.30 fchafc same morning the stereotyped plate containing the result; was placed dn the New York Herald presses just forty minutes' actual time after the gun which aunouuced thefiinishhad been fired, j Thhs the new Yorkers had the account, thafc Saturday morning afc their breakfast table,-, while ,iv Loudon the evening papers were publishing false accounts of the race, towed under their noses, that Oxford had won/ The Herald does brag: but it has earned tno; right.'? , , ~,A writer iv the Christchurch Press says :— A lady of the Teutonic race has been writing au account of a' kip through New Zealand for a contemporary of yours. She devotes a few lines to the genial captain of the Kangatir<t., After acknowledging his courtesy and attention, the fair correspondent; aays, * Captain Evans is auch a thoughtful, gentle— l had almost said lady-like— man with wistful sa d eyes, and a subdued voice, lie looks as if he had some hidden sorrow, but does nofc let that interfere with his duties as a sailor; nor thafc of making himself agreeable to his passengers." Was it not Job who wished his enemy would write a bpok? Captain Evans will probably think of Job when he reads his unsolicited testimonial. Pm afraid the boys up north will get condoling with fchafc secret; sorrow of his. j The: KoroitExpress says thafc a few days ago information was received by an old resident of Koroit. fchafc he had suddenly become immensely rich. For some months past an advertisement appeared in the Melbourne papers, inquiring for his whereabouts. A friend happened to notice L, and informed the lucky individualof the facfc, the result being that he became aware7fchat through the death of a relative he had become possessed of property worth some £20,000 a year. The bulk of the property consists of au estate in Ireland, bufc he is also fche undisputed heir to a valuable interest in some lead mines and slate quarries. in the county of Westmoreland, Englaud. A startling performance is one of the amusements at the Royal Aquarium, Eugland. A youug lady acrobat— charming in person, and lithe arid symmetrical in figure —is introduced to the audieucej and straightway proceeds fcp walk across a wire no thicker than ordinary whipcord, which is suspended at an elevatiou of some 70 feet across fche transept. This she does without the aid of a balancing pole, and with such ase, grace, anddexfcerity as to dispel all fears fpr her safety. Up to this poinfc ' fche performance is sensational enough, bufc the climax of sensation is reached when afc the word "Go 1" she precipitates herself from the wirejo a net 57ft beneath, and then trips gajly off to another part of the building where, fchere is a mortar, oufc of which she is shot -or rather propel'ed-fco the netting she has just leffc. . j 5