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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XII, Issue 208, 3 September 1877, Page 2

A contract for killing 4000 rabbits on the Vernon Run has just been finished. Our informant tells us that the men got 4d per head besides the carcases, which were sold to a person who brought them daily to Blenheim for sale. At Kekarangu they have a different plan. Messrs N. Edwards and Co., lately imported 1000 traps, something like the spring trap used for rats but larger, and by their means have taken enormous quantities, from which they stripped the skins, which were forwarded to England. By last mail they received the valuation from London of the last shipment; namely for the silver-grey 4s, and the common rabbit 3s per dozen. — Express. The offer to the Maryborough boys of a cadetship in the Post Office at £60 a year as published in our last issue, resulted in a blank. Not one applicant responded, although tho greatest publicity wa3 given to the matter. Thoso who read this paragraph are at liberty to form what conclusions they choose from it. The fact remains that numerous as our boys are there are none who are ambitious enough to taka a Civil Service appointment at the rate named.— Express. Whilst on duty on Saturday (says the N Z. Times) Constable Smart met with a singular accident of a painful character. He was putting a corpulent, heavy, and inebriated daughter of Eve into a cab— truthfully speakmg, he had to hoist a parcel weighing about 2501bs troy. Constable Smart is a strong man; but the situation was trying. He got a crook in his back, and had to be painted with iodine till the injured part of his back and the surroundiag districts, as one might say, looked like a new guinea fresh from the mint. The path of a policeman is not strewn with roses altogether, or fenced off from danger, trifling incidents of the above class being ills to which the policemen is a natural born heir. The leases of the endowments of Auckland City are at present worth about £3000 per annum, an amount which will be increased to not less than £12,000 when the present leases expire between 1879 and 1883. The big water races on the West Coast have certainly not proved that success which was anticipated, and the Greyraouth Star condemns them all as a mistake in principle. But it must be remembered that of the four only the Kanieri race is complete, and a failure. The Star says:—" Had Government expended half the amount in subsidising small races wo should have had the Coast far more thickly populated than at present, and the speculations would, in all probability have turned out satisfactorily." ' As an illustration of the advantage with which carrier pigeons may be employed, the Auckland Herald mentions that they are constantly used in the butchering and slaughtering business carried on by Messrs Fisher and Co. as the bearers of messages and orders Messrs Eisner and Co. have a slaughterhouse near St. Ann's Bridge, Great South road, and between that place and the city establishment constant communication is kept up by means of pigeon messages. Eor instance, an order is received for certain meat on the arrival of a vessel in port, one of those winged messengers is at once sent off to the slaughter-h«juse with the death warrant for the beasts, and thus, in the shortest possible space of time the necessary meat is forthcoming. "Loo," under the name of milniii, and " br;ig" under that of hipi are games greatly affected at present by the Natives of Poverty Bay. A memorial to the Assembly is talked of in Ilawkes Bay, the subject of which is to prevent any one person from owning more than one public-house under a penalty of £50 per diem. The Cambridge. Acclimatisation Society on the strength of the assertion by a member that a Mr Richard Eeynolds had said that " he believed hares bred every month like rabbits," passed a resolution against having any close season for hares. The Marlborough Piess states that some parties in that district are engaged in sheep stealing. It is estimated that about 1400 rabbits are brought into Wellington every week from the Wairarapa district. Some of those engaged in the business of bringing them into town take fish back again into the country, and are said to be doing very well. Though the rapidity with which rabbits increase make them a nuisance to farmers, they make a valuable addition to the food supply of the country, and by their being so used more extensively an additional stimulus will be given towards keeping them down in localities where they are too numerous. iV. Z. limes. A correspondent of the G<ppsland Mercury writes :— '< Jem Mace describes his visit to rasmania as one continuous triumph. The theatres were crowded every night, and he enjoyed the patronage of the Governor on caree occasions in one week, and, to wind up, he was presented with a diainong ring worth B.) guineas. Apropos of diamonds, Jem Mace ou his return from Tasmania, was presented with an immense diamond ring worth £300. How's (hat for high, diamonds being trumps? lam not at all suprised that he intends to sever his connection with the circus business and settle down in Victoria. The Prize rim/ had its allurements for hia youth, diamond rings have their temptations now, and he doubtless regards the betting ring as afavourable prospect for the future." An exchange states that the once celebrated Alex. O'Brien, better known as GuMa Percba India Rubber Salamander Sam, died the other day in Sydney of delirium tremens. Alas! another victim.

A young man of the name of Holmes, of Vegetable Creek, who had been engaged as a billiard marker at Donoghue's Hotel, Glen Innes, New South Wales (says the local paper), a short time since suddenly found himself the lucky owner of a property said to ba worth £150,000. The pleasing intelligence was conveyed to him in rather a singular manner. A man who was engaged at the hotel chanced to see an -advertisement in a scrap of the Australasian inquiring for the whereabouts of one J. Holmes, late of Bristol, England. He immediately showed it to the young man referred £o, who said at once it must be meant for him. He thereupon telegraphed to the solicitor mentioned in the advertisement, and in reply he received a remittance, with instructions to proceed afc once to Melbourne, which he has since done. Miss Alice May has been making a triumphant tour through the large towns of Scotland. In the Grand Duchess ahe was warmly welcomed at Edinburgh, " and gave a brilliantly effective performance of this celebrated role; her piquant acting and I delightful singing being received with most enthusiastic demonstations of approval." Not long ago an aged lady of Fontainebleu shuffled off this mortal coil under the auspices of a physician who had attended her for close on a quarter of a century. She left a large amount of property, and, grateful to the local Esculapius for the tender care with which he had seen to her many ailments she left him a legacy. The bequest was contained in a huge oaken trunk. The precious box was conveyed by swift; horses to the happy legatee. With eager fingers the key was turned in the lock; with widely opened eyes its contents were scanned. The box contained all the drugs and potions which had been supplied to his deceased patient by the physician during he whole time she had been under his care! This ia the old Hebrew cabalistic legend of Lilith, the first wife of Adam, as told by M. D. Conway, in his lecture on the devil: " She was a cold, passionless, splendid beauty, with wondrous golden hair. She was created Adam's equal in every respect, and therefore, properly enough, refused to obey him. For this she was driven from the Garden of Eden, and Eve was created,— made to order, so to speak— of one of Adam's ribs. Then the golden-haired Lilith, jealous, enraged, pining for her first home in Paradise, entered in the form of a serpent, crept into the Garden'of Eden, and tempted Adam and Eve to their destruction. And from that day to this, Lilith, a cold, passionless beauty, with golden hair, has roamed up and down the earth, snaring the sons of Adam aud destroying them. You may always know know her dead victims, for whenever a man haa been destroyed by the hands of Lilith, you will always find a single golden hair wrapped tight around his lifeless heart. To this day many and many a aon of Adam is lured to death and ruin from having the golden hair of a wotnau wrapped too tight around his heart." A most singular accident happened to a little boy named Luis Eytran the other day in Sydney. He was playing in a back yard, in which was a cage containing a lion, the property of a next door neighbor named Ratcliffe. While playing, he unthinkingly went too near the cage with his back turned, and was kneeling down to fire a marble, when the lion put out his paw and caught him first by the shoulder, then near the elbow, and next lacerated him about the head, Fortunately, the cbild'3 father arrived on the scene, or the youngster must have been torn to pieces. The injuries the boy received are described as deep scratches or lacerations on the right arm below the shoulder, and cuts inflicted by the lion's claws on the child's head. The little sufferer is progressing satisfactorily towards convalescence. It certainly appears strange that the authorities in Sydney should allow such an extraordinary domestic pet as a lion to be kept in a back yard in an insecure cage .