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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XII, Issue 244, 15 October 1877, Page 2

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A " rambling correspondent," writing from Sydney to the Poverty Bay Herald, observes: — " The meat here is very poor* with a good pair of spectacles you could see right through a sheep, for they are just bags of skin and bones, They would be all the better for a little New Zealand fat upon them Ifl was asked which was the best place for a working man I would at once decide in favour of New Zealand. The labouring men here have long houra and small wages, and without the prospect of money-making before them." Respecting the Colarado beetle, the following letter appears in the Napier Daily Telegraph, of the 26th ultimo:— "Sir— This insect has been among us for the last two years in Mr. William Stark's potato garden at Mohaka. A gentleman from Canada recognised it as the same pesfc they were suffering from there. Its habits are nocturnal, sleeping about the root of the plant by day. The sickly smell of the house bug is infiuitely intensified in this insect. I am, &c, Viator. Mohaka, _,4th September, 1877." Stirred by the recent accounts of a man and his wife having crossed the Atlantic in an open boat, a Mr. Sandstrum, of Auckland, advertises in the Herald that he is prepared to make the voyage to England in an open boat, in preference to going by the Pacific mail steamship Zealandia, 3,000 tons; thafc is to say, if the public of Auckland will provide the necessary boat, gear, and " fixins." A clergyman writing from Bangalore on the Uth August, supplies some details of the Indian famine. He says: — "Our distress here not only continues, but is more severe than ever. This is the third ye_r that the monsoon has almost failed over a large part of South India. There was no crop last year, nor is there likely to be any this year. Hundreds of thousands of tons of rice have been pouring into fche country by steamer and rail for months past; where it all comes from I do not know, or whether it will continue. Bufc for fche railway, it would have been impossible for even the Government to grapple with the famine, which now affects some eighteen millions of people in the Madras Presidency and Mysore. It was stated by Dr. Cornish at a recent meeting that the famine had up to the present time caused the death of half a million of lives above the average." The excitement in Wanganui on the publication of the names of former Wanganui residents lost afc sea by the wreck of the Avalanche, was intense. Business was almost entirely suspended, shops were closed, and the neighborhood of the newspaper offices was crowded with people. The tolling of the bell of St. Paul's Church told of the arrival of the sad news. A new Temperance Society is projected in Wellington, to be called " The New Zealand Temperance Alliance," which will include uot only abstainers, but also non-abstainers who try to promote the Temperance cause. Recently at a ball in the Opera House in Paris, Madame de Beaumont was seated in one of the boxes receiving the flattery of many courtiers, when in rushed a gentleman aud thrust a dagger iuto her breast. A cry— a stream of boood— a fall; the dancigg ceased; the music is abruptly stopped, aiid the ball is ended. Is M. de Beaumont so jealous? was the question whispered next day in Paris. Nothing of the sort. De Beaumont lives separated from his wife. General Marquis Gallifefc was fche jealous murderer, although Gallifefc haa a wife afc home, and Madame de Beaumont a husband. Madame de Beaumont is "still alive, but nobody dares to pronounce her and GaUifet's name. Madame de Beaumont is sister to the wife of President McMahon. Paris papers transplant the [affair to Japan, and at the Court of the Mikado. The Home News says English doctors have been warned here that they should certainly not emigrate to New Zealand in tbe hope of finding practice. There is a plethora of young surgeons there already, and they are not more welcome than clerks or ambitious University uje». Many of these medical men, now in very straitened circumstances in New Zealand, are discharged ships' surgeons, who have been either unwilling or uuable to secure for themselves au engagement foi* the howeward voyage. There is, however, a distinct demand for young army surgeons in India. !)n.!jkeiißes|s in the British army, ifc appears, costs the offenders no less than £17,600 a year. Every soldier convicted of this crime is fined in a sum varying from 2s Cd to £1, according to the state of his defaulter sheet; tlje sum thus obtained, from tho Ist April, 1869, to the 3 1st March, 1876, amounting to £123,343. The money is devoted lo gratuities to well conducted soldiers, and in the seven years under notice £110,000 has been applied to this worthy object. The Ballarat Star reports that one of the largest congregations that ever assembled iv the Baptist Church, Dawson-street, was present there on Sunday night, when Mr Thomas Spurgeon, son of the Rev C. H. Spurgeon, preached. Over 1000 persons were seated in the Church, the aisles being crowded, and the doorways filled with people standing. The preacher, who is just of age, has but recently arrived on a visit to these colonies, and has already created a favorable impression where he has delivered sermons. Mr Spurgeon bore out the testimony of his father that he could " preach a bit," and his sermon was delivered in a plan bufc forcible style, which showed that the young gentleman had studied hia subject well, and he possesses qualifications which might make him in the future a finished aud au eloqueut speaker. Cricketers willread with interest the following particulars as to the play of the champion player of the world— Mr W. G. Grace— takeu from the London Daily felegrapl\. Mr Grace during the present season has proved himself as extraordinary a bowler as a batsman. In the great county mateh — Notinghamshire versus Gloucestershire — Mr Grace bowled 41 balls for 7 wickets, 10 maidens and only one run, an achievement unprecedented in first-class matches . During the whole match he took 17 wickets for 89 runs, bowling 76 overs of which 36 were maidens, aud this although some of England's finest batsmen were opposed to him. Not a siugle wide was bowled in either innings, and one bye was the ouly " extra " scored. Ifc is interesting to Australian colonists to know that Midwinter, the famous Melbourne player, was Mr. Grace's bowling partner, and took the only wicket in the first innings which did not fall to Mr Grace, also scoring 19 for Gloucestershire, which county won in asingle innings wjth -J5 runs OTer,

The Telegraph says:— "lfc is noteworthy thafc, although there are no less than fifty ladies on the Burgess Roll of Napier, not one recorded her vote at the last Municipal election. How is this ? Can it be true th _t none of the candidates had secured the confidence of the fair sex ?" The luxury of belabouring a stubborn horse over the head with a broom-handle is, it would seem, rather expensive in Reefton, six pounds and costs being the sum which the Resident Magistrate assessed on Tuesday last, for a first offence of this character. On Whit-Tuesday Routledge and Son received a copy of " Other People's Children " a sequel to " Helen's Babies," and on the foi lowing Friday the book was revised, printed, bound, and 4,000 copies sold. Afc Welliugton a few days ago an old man, Thomas Richardson, who had retired ona competency some years ago, committed suicide by hanging himself to a fence. The first witness who saw him deposed that he gave information to the men at the brickfield, but they would not touch him, as they said it wa3 not right to do so until a policeman had seen him. The coroner said it seemed extraordinary that people should be ao lost to common sense as not to cut the body down. Witness : I then wenfc to the A C. Barracks and gave information of what had occurred, and then went down town. When I left the body there must have been twenty people present, but none of them would move. One man was going to do so, but the others said it would not be right until the police came. With reference to the box of 5,000 soys. which was reported as missing at Galle, further intelligence says (the Aigus) has been received, from which it is evident thafc a clever and audacious robbery has been perpetrated. The information has come in the form of another brief telegram to Mr. Kendall, agent for the P and 0. S. N. Co., and is to the effect that the box was not missing afc all, but thafc the contents had been abstracted; that the seals of its outer case had beeu cleverly cut, and that the inner case was broken open. It is supposed that the outer box had been opened by means of its own key, which probably had been obtained in a surreptitious manner. So far as the authorities .here are aware, no clue to the offender or offenders, as the case may be, has as yet been discovered, neither is it yet known, at least in Melbourne, whether the robbery was committed whilst the gold was being conveyed in the Avoca from Sydney to tbis port, or after it had been transhipped here into the China for Ceylon. At Reefton, on October the Sth, Samuel Green, a youth aged sixteen, employed as assistant in the post office there, was brought before the Magistrate there on a charge of embezzling various sums of money, the property of the post office department. Evidence showed money had been mysteriously disappearing for some time past, and on Thursday last the police posted a test letter containing two marked £i notes. Afc 12, midnight, the Postmaster examined the receiving box in the office and failed to find the letter. The police then called in accused, who was asleep in an ."djoining room, and upon his clothes being examined in his pocket was found, the letter and the marked notes. He was then arrested and locked up. Accused treats the matter very lightly, and says it is the first time he has committed the offence. It is supposed that he has embezzled a considerable sum, principally from letters posted for tickets ;iu ;Race Sweeps. Accused was undefended, and remanded. Au American paper is responsible for the following :— The worst confidence game of the season was practised on a minister a few days since by unknown parties. A coupleapparently a gentleman and lady— went to the house of a Quincy divine, armed with a marriage license, and requested the minister to marry them. The ceremony was accordingly performed, according to the latest fashion, when the bridegroom asked the e'ergymau how much he charged. Three dollars. A twenty-dollar bill was handed out, and the bridegroom received seventeen dollars in change A few moments' conversation and congratulation followed, when the happy couple prepared to depart ; but the bride, who J was evidently a little awkward at the business of handling a train, displayed a pair of boots. This naturally aroused some suspicions of a trick. Accordingly some of the household watched the pair as they leffc the parsonage, and had the satisfaction of seeing the woman disrobe in an alley, and come forth as fine looking a young man as one could wish to see. The reverend gentleman who made them man and wife examined his twenty-dollar banknote, aud discovered that it was counterfeit. But he has not yet fouud the confidence man who passed it on him.