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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XII, Issue 256, 29 October 1877, Page 2

The merchants iu Hokitika according to tfie West Coast Times, are beginning to reap some bitter fruit from Kumara, iu the shape of notices to attend meetings of creditors. It currently reported that dishonnored acceptances from that quarter are far more frequent uow-a-daya than cash remittances, and that importers, in consequence, have been " easing off " for some time past. Rather a heavy stoppage was reported to have occurred there this week. The Government have promised to arrange , tor a monthly sfceain service between Westport and Karamea.

The Argus says:—" It may astonish some of the Wellington housewives to learn that most of the vegetables in the Wellington market actually come from Nelson." The Express of Wednesday last says:— Loud screams, as of a person in pain, bave been Heard throughout the day in the vicinity of the Government offices. We understand that a distinguished official arrived by the morning train and is branding the Government property. The Flaxbourne shearers finished their work on Monday last for the season, having shorn 50,000 sheep in 18 working days, duriug which no rain fell. Blincoe'a gang, consisting of 28 men, were the operators, and wc have it on good authority to say that the work was done in a thoroughly and masterly manner. On one day the unusual number of 3570 sheep were shorn, or 124 per man. The produce was close on 700 bales. — Marlborough Express. The following is a passage taken from the telegraphic columns of the Auckland Star under the heading of Wellington :-" The wind last night blew terrible showers of corrugated iron and kerosene tins." A writer in the Witness gravely asserts that it has been reported to him that Sulieman, Osman, and Mehemet Ali are no others than Burgess, Kelly, and Levy, the Maungatapu murderers. These three were men with wonderfully strong necks, and had been trussed by the doctor, so that the hanging did not affect them. They were, after the execution, or supposed execution, shipped with the connivance of some of the authorities on board a homeward bound ship, and entering the Turkish service, distinguished themselves at once, being considered the most artistic robbers and murderers seen in that service for many generations. A correspondent sends to the Auckland Star a sickeniug account of a milkman's place at the Three Kings, which, induced by a powerful stench perceptible a hundred yards away, he took the trouble to [ examine. In a small building, partly used as a dwelling and partly as a cow shed, lay the dead and putrifying body of a cow, which had, apparently, died in calf; the body of a calf, cut was hanging' up, as if being used as food. The cow was so rotten as to be scarcely recognisable. Near at hand were the milkpails, and the whole place was in a state of indescribable filth. The correspondent very properly observes that milk coming from such unwholsale dens must be disease-laden, and that a system of inspection is as much needed in connection with dairies as over slaughter-houses. Contrasting Christchurch past and present the Press says : —*' In 1854 the population j was 548 all told, and the number of houses I 100. In three years, that was in 1857, the population had increased to 953, and the nnmber of houses to 177. Taking now a step of seventeen years, we come to 1874, and the comparison is something wonderful. The population then was 10,284, with an annual assessment of £103,473 and 2000 houses within the city. Only three years more, or up to the present time, and still more gratifying evidences of progress. The population, from 953 in 1857, or twenty years back, has increased to 13,200; the number of buildings from 177 in 1857 to 4478. We have thirty-two miles of streets formed and partly paved, and gas laid on throughout a considerable portion of the whole city." Frenchmen of Tours, to his friend fresh from Paris : " and did you meet my friend Mme. ?" «* Yes, but I saw very little of her." "Ah 1 she was not, then, in her evening dress. During the first six months of the current year (says the Inangahua Herald) the dividends declared iu the field were to those of Sandhurst in the proportion of 2 to 3, and this regarded by the amounts of capital respectively invested is so immeasurably in favor of the Inangahua that we believe the fact but requires to be known aud officially recognised to induce extraordinary activity in this field. There exists an almost unlimited opening for the profitable investment of capital for the lack of which the development of the field is retarded, and the Government would render us very material assistance by causing such details to be furnished in the regular reports on the gold production of the colony as would bring the facts we require prominently fcr.vard. An Educational tour in an ocean-going steamer, the City of Merida, is projected in the States. It is to last two years, and Australia will be one of the objective points. A staff of professors will be on board. Dr Burt Wilder, professor of anatomy and theology at Cornell University, is the Principal. The fare for the trip is §5000. . A London nurseryman advertises New Zealand fern-trees, growing in tubs, five feet, six guineas; fourteen and a half feet, forty guiueas. The Chinese question occupies column of the American journals. The 'Frisco Post of August Bth has a letter stating that hundreds of officers in the Civil war are now earning a bare subsistence at the washtub.