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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIII, Issue 12, 14 January 1878, Page 2

At Gisborne at Christmas time the Mayor gave £40 and the members of Couucil £5 each and had what they called a" ratepayers' ball," but they did not invite all the ratepayers, and those who were left out in the cold are now writing to the papers making' rather nasty insinuations, and threatening not to pay their rates when next called upon. The following rather singular advertisement appears in the Wairarapa Register of 2ud inst. :-r-" Masterton Cemetery. — Any persons having friends buried in. any .of the enclosures in the old cemetery wishing to have them cleaned arid kept in decent order, may have it done by applying to the undersigned.^TkOMAS William SHoate January 2nd, 1878." Mr Fox has been down upon the licensed victuallers again. ; He caused the whole of them at Marton to be prosecuted for opening their houses on New Year's night between 12 and 1 o'clock, although they took no payment for the liquor they supplied. Mr Fox adjudicated upou the cases, and fined each defendant 40s and costs) ' .( ";■■ The serenity of the Supreme Court proceedings yesterday (says the JN. Z. Times of Tuesday)vwasdisturbed by unbecoming demonstrations on the' part of the spectators; Mr Barton had his bete noir, ■: Detectives Farrell, in the witness-box, and a. lively crossexamination was raging. Perplexed with his catechiser, Detective Farrell remarked, in explanation, " I want to get at the truth," which met with the .extravagant response from Mr Barton, "I don't want the truth-" The confession might have fallen from a wig and gown in '-Trial by Jury," for the spectators laughed, cheered, and clapped their hands as though they were witnessing a stage representation of that burlesque. ' A somewhat remarkable instance of good fortune has been.told to the:Cromwelt Argus by an informant in whom it has full confldence. By some means a well known resi- ' dent at Clyde in -the hotel business came, to j hear of a legacy being due to, but hitherto un-i claimed by, a person named Purcell> and the j result was that it came to light-that-,, he ,was: the legatee. As the story goes; the sum of >■ £9000 has, since 1852* been lying afc the Bank; of England awaiting Mr Purcell's pleasure; so that, with the interest accruing during the; past twenty-five years, the fortune must have increased to very handsome proportions. Mr Purcell with his friend of Clyde has! started for Home to release his windfall of wealth. •■■-: An accident occurred the other day to the fly-wheel in the machine house at the Wei-; lidgtou patent slip, which appears to havemade a mess of the building. The results! are thus described by the Wellington! Argus : —The appearance of the machine house when our reporter entered it this morniDg was very different to what it is as a rule. All was hushed and quiet; no noise of engines working or machinery in motion, no sound of voices, no reverberation of tools which is generally to be heard some distance away; no signs of life such a3 Jusually meet the eye on every side. On entering the machine house, and looking upwards, the first thing that struck him was an opening in the galvanised iron roof, large enough to drive a horse and cart; through] there was also anothep hole at the top of the back wallj which, however, was not nearly so large : 3 its dimensions. On looking round "to discover the cause of the apertures which, it could be easily seen, were the result' of an accident, he observed the floor covered with debris—broken pipes and parts of a wheel--. where the wheel itself had 'stood'only the stump of it, with part of qne arm., remained. More than one of the sections had found their way through the roof, and such was the force with which they had been driven that they had beporne embedded in the earth some fqrty yards nearer to the ba^chj others had struck the brick wall, ami considerably damaged its appearance. At the time of the breakage there was only one ni&a in the machine house, and he escaped, as is often the case, from being; in too close .proximity to the danger. The engineer, for he it was, was standing close to, almost under, the wheel, and the only damage done to him was by a few scratches, trivial considering the ~- One of the sections iv its upward [angei. v*u * a team pipe and smashed it areer struck tu*. 4 which only ia. still ato three pieces, one oi; ■■•■ •; i ""*°i haying d its proper place, the other t». een brought to the ground. , (

_ The Edinburgh Scotsman's London correspondent saya-— '.'l haVe reason to believe that the Peace-Party in the Cabinet has lately te-f ceived a notable ; accessiou, and that' five of ; the Ministers areinow virtually committed to j the;po!icy>d(f nQn-intervJention." 1 The Tdsmantak Mriilbt the 22nd ult. gives an account of^a" public i welcome ' v tea v meeting" to the Reverend D'r Gervoise Smith. Among the speakers was Rev. J. White, who thus referred to the rise and progress of Methodism in the colonies :— "He did not wish Dr Smith to judge of Methodism in Tasmania by what he might see to night, nor byyhat. he might aee;:durisg his brief s&y; in the colony, for the influences of Ta^mariiari Methodism had spread far and wide, and were not to be discovered and recognised at once. It wa3 about 57 years "since' the -first Methodist minister landed in Hobarton, and having obtained from Governor Sorell permission to preach the gospel, he gathered around him a small body of people, and for the first time in Tasmania, it was said, there was service in connection with the worship of God. In the course of a short time a few soldiers arrived from New South Wales, and they took a small house in Collins-street, and assembled there for worship. The number of worshippers increasing, a larger room was obtained, and ultimately land wa3 secured iv Melville-street and a chapel built thereon; during thesa years there had been earnest labors in Hobarton, and Dr Smith would not be able to see and accurately judge of the evidence of those toils. The'results of those efforts were to be seen in connection with the spread of Methodism through Victoria and New South Wales, and even in some of the islands in Fiji, and wherever Dr Smith might travel in this souther portion of the world." The conundrum that now agitates London is, " How can an unmarried man aew his shirt to a collar button without losiug the needle under his thumb-nail?" A wag, in " What he knows about Farming/ gives a very good plan to remove widows' weeds. He Bays a good-looking man has only to say, « Wilt thou?" and they wilt. A woman i 3 very like a kettle, if you come to think of it. She sings away so pleasantly, then stops, and when you least expect it she boils over. w ' i