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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIII, Issue 62, 13 March 1878, Page 2

In Napier there lives a lapidary, who is almost entirely supported by the natives. They find greenstone, and take it to him to cut and polish, and manufacture into native ornaments. So large is his trade that he has to employ steam to do the work. It has been calculated that the River Clutha discharges into the ocean 1,600,000 cubic feet of water per minute, being a larger quantity than the Nile and sixteen times that of the Thames. It is at present navigable 59 miles from its mouth, and presents no engineering difficulties to prevent navigation to its source, within 55 miles of the West Coast. We can no longer(says the Thames Advertiser) regard Father Henneberry as a follower of the Temperance Apostle, Father Matthew, because we consider his utterances unworthy the successor of such an honored reformer. He is rather a libel upon his memory, and a travelling contradiction of his own professions. What is it save education can open perance? Father Henneberry 's strong denunthe eyes of the masses to the evils of intemciations may carry conviction for a time, bat we fear the impression will be merely evanescent. Education is a better safeguard, although many educated men have become drunkards. To consign men's souls to perdition because they strive to bring up their children in secular knowledge sounds like a return to the dark ages, and we warm Father Henneberry of the consequence of such threats. If he desires, also, to do good by persuading men to renounce the drinking customs of society— to take a life-long oath against " touching, tasting, or handling the accursed drink"— then we fear his very violence of expression on another topic of equal importance i 3 calculated to detract from his usefulness as an apostle of the cause of temperance. We applaud his mission, but condemn hia indiscretion.

The North Otago Times learns from Hampden that on Thursday a man named Walter Wright, employed on Mr Culling's station, had met with a terrible accident. It appears that he was driving a reaper when the horses took fright and ran away, Wright falling in front of the machine, and being cut about the legs in a fearful manner. The price of a human jaw at the seat of war in Bulgaria is lOf. more or less. It varies according to the regularity, soundness, aud whiteness of the teeth. In Paris the quotation is 50 per cent greater at wholesale rates. The ghastly wares are conveyed iv cases containing 500, and the teeth are extracted after their arrival at the city to which the jaws are consigned. A peculiar case (says the Christchurch Press) was heard in the Magistrate's Court yesterday. A boy iv the employ of MiKiddy, Golden Fleece Hotel, found a cheque on the floor of one of the rooms, which it was shown had been torn off by his master. This cheque was carried home by the boy, whose father happened to be writing at the time, and seeing the blank cheque on the table he proceeded to fill it up. Having drawn it for £14 10s in favor of an imaginary person, and also signed an imaginary name, he crumpled up the paper, and, as he believed, threw it into the grate. The cheque, however; was swept out, and picked up by a Mrs Dephoff, residing at St. Albans, who changed it at Smith's draper's shop in Colombo-street north, receiving goods and cash in exchange. Having heard of the facts, the drawer came to Court yesterday, and related what he had done. Some circumstauces came out to the woman endeavoring to conceal her indentity, and she was committed to take her trial, being admitted to bail in two securities of j £50 each, her husband in £100. The West Coast Times says: — So far as concerns the native question the present I Ministry are likely to be more useful than their predecessors. But if Sir George Grey intends to endeavor to carry out the programe he sketched iv a recent speech at Wellington, it is to be hoped that he will not be successful. Experieucc in other places has not shown that the result of giving each male adult a vote teuds to increase the value of a Government or raise the tone of legislative bodies. Iv New Zealand almost anyone who chooses to work can obtain the franchise, and in all conscience the country is democratic enough at present. Victoria presents at the present moment a warning as to the results of manhood suffrage, which New Zealand cannot afford to ignore. At a resent sale of valuable city properties in Christchurch, Mr Walton made a preliminary speech, full of interesting information, with respect to the enormous increase which has taken place in the value of budness sites in colonial cities. He said that a corner section in Grey-street, Wellington, 32ft by 20ft, sold the other day for £6000. and the purchaser was immediately offered £1000 for his bargain, but would not accept it, as he wanted £3009. In Dunedin no freehold land can be obtained, but a rental of £8 to £12 or £15 per foot is paid for short leases. Iv Christchurch the Caversham Hotel was sold for £5750, the Clarendon for £8,075, the Garrick for £4509, the Feathers for about the same sum. In Melbourne, for the site of Germain Nicholson's shop, at the corner of Collins and Swauston-streets, a bank (offered £50,000. This was a section 66ft by 320 ft. The adjoining section was purchased by Mr Petty a few years ago for £39,000, and his executors now ask £50,000, Messrs Briscoe and Co. gave £36,000 for their section, 66ft. by 320 ft. On the other side of Collins-street £600 a foot was lately refused for a section which in 1853 sold for £200. In Elizabethstreet the Union Bank gave £40,000 for 66ft frontage, and the Imperial Insurance Company gave £500 a foot for a similar section. In a recent lecture before the Society of Telegraph Engineers in England, Professor Bell called attention to the remarkably slight earth connection which is needed to establish a circuit for the telephone. In describing an experiment showing this, he stated that, while an assistant made connection at his end of the line by standing on a grass plot, he himself stood upon a wooden board. On trying the telephone, Professor Bell was very much surprised to hear a continuous musical note uttered by his coadjutor, and looking for the cause, he found that a single blade of grass was bent over the edge of the board, and th.it his feet touched it. The removal of the grass was followed by a cessation of sound from the telephone, but the sound became again audible whenever the provfessor touched eveu the petal of a daisy with his foot. The whirligig of Colonial life (writes a contributor to the Otago Witness) brings to pass some strange conjunctions, and time has its revenges in ways that ofteu realise the adage of truth being stranger than fiction. In another colony a Minister of Public Works has dismissed' the Engineer-iu-Chief who had once dismissed himself when a beardless boy; and who can say but Mr Barrister Barton may some of these days, as Minister of Justice, be talkiug Dutch to the Judges who have sent him to gaol. It is a queer world, my masters, and nobody can tell the future of an " ugly duck." Not that we have the least idea that Mr Barton, if promoted to the head of the Department of Justice, would ever incline to snub or give annoyance to his tormentors, for hot-headed peppery men are not of the revengeful kind ; but there would be a poetic justice in the thing if it should happen that Mr Barton became AttorneyGeneral or Minister of Justice, or whatever officer it may be, to whom the judges would have to address themselves in the exercise of their official duties, and sign " I have the honour to be, Sir, your obedient servant." Tiding 9 are to hand (says the Melbourne Age) of Mr C. E. Jones, a Avell-known Victorian politician, and formerly Minister of Railways. We have before us a letter in his handwriting, bearing date 85, South Gracestreet, Chicago, 19th December, 1877. He says : — " I am now editor in chief and onethird proprietor of the Western Era, a new paper, which commences almost immediately to be published iv this city of Chicago, but I fear it won't make much money. I have been editing the Spiiit of the Turf, a horseman's paper. But of course my sympathies are with men rather than with horses, although some horses are better than many men. I have written many books since my departure from Victoria, and am now engaged on two, but my chief delight is to pile up material for lectures on America and its Congress, which may yet tickle the ears of the Victorians. If my means would permit I should lecture in this country extensively on Victoria and its people, because I am sure that thousands of men with shekels of silver and gold would migrate across the Pacific if only the truth were known, asking no aid except the information that I could supply." There are smart men of Belial in this community, writes a correspondent of the Geelong Aduettser. A trick by which creditors are wont to obtain an unfair advantage over their debtors came under my notice lately, and deserves exposure and reprobation. The ordinary process of law having been exhausted, a certain creditor hired a dummy to proceed to a shipping office and take a passage for another colony, iv the name of his debtor. Thereupon he proceeded to his mac of law and represented that his debtor was about to evade payment by quitting the colony, and suggested that the passenger list of the intercolonial steamers should besearched. This was accordingly done, the name duly found, and upon an affidavit thus justified, the uufortunate debtor, who had never entertained the idea of leaving for an instant, was arrested on a warrant of ca. sa. This scaudalous sharp practice is I beliere, of frequent occurrence.

Bishop Moran lias been severely handled by the Auckland Press for his recent speeches on education. Writing of Mr Stafford's retirement from public life the N. 2. Times says:— Mr Stafford baa been no popularity hunter, but perhaps he was more popular than any man who has taken so little pains to gaiu the favor of the mob. However, he has ever been respected as an honest and able statesman, and the country has had full confidence in his integriay, He cared nothing for the popular breath of the hour. In fact, it might truly be said of him that he looked too fur ahead. His caution was often mistaken for slowness. It is to be hoped that after Mr. Stafford's return from the old country he will again see his way to entering upon political life. No public man in this colony has been more disinterested in his endeavors to serve his fellow-colonists, and that he has fulfilled his public duties ably and well will be the verdict of a vast majority of the people of the colony. Storekeepers, publicans, and others having money passing through their hand (says a West Coast paper) should be on the look out for sixpences washed with gold, and which are being freely circulated iv Kumara. It is only upon examin aud weighing them, in the hand that the fraud can be detected The other day several were palmed off, and in most instances the coins passed through several hands before their realj value was discovered. A recent experiment at Boston reveals a novelty in the advertising way. During the performance of "Faust" at the opera in that city, in the famous scene where Mephistopholes take the dorter to see Marguerite spinuing, a splendid sewing machine replaces the conventional spiuuing wheel, whilst, to complete the auachronism and the triumph of the advertiser, a shower of hand-bills descends upon the audience, announcing the the latest invention in the variety of the double-thread machiue. No less than 12,000,000 acres of forest have been cut down or burned over in the United States, much of the timber is used for fuel, 25 cities being on record as cousuming from 5000 to 10,030 acres each. Fences use up much timber, and railway sleepers require the produce of 150,000 acres per year. The amount of pine and lumber timber yet standing in the forests of the timber States is estimated at 225,000,000,000 feet. The sum of 144,000,000 dollars is invested in the timber industry, employing 200,000 men. The Theatre states that a Russian prince, fanatico per la musica, ordered a splendid necklace and ear-rings of a St. Petersburg jeweller, with the intention of presenting them to a celebrated prima donna on the occasion of her benefit last month at the Imperial Opera. The prima donna, hearing of this, called on the jeweller and iuspected the jewellery. It was not to her taste, and she required several alterations to be made. The jeweller promised to consult his employer. The benefit was held, but the jewellery was uot forthcoming. The prince had reserved the necklace and ear-rings for some less exacting recipient, and the prnna donna was left to meditate on the homely wisdom of the proverb, " You should not look a gift horse in the mouth." A Dunedin telegram of the Bth inst. says: —An accident occurred at the City Gymnasium last evening, to a young man named William Armstrong, a foreman in the boot department of Sargood & Co'.s boot factory. He was practising on the horizontal bar, and slipping, fell on the ground, striking the back of his head and neck. Though the distance he fell was only three feet, Armstrong received a severe concussion of the spine. Two doctors have been called iv to attend him, but they give scarcely any hope of his recovery. He was this morning removed to the hospital, where he lies in a very precarious state. To keep rats away from anything that is hung up, the following simple method may be used. Procure the bottoms of some old fruit cans, by melting the sodder which holds them on a hot stove. Bore holes in the centre of tbese discs, and string a few of them upon the cord, wire, or rope upon which the articles are hung. When a vat or mouse attempts to pass upon the rope by climbing over the tin discs they turn and throw the animal upon the floor. The work of making or confirming criminals is goiug ahead merrily in many parts of the colony. To (he indiscriminate mixture of all clases of offender in the gaols the people seem to have grown callous. But the treatment of the young unfortunates whose education the State has assumed, is another matter. The Auckland Herald is justly iudignant at the way in which boys who play truant from the Training School are dealt with. The Herald says :— " Whenever any of the boys run away they are brought up before the Police Court, having possible spent the preceeding night in the cells. The other day some people in Parnell were scandalised at seeing a mounted constable bringing in two little boys who were trudging barefooted at the horse's side, aud who were handcuffed. The chief use of the Training School is to rescue uncared for boys from the possibility of falling into a life of crime by preserving them from associating themselves with criminals, but it seems to u?e that to us handcuffs, and to inarch truants through the town as criminals, is not by any means the best way to reach the desired end." A French arithmetician has made the following calculation with respect to • the performances of Blondin. Blondin commenced his tight-rope exhibition in 1858, since which time he has appeared in public 3000 times, and on each occasion has traversed his rope eight times, the length being 100 metres. He has, therefore, walked 2,400,000 metres, or 2-100 kilometres — the distance between Paris and New Yorl —without an accident. The Chinese are strange people. If there is one thing more that another that they have made up their mind to do, it is to stifle, so far as they are abb, the development of foreign enterprise. They have seized the Woosing railway, though it was appreciated by the people, and intend destroying it, because they don't want western innovations. But lately they have launched a loan for £1,604,276, to be repaid in seven years, and secured on the customs duties at the seveiv Chinese ports. They expect Englishmen to subscribe to it, though it is perfectly well known that the money is to be expeuded in purchasing artillery and other weapons of warfare, for the purpose of driving the hated foreigner out of the empire. One of the old blockade-runners built in England, but eventually forfeited to the American Government, is now cruising about the Mediterranean. This vessel is the corvette Gettysburg, belonging to the United States Navy, and ostensibly sent out on a scientific expedition. It has now oozed out (states May fair) that the real object of the expedition is to compile and accurate a chart of the coast line and fortifications of the Mediterranean from Gibraltar to Constantinople and Suez, for the use* of the United States Navy.