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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIII, Issue 82, 5 April 1878, Page 2

A Christchnrch telegram of Wednesday says :— Quam Yam, the Chinaman who was sentenced to ten years, with two floggings, yesterday, for rape on a little girl at Opawa, attempted to commit suicide in Lytteltou gaol last night. He made a rope from his drawers, atttcbed a hammock strap to it, and tried to hang himself from the bar of the cell window. When discovered he was nearly dead. In these days of ecclesiastical criticism (says the Auckland Herald) when men are yearning for terseness in pulpit discourses, it is refreshing to hear, vow and then, from the sacred desk, utterances at once incisive, crisp, and epigrammatic. Such an instance occurred the other day, not a hundred miles from Parnell. The preacher selected for his theme the parable of " The Pharisee and the Publican;" after an exordium on the case of the Publican, who had nothing to say for himself, and for whom nobody else had anything to say, he took the Pharisee in hand. After exhausting the vocabulary of censure upon that historical personage, the rev. gentleman remarked "that there was ont redeeming feature in his character, ' he gave tithes, to the church. •of all that he possessed. He was afraid, taking that characteristic as a standard, that there were few Pharisees wParnell I "

„ la fehrohicling the conversation of. Osman Pasha SVith Various Russian ofiicersi the correspondent of the Russian Gbvenbiehl Messenger sata that the Turkish cbmmandcr ftpbk'e 'as follows, when some one brought forward the subject of the Turkish cruelties at Schipka and at Tiliche :-" As far as I am concerned, no one can accuse me or m.y soldiers of any Mrbfeltles or this kind. 1 !ttVd\V tnat our Bashi-Bazouks are quite capable of them ; and accordingly I took my precautions at Plevna, in view of the possibility of such things. I drove out the most undisciplined, the most turbulent of them — men I who might really be regarded as, useless mouths- and incorporated the remainder in various regular battalions, thus obliging them to fight in the trenches. I hanged five who had given themselves up to marauding ; and from that moment marauding was at au end. The only thing you can reproach me with is the order I issued to my skirmishers to prevent you from coming forward to carry off those of your men who had been killed or seriously wounded. Bilfc what was I to do ? They Avere so near tny entrenchments that you could tidt hate failed to discover their weak poihtSj and you wodld have profited by it in your next attack. For the rest we were the first to suffer by the odour from the putrefying corpses i yoilr soldiers had fallen close tt> riiy eritrenchuient— at fact that testifies to their valour. Bui to' put [in end; once for all, to the atrocities with which! riiy colleagues are charged, this is what I propose to do." Then, asking for pen, ink. and paper, Osmau Pasha wrote to Raouf Pasha in these words :— " Ferik ! General Scobeloff informs me that our troops commit acts of cruelty \ipou the Russian wounded. I must remind you that such acts are contrary to all sentiments of humanity, to all international laws, and especially to the Geneva Convention, by which we are bound in common with the other State's of Europe. I recommend you, therefore to take imtilediate measures for putting an end to all kinds of atrocities." The letter, says the correspondent, contained only the above words, without any of the usual long formulas of politeness and without any Oriental compliments. By way of signature Osnmn Pasha put his seal upon it. He then handed the letter to General ScobelelY, saying to him, " find fin opportunity of conveying this letter to Raouf Pasha, and I am convinced that all these atrocities will cease." Mr Jones is evidently not quite satisfied with the result of the trial, Regina v. Jones. He wanted to give evidence iv justification of the alleged libels. His paper, the Oamaru Mad, says: — " The public wanted to know something more than whether or not j Mr Jones was guilty. They were anxious to learn whether or not the statements made iv this journal were true— whether or not there had been such outrageously indecent, not to say dishonest, trafficking iv native lands as was stated by us. But they have been disappointed because some time-honored forms of pleading intervened to prevent the matter being inquired into. That Mr Jones had no fear as to the result of such an inquiry no one can for a moment doubt. When brought before the bar of the House of Representatives, Mr Jones demanded an inquiry into the truth of the allegations contained in the articles, for the writing and publication of which he had been adjudged guilty of a breach of those privileges with which Parliament gu-rds the honour of its members during its sessions. That inquiry, the House, in its wisdom, refused to grant, on the understanding that the. Supreme Court was the proper place in which to test the truth of our statements. And now the Judges, by their ruling, say that such an inquiry cannot be held in the Supreme Court, Where, then, are we to look for an investigation into the charges of wrong doing in high places preferred by us ? It is of the utmost importance to the public that " the whole truth, and nothing but the truth," should be elicited Mr Whitaker, when referring to the charges made against him in this journal, said that if they were false, the writer should be in gaol: but if they were true, he (Mr Whitaker) should himself be there. The ]ury empannelled to try Mr Jones, after a few minutes' deliberation, not only declined to send him to gaol, but declared him innocent of the charge preferred against him. In effect if not iv so many words, they said that he was right and left it to be inferred that Mr Whitaker was wroug. g j Coming Events states that Prince Leopold has lately expressed a strong desire to enter the Church, and although her Majesty was averse to his selecting such a career, he has, in spite of all opposition, held resolutely to his purpose, and finally gained his point. His health is now the only obstacle to his taking holy orders. The Saturday Advertiser remark* .— The Dnnedin Council let their advertising by tender. Was ever anything more absurd ? A tender implies equal terms among the tenderers. One tenderer undertakes to do the same thing as another tenderer for less money. But publicity, which is the chief point in advertising, does not depend upon the price paid, but on the circulation of the medium employed. Unless all the tendering papers are like standing and circulation, tenders are ridiculous. One of the most curious facts connected with madness in the utter absence of tears amidst the insane, observes the British Medical Journal Whatever the form of madness, tears are conspicuous by their absence, as much in the depression of melancholia, or the excitement of mania, as iv the utter apathy of dementia. If a patient in a lunatic asylum be discovered iv tears, it will be found that it is either a patient commencing to recover, or au emotional outbreak in an epileptic who is scarcely truly insane , while actually insane patients appear to have lost the power of weeping ; it 23 only returning reason which can once more unloose the fountains of their tears. Even when a lunatic is telling one in fervid language how she has been deprived of her children, or the outrages that have been perpnetrated on herself, her eye is never even moisfc. The ready gush or tears which accompanies the plaint of the sane woman contrasts with the dry-eyed appeal of the lunatic. It would, indeed seem that tears give relief to feeliug which when pent up lead to madness. It is one of the privileges of reason to be able to weep. Amidst all the misery of the insane they can find no relief iv tears. The Bendigo Independent has been at the trouble to make the following interesting calculations in reference to the war indemnity demanded of Turkey : — " Iv the first place, it represents— round numbers being calculated — one-fourth of the English National Debt. In regard to the English National Debt, it has been proved that there is not enough coined mo: ey iv the world to pay it off. The amount is £750,d00,i00. Cousequently, to pay the war indemnity required of Turkey, at least one-third of the world's coinage will be required. The indemnity represents almost to a fraction four times the amount of gold produced in the Australian continent during the last, 25 years. The amount asked for represents, according to. the value of Bendigo gold, no less than 50,000,0000z5., or, say the product of all our mines for one hundred years to come, calculated on the average returns of the goldfield during the past five, years. The weight of such a quantity would be 1860J- tons, or, iv other words, a load equal to that which 2000 horses could draw from Sandhurst to Castlemaine in one day. The actuarial miud is lost in calculating such figures ; but enough can be gathered from them for us to be thankful that we are not Turkey, and that our near neighbors are not the Russians. Calculated on the population of Victoria, it J

Would represent a tax of £250 per head for eveiy tnrth, woman; and child in the colony." The Chtri'ch (lUititltz Has a notice of the late Mrs "V*oifcrief', widow of the Rev. Mr Volkner, who was murdered by the natives at Opo.tiki. The notice says :— '"The last Erigljsh mail brought news of the death of Mrs Voiknerj whose' natrfe is held in loving remembrance by all who knew her, She arrived here in April, 1553, having accompanied the late Bishop Williams's family on their return to New and joined her brother, the Rev J. Lanfear, at the Thames. For many years she had had a great desire i*i {jngage .in fnissiouary work, but home duties had prevented her wishes being carried out sooner. The following year' she married Mr Volkner, who removed to Tauranga a few months later. There, and afterwards at Turanga, and lastly at Opotiki, they spent their happy married life, working together in the Master's vineyard, until the unsettled state of the country obliged her to leave. She lived for a time at St John's College, her husband remaining at his post, and only coming up occasionally. The story of his murdef at Opotiki is known to all;- but only her near friends can know the meek submission with which the crushing blow was bofne, ber prayers for her husband's murderers', and the Comfort she found in the thought 'the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.' Tliere is an interest in the recollection that the news was broken to her \\if Bishop Sehvyn, and that Bishop Patteson was diie hi the first to go to her with words of comfort. tier brother and his family had left for England a few weeks before, and in January of the following year she left New Zealand, and once more made her home with them, finding her true consolation in her widowed life by living only for others. She died in the 6Sth year of her age."