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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIIL, Issue 106, 6 May 1878, Page 2

„ The Hokitika papers state that Mr and Mrs To,v(ireß, purpose 1 going to Melbourne at or&&, ahd will return with a newly organised dramatic company for a tour through New Zealand. The hot cross hun trade does not appear to have been very brisk iv Auckland this year, if we may judge from the following paragraph from the Stan— The baking ofhot crosa buns wak limited this year to abbufc half-ii-dozen hakefs, the eSciiae beiug "they dont pay." One baker abandoned, the labour, and went to church instead. He said he was let into ifc last year ; a number of his customers never paid for their supply of buns, and others returned them, sayiDg they were too late, and very cold cross-buns and not according to promise. At ii meetiil* of the Auckland Racing Club called for the purpose of enquiring iuto the pulling of Mr McGee's Falcon iv one of the races, the following resolution was passed:—" That Owen Curran McGee be disqualified from any horse eitber iv his own name, or in any other person's, on the course belonging to the Auckland Racing Club for the term of two years, and that John McGee, the jockey of Falcon, be suspended from riding for a term of twelve months; and that the hol'se Falcon be disqualified from running for ever; and a cony of this resolution to be forwarded to all the Southern Clubs." A great deal of sympathy (says the Star) was expressed for Mr M'Gee, who, whatever may have been his faults of temper or disposition, has hitherto borne the reputation of being an honest racing man, running his horses faiabfully, although at a considerable disadvantage. Dr. Humphrey Sandwith, of Kars, writing to the Daily News, from Bucharest, say — " A company has already been formed, in anticipation of the Anglo -Russian war, to purchase 15 small heavily-armed cruisers- to play the part of the famous Alabama. I know the name of the individual who is~at the dead of it- an enterprising man with" a profound hatred of England. Our regular mail steamers would be the chief victims of this privateering company, and the immense carrying trade of Great Britain would suffer enormously." There was a Chinese riot in London, where about fifty Chinese sailors, headed. by a Chinaman named Ai Chan, assembled outside a lodging-house, in the ttatoliffe highway, near the river side, kept by a man named Lemar, against whom Ai Chan had a grudge, and made a great disturbance, threatening to pull down the house and kill the inmates. Lemar .coming out to see what the matter was, was set upon by Ai Chan, and Stabbed in seven places. The Chinamen, who were all armed with weapons of some kind, either clubs, slegs, sticks, or stones, then marched down the highway, thrusting aside everyone iv the way. A stand was soon however, made by the inhabitant*, and a riot ensued. Fifteen police, who shortly after arrived, were compelled to retreat, but being reinforced by others quelled the disturbance, and took Ai Chan and sixteen more of his countrymen into safe custody. . Thomas o 'Toole, the man who was buried alive in a well near the Wheatshe'af, Shand's track, Canterbury, was extricated about 11 o'clock on Wednesday night, but was quite dead wben he was Aeached. There were a great number of people round the well, 6ut only two out of the number would volunteer to go down. Those two were Geo. Hutchins (Wheatsheaf Hotel) and W.Early, who took it in turns to go down, while scores were standing by looking on. They were able to speak to the man at one time, who begged those on the top for God's sake not to leave him there. They told him to keep his heart up; they would soon relieve him. A few minutes after this someone pulled one of the boards out of the side of-the. well, thinking to make room, but this caused the side of the well, which is composed of loose shingles, to run, and in a few minutes the poor fellow wasj covered and smothered. He was heard to groan, but had been dead a long time before he was got out. ■ • A correspondent of the Queenslander gives a sorry account of the Northern Territory. He thus concludes one of his letters : — " The present state of the Territory ; is very easily described. We have intestine war, a protracted dry season, a scorching sun, and conjsequcnt coup de soleil, commercial depression, fever, starvation,, death. Worse still -r-:no gold. lamby no means piling ou the agony. Out of a population of scarcely 600 Europeans there have been 20 deaths in four weeks or, in plain figures, the mortality for the past month has.been at the rate of 4o per cent, per annum. This mortality has been caused by sunstroke, debility from want of proper nourishment, fever, murder, accidents, but principally from drink." The New Zealavder of last Wednesday says:— The Hawea brought upyesteday from Otago Mr Alfred Jones, who is on his way to Nelsoa to assume the management of the Bank of New Zealand there. Mr Jones was one of the first officers appoiuted by the bank when it was first establi hed, and almost ever since he has been manager of the. Milton branch,, in Otago, where he was most popular and took an active part in local affairs. For a" considerable time he commanded the Bruce Rifles, and was afterwards promoted to the rank of major in command of the third Otago Battalion. Failing health has, greatly to the regret of the people' of Tokomairiro, induced JVlr Jones to seek a romoval to a warmer climate. On his departure from Milton last week he was entertained at a public dinner and presented with an address and a purse of a hundred sovereigns.! . , : The Thames Stai states that the brothers Spencer, who, as was recently telegraphed, have-made a god discovery on the Waihoa Flat, at the foot of Mount Cook, are sons of Mr T. Spencer, of. the Thames. The following letter is from one of the brothers :— " We have succeeded in ge.tting our camp close to the glacier. We could only pack the things up as far as the forks, and had to carry them the rest of the way on our backs — two miles over a frightfully Tough road. ; Charley has not succeeded yet in taking many views, owing to bad weather. Sometimes it rains for a week without stopping. Itis very trying for us in wet weather, for we cannot light a fire, and our blankets get very 'damp. We suffer a good deal from fever and ague in a mild form. We have been about three miles on the ice. It is a " rum shop", on the ice, I can tell you— great holes hundreds of feet deep. Nobody has been so far as we have ion the glaciers. We are going to try to get over the range to the Great Tasman Glacier., We are about five miles from Mount Cook". The left-hand branch of the Waihoa, where all the gold comes from, nobody can get up, so we are going to try aud get round to the head of it, and see if we can find gold. The Waihoa is a frighf uily cold river ; sometimes when crossing it you have to dodge the blocks of ice. .... We had a rough time of it down here, the bad weather has stopped our work entirely for this last month. We have come down for a rope to make; a ladder, as tbe ice is broken away so that we cannot get on to it without one. We have plenty of shooting, iv fact, we live on birds, with bacon for a change." !

Southern invited a party of gentleman to dine with him. The hour had arrived, and with one exception so had the guests. "We may as well begin"" said Southern. "He is sure to come, and he would rather we'd not wait for him : ' upon which the company sat down, and were just finishing soup when 'the card of the missing guest was frahdfc-d to Southern. A sudden inspiration of fun led biro to propose that befoVfe the gentleman came in they should all get under the table. Without any objection and trusting to Southern's wish' for some comical denouement, the unsuspecting fellows hurriedly crept up trader the table and awaited results, totally Sgoorant of the fact thafc their wicked host had B»t followed their example, but had quietly pntinued his soup. The belated guest came in full of apology for his tardiness, " Don't mention it," said Southern ; "it isn't of the slightest consequence ; we are only at . the soup; sit down and be helped." The gentleman did so but with a puzzled took at the empty chairs about the table. "Oh ! " said Soathem, "you miss the other gentlemen. They are all here, but, for one extraordinary reason, they all got under the table ! What they are doing is more than I know." It is easier to imagine than to describe the variety of expression upon the faces of the deluded victims as one by one they came crawling sheepishly out from under the table.— Boston Post.

An American paper says : — " A story that reads like a mediaeval romance comes from New York. In refitting the old Post Offlce trainings the carpenters have discovered that the upper floors are double, and are arranged so that derectives can watch the operations of those in the different rooms, who suppose themselves to be alone. The whole building was furnished with secret "passages, sliding panels, hidden tray dotrts, and mysterious chambers whosfe existence the post officials had no knowledge of with the exception of the postmaster and assistant When the workman had removed the flooring it was ascertained that the concealed space was from 4ft to 4-Jffc deep affording ample room for men to move about. Passages led eutirely round the building. At very short intervals were found small circular holes, in which were inverted lenses. Through these a view of the room beiow wa3 obtained. Back of and above these lense3 were reflectors, which brought before the eye of the observer the ntmost recesses of the JPost Office. If a detective saw any stealing or any improper action committed by a clerk, or by a person not employed in the office, the speaking tube by his side conveyed a warning at once to the attic room, and the guilty person was met at the door, or tapped on the shoulder in the interior of the office by another detective. The apertures through which the detective overlooked the rooms are in the most places so small as to be hardly visible from the apartments b-iow. Some of them, however, look boldly down from the casement, but as the planks in which they were seen were obtained from very old timber, the hole would readiiy be taken for knot holes.