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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIII, Issue 195, 14 August 1878, Page 2

lie the visit of the Australian cricketers to England, Punch indulges iv tbe following lines : — The Australians came down like a wolf ou the fold, The Mary'bone cracks for a trifle were bowled ; Our Grace before dinner was very soon I done, Our Grace after dinner did not get a run. Before proceeding to the business on the Order Paper on Thursday, the Speaker wished to draw the attention of honorable members to a practice that had recently grown up to a greater or lesser extent" in that Chamber— lt was the practice of smoking. He himself was a smoker, and he was not ashamed to acknowledge the fact, but that Chamber was not the place for smoking. He thought the practice should be discontinued. A shop now building in Christchurch for a Mr. Mulligan, is going to have the largest pane of glass in New Zealand. The pane will contain 200 square feet. The Hon. Mr. Sbeehan received tbe following telegram relative to the survey of the Waimate Plains, on Saturday :— " Some twenty-five of Titokowaru's young men on horseback came to the advanced camp yesterday. They good-humoredly said it was their first visit to the surveyors, and some oue ought 'to shout' for them. A bottle of whisky was handed to them and disposad of, and they then left. Mr Barton (says the N. Z. Times) shows a sense of respect for the House conspicuous by its absence in his behaviour in a Court of Law. Hi 3 racy brogue when he declared that " he gloried in the name of an Englishman, and called upon the House to defend the ' honor ' of the Constitution," elicited shouts of merriment. The whole tenor of his speech smacked strongly of the " will anybody tread on the tail of ray coat " spirit; and in listening to his aggressive attacks, one is constantly reminded of the old Dounybrook Fair maxim, '• Wherevei you see a head hit it." A writer in the Auckland Herald furnishes that journal with short biographical sketches of the members of the Ministry, and referring to Sir Gre3% he says :— Without entering within the pale of a biography, I thing it right to record here a circumstance which indicates the vigorous mind and memory of the Premier. The morning on which the death of Bishop Selwyn was annouueed, a very excellent and exhaustive biography appeared in the New Zealand Herald. The telegram was received in Auckland after miduight, aud one of the gentlemen connected with the Herald went up to the Club, where Sir George Grey was staying, knocked at his room door between 1 and 2 o'clock in the morning, awoke him from his first sleep, told him of the death, and requested him to supply some facts connected with the life of his old friend. Without a moment's hesitation, aud while still in bed, the Premier dictated in excellent English, and in admirable connection, as fast as a rapid writer could take it down, the very complete and accurate biographical notice which appeared that same morning. This was a feat of memory and accuracy which, under the circumstances, surprised the writer scarcely less than the pleasant manner in which Sir George exensed the scarcely warrantable disturbance at such an hour, and for such a purpose.

By the victory of Sefton in the Derby, Mr W- S. Cfawfufd wins .£21,000, Mr George Payne £7000, and Captaiu Arthur Pa^et £4000. The estimated amount of the salaries and expenses of the Customs this year is £40,90G I 13s let, as compared with £41,1u3- 16s Gd last year. , . The Bruce Herald says ;~lf the coming spring should turn out unusually mild, and be accompanied by soft rains, such is the prodigious quantity of snow up countrj- that will be melted, that tremendous floods in the Clutba river may be expected, and, indeed, damage to the township of Balclutha may itself be apprehended. The microphone promises to be one of the rffost amazing discoveries of modern science. Its application in medicine is already demonstrated fry the fact that it can detect small p^fiiciefi of diseased bone at the bottom of a deep wound An ingenious Kentuckian has invented a wheel barrow in which a man can trundle himself home at night if necessary without troubling his friends. The pric^pa! feature of the bill before the American Congress tft restrict Chinese immigration is a capitation ia± of lOodols. for every Chinaman lauded. The following couplet appeared in a Lon don paper about the timeth.it Lords Beaconsfield and Salisbury left for the Berlin CoDgres9!— Oh, B. and S. is it ? The simile's hauoj'; Lord S. is the soda, Earl B. is the brandy ! Somayfturopefmd, though the one effervesce, Thattnere's spirit enough in our B, and our S. Arrtong the Parliamentary papers which liave been issued is a summary of theimporc export, and shipping returns fot the year 1877. The total imports' for the year were £6,973,418, and the exports £6,327,475?. The United Kingdom sent out £4,115,544 worth I of good 3, and took £5,321,49.% thus showing a large balance in favor of the colony. From the Australian colonies we received goods to the value of £2,228,253, and only exported in return produce worth £900,662. Our imports from the United States ivere still more out of proportion, standing at £209,636, while our exports thither amounted only to £27,858. Mauritius sent us sugar and other tropical produce of the value of £1G2,G99, but took nothing in return. What ! are we threatene d with crinoline again ? (asks " Atlas" in the World. Mankind will surely be ready to recant all its complaints on the subject of scanty dresses at this dire menace. Too certain is it that our ladies tell us that, with the contemplated revival of short dresses, crinoline is a necessity. Woman, it seems, must have either length or breadth, or else she will look all bonnet and boots ! Which shall we choose, my brothers ? The snaky train that lies in wait for our feet, or the steel bars which the middle-aged tibia so well remembers ? Well, whichever evil we pronounce for, we shall probably get the other. We clip the following from the New Zealander :■— " Railway communication between the two first Provincial capitals to be so connected— Christchurch and Dunedin— is expected to be completed during the first week in September, and the Otago representatives are very anxious that the occasion of the opening of the line should be taken advantage of by the members of the Legislature to pay a visit to the southern metropolis. Mr Horace Bastings and other Otago members are endearoring to arrange a trip, and will probably succeed if the Hiuemoa can be spared at the time. The proposal is to leave here on a Thursday evening for Lyttelton, go to Dunedin and back by rail, and leave Lyttelton again on Monday night, arriving here in time for Tuesday's sitting. The Otago members promise their brother legislators a right royal reception in Dunedin, and no ODe who knows the men and the place can have any doubt that the promise would be faithfully fulfilled. Such an excursion would in many respects be productive of good. Her Majesty has expressed a wish to have a representative brigade of the native army, now at Malta, brought to England for her inspection before their final return to India (says " Atlas" iv the World). For my part, I think it would be well if a small brigade of this kind was always kept in this country; the moral effect would act and re-act both on the Continent and is India. It has been proposed to affiliate a native regiment as a third battalion to each regiment of the line. Each regiment would then have three battalions, one of them being composed of natives of India. The Age says that at the Dunedin Police Court Professor Black stated on oath that the most effective way to divorce from kero sene oil its dangerous property of exploding at a comparatively low temperature was to expose it to the action of the air — and that might be done by opening the tin cases and stirring the oil. That treatment had the effect of causing the more volatile and dangerous part of the oil to evaporate. By experiments made in this manner in his own laboratory, he has raised the quality of kerosene 50 degrees. He took oil that would flash at 90 degrees, and in two hours had so farjreduced it that it only flashed at a temperature of 1 40 degrees. We commend the remarks to the attention of householders and people generally, who are in the habit of usiag kerosene oil as a light.