CORRESPONDENCE.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIII, Issue 180, 29 August 1878, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE.

THE LATE EIRE. To the Editor of the 'Evening Mail.' Sir— l was glad to see the prompt steps taken by some of our citizens in collecting subscriptions for Mr Lucre, and am doubly glad to hear that their appeal has been so liberally responded to. If rightly informed about £150 has already come to hand, and some Hats have yet to come in. I hope the Committee will before disbursing the funds make some recompense to Mr Larking, who'has sustained considerable damage to his furniture and stock, to say nothing of the stoppage of his business during the time his premises are being repaired. I am, &c, . . Subscribes. Kelson, August 28, 1878.

r '■ I 1 | jj _<■■■« mm. Wherever silver mines have been opened almost without exception, they continue to be worked to the present day. Frank Bucklaud has been interviewing the phonograph. He says that not only were the very words spoken in its presence' repeated but the intonation of voice. Dennis Kearney, the sand-hill orator of San Francisco, is a sailor-man a native of Cork, who became a boss drayman. His training for public speaking was attained at Sunday debates on social and political question. The War Office have given their consent to a foot race of 20 miles, for soldiers and volunteers, in full marching order, to test the various equipments for service. We learn from the Tapanui Courier that the losses amongst stock during the recent severe weather, on both large and small holdings, have been extraordinarily severe this wiuter. During the last storm some farmers lost 25 per cent, of their flocks. As many as 40 dead sheep have been counted quite close together on the open plains, and the flock owners are now busy searching for carcases for the sake of their skins. Cattle have also succumbed in large quantities in unsheltered Jpcahties.

The sparrow nuisance is giving rise to aa great an outcry in New South Wales as it is in New Zealand. A Sydney paper says:— .bight or ten years ago some misguided enthusiast took it iuto his head to introduce the English housetop sparrow. Very likely this particular instance of acclimatisation was taken in hand with the very best intentions; but such is the ingratitude of mankind that the agriculturalists, for whose special benefit the sparrows were imported, are ready to curse the day when the first pair of these grey marauders were liberated on Australian soil. The sparrow has the merit of being insectivorous, i£ indeed} it may not be classed as omnivorous; but he is a remarkably shrewd, hardy little customer, and troubles himself very little about caterpillars as long as he can get fruit or grain. People who have gardens or farms in the neighborhood of Sydney are beginning to abhor the very sight of those drab foreigners, for the reason that no sooner do they sow' the seed than a cloud cf sparrows swoop down and forthwith reap the harvest. One of the evil results of their introduction is that the sparrows are fast driving away ail the indigenous birds, OD out of every 100 of which really deserve to be classed as insect eaters. Is this a matter which concerns the horticultural societies? Orwillthethiltivators have to start sparrow clubs, as have been done in Victoria and New Zealand? A prize for the best dozen picotees is very well in its way, but how much better would be a premium for every gross of sparrows. Under the heading " New Zealand Steam Butchers," the Dunediu Star publishes the following telegram from its Aucklaud correspondent:—Owing to the number of cattle killed on the Auckhiud-Waikato railway Hues, Mr Macfarlane, M.H.H., has induced Messrs Conyers and Lawsou to issue a circular to the railway employees that in future all collisions with cattle must be reported within twenty four hours, and that inquiry is to be made in every case whether blame is attachable or not; and where ueglect is shown a black mark is to be made 'against the diiver, and will operate agfiust his preferment. At Terof/i, one of the South Australian new wheat-growing districts, a trial is reported of a new patent plough, invented by Mr II Cameron, of Kapunda. The plough turns four furrows at once, and is so constructed with patent overhead gearing, that it raises the plough completely out of the ground at the headlands, and it can be turned in its own length with the greatest ease. It has four large wrought-iron wheels that can be raised by the movement of a handle so as to allow the plough to work at any required depth; or reversing, will raise the plough entirely off the ground, when it can easily be removed from place to place on its own wheels. The inventor claims for this plough the following advantages :— First, the plough on ordinary lands turns fonr furrows of the usual width and depth with six horses and only one man; second, that the plough will work lighter than two ordinary doublefurrow ploughs, and all tiie weight is born or carried by the wheels, and the oulv resist--1 ance which the horses have to conteud with is that caused by the furrows Whilst being moved by the shares- third, by the great saving of time the ploughing can all be done earlier in the season, and also there is the clear saving of the labor of one man; fourth, the plough is so constructed that a boy can guide it, neither does it require a skilled ploughman— any man who cau drive horses is all that is necessary to satisfactorily work the plough. The laud on which the trial took place was virgin ground, and was, moreover, of a very stiff nature. The trial is stated by the local pres3 to have been in every respect a most unqualified successs. Our Wanganui contemporaries are evidently not on good terms with each other. The Chronicle says:— "We learn that the illmannered aud uncultivated boor who does the scribbling for our local contemporary who exercises his small wit over Jprinters' errors, and who so often indulges in coarse gibes respecting the lady who is engaged ou the editorial staff of this journal— is about to come out in a new Hue, for which Nature has certainly better fitted him, aud in which he will undoubtedly have greater chances of success. So far as we know, it is a matter of no consequence to the public whether ladies or gentlemen write for this journal; but we should think our contemporary would be rejoiced to get rid of a paragraphist who is neither the one nor the other." We are cot afforded any information regarding the " new line " referred to. A venerable and intelligent gentleman who recently died in the neighborhood of Melbourne, after expressing in his will hia desire that his funeral should be of the most unostentatious kind, and forbidding the use of hat-bands, gloves, coffin ornaments, &c, gives these explicit directions :— " I desire no brick vault or brick grave, but simply 'earth to earth ;' and immediately after the funeral service is finished I wish the lid of my coffin to be unscrewed, and two bars, 2in thick, placed under it, so as to give the worms free access, and allow of direct contract of the earth with the body, and the grave to be filled in the usual manner. There are not many persons who care thus to squarely face the inevitable. At a meeting of the American Fish Culturists' Association (says the Scientific American) Professor G. B. Good gave statistics showing that the fisheries of this country yielded in 1876 agrand total of nearly thirteen hundred million pounds weight, valued at over 75,000,000 dollars. First in prominence were the oyster fisheries, the products of which were valued at 50,000,000 dollars. When it is remembered that, to a large extent, the oyster crop depends on artificial planting and systematic cultivation, the saggestion that the Government ought to take proper steps to secure to the owners of oyster grounds a defensible right thereof seems no more than just and reasonable. It is something new, to be sure to grant {individual title of land below low water mark; but since industry has given to such land', over large areas, a value equal to that of any dry land, and since the cultivation of aucu reclaimed sea-bed adds enormously to the common food supply, it would be but simple justice to put the sea-farmer on the same footing before the law as the upland-farmer. The legal right of an oyster-planter to the ground he cultivates and the crop he produces should be put beyond dispute, and its wholesale invasion, now so common wherever oyster cultivation has been attempted, should be made impossible. It is no less than a national disgrace that an industry so honorable and ÜBeful should be practically outlawed. [We commend the foregoing to the notice of our Acclamatisaiion Societies and legislators.] Some of the monasteries of Italy and Trance will send curious inventions to the Paris Exhibition. A Florentine friar has constructed a watch only a quarter of an inch in diameter. It has not only a third hand to mark the seconds, but a microscopic dial which indicates the days of the week and months, and the proper dates. It also contains an alarm, and on its front cover, an ingeniously cut figure of St. Francis of Assisi. On the back cover two verses of the "Te Deum " are distinctly cut. A monastery in Erittany, France, will contribute a plain-lookiag mahogany table, with an inlaid draught or chess-board oh the surface. The inventor sets the pieces for a game of chess, and sits alone at one side of the board. He plays cautiously, and the opposite pieces move automatically, and sometimes check-mate him. There is no mechanism apparent beneath the table-top wliioh seems to be ft solid, mahogany bowd,,

A merchant at Cape Town, writing on the 13th May to a friend in Melbourne, thus describes affairs in the Cape Colony:- Our Kaffir war continues at an outlay of £100,000 a month. It is hard to say which side is the more successful. It is certain that the outlay on our side is the more costly. The Governor, with his Ministry to hamper him, is to be pitied, He has dismissed one Ministry as incompetent to get another as dull. Our legislators hitherto have been honest fellows, who understood the shop better than the Senate. We may obtain an indirect advantage from the war, for lately, as captives have been taken, they have been shipped to this end of the coldny, and are readily snapped up for farm aud even household service. They are fine people, and handy at the end of a few weeks. One thousand can c in last week, and were absorbed in two or three days. We colild tttiiise 10,000, if caught. We shall have fresh taxes to meet our extra expenditure, the result of our incompetent legislation. The war should never have occurred. It is a cruel business." The authorities of the city of Pesth have almost accomplished the task of obtaining an unlimited supply of boiling water, which is to be available for public and private use The heated fluid is obtainod from a deep artesian well, from which, wheti cdmpleted, the water will issue in a mighty fountain to the height of nearly 50ft. The deepest artesian well in the world has hitherto been that at Paris, which has a depth of 1795 ft. The Pesth well however, has already attained the depth of 3120 ft., and will, when completed; moid than double the depth of its Paris rival, fhe water bow issuing from the bowels of the earth, three-fifths of a mile below the surface, has a temperature of lCldeg. Fahrenheit, and the work will be prosecuted uutil a warmth of 188deg. is attained. The meaning and value of these figures will be better understood when It Is remembered that the temperature of a hot bath is about 97deg., while that of boiling water is 212 deg. The daily supply is already 175,000 gallons, and this quantity will be materially increased by reaching the greater depth. The work has been progressing at the rate of 50ft. per month, and improvements which have now been made in the mechanical appliances render possible a still more rapid rate of working. The Pesth well will undoubtedly rank amongst the greatest wonders of the world, and it will be observed that it illustrates in a marked manner the intensity of the heat in the earth's centre.