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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIV, Issue 18, 21 January 1879, Page 2

A Dunedin telegram to the Chronicle says: — Some singular stories are afloat concerning a well known medical man, of bloated ap pearance, who has just filed his schedule. It is stated that before leaving home he contrived to borrow £1200 from the daughter of a clergyman to whom he was engaged. Since his arrival he has so infatuated a young lady of property that she is bent on marrying him, much to the disgust of her guardian and trustees. The medico has been over head and ears in debt for a considerable tune, and has been keeping his creditors at bay by promises that as soon as his marriage came off he would settle his liabilities at the expense of hi3 intended Recently the young lady came of age, and the creditors were eagerly looking for the marriage and the fulfilment of the prodigal's promises, when a writ was served on him for the £1200 he had carried off from the deluded clergyman s daughter. He is now trying the effects of insolvent whitewash on his pecuniary principles, and the creditors are terribly | indignant. A lively scene is expected at their first meeting, which comes off in a day or two.

The Auckland Herald says .—A correspondent sends us the particulars of a somewhat unusual ball that took plrce recently at East Tatnaki. Our correspondent says that when he heard the particulars of it he was forcibly struck with the rigour and heartiness of the entertainment, and he thought the inhabitants of other districts might like to know something of it. The powers of endurance in the ladies aud gentlemen who took part in the ball show what material our settlers are made of. The ball was unique in its way, aud was given at a settler's house in the East Tamaki district, when| all the leading settlers were present, together with many from the Wriroa, the Thames, and a few from Auckland. Proceedings began about 4 p.m. by croquet, tea at 7, after which the ball opened, aud continued, with only intervals for supper and refreshments, till the sun shone on the dancers. Breakfast was served at 7 a.m., and as soon as the tables were cleared away the music struck up ajjain, and the! dancers kept at it right through the day, leaviug off only for dinner and tea, till the candles were again in requisitiou. All niglit long the dance and song went on. Supper again was served, and againj the candies yielded to daylight, and breakfast stopped the dancers' feet. A game of croquet closed the ball, which had lasted two nights and nearly two days, and many of the ladies started off home — a ride of some 15 miles — looking ju9t as fresh aad rosy as when they began. Amongst the dancers was one young gentleman whose name is not unknown on our racecourse, who had sustained a galop for two aud a half hours without a rest, to one lady's playing, when both dancer and musician were stoped by the rest of the company, neither party having given in. A Wellington paper says that several of the members of the police force hare caught severe colds within the past week owing to the irregularity with which they wear their new gloves They were telling yarns about good shooting out in Virginia, Nevada, the other day. Said one of the marksmen : " Some years ago I was out in New York State hunting grouse. There was an old fellow along who was near-sighted. We were just at the edge of the farm, when suddenly one of my favorite game-cocks jumped up on the fence, and he drew a bead on it, mistaking it for a grouse. I didn't have a second to lose, and t just threw up my rifle aud quietly knocked off the left nipple of his shot guo at fifty yards, so that when the hammer fell the nipple and cap wouldn't be there — see ?" "You saved the bird, then?" chipped in an attentive listener " No," said Austin, sadly ; " I picked off the wrong nipple ; the fellow fired the right barrel and blew my fifty dollar game-cock to atoms." The crowd quietly dispersed. A Christchurch correspondent says : — " Another epidemic to be noted is the large number of insolvencies which have been recorded during the past two or three months ; judging from which, it would appear that such notices are on the increase. Every morning notices of fresh insolvencies appear in the daily Press. Scarcely a day has passed during the last six weeks or two months without the appearance of such a notice. First appeared au occasional one, then, about the time indicated, single notices began to appear regularly ; presently, insolvency notices began to appear in couples, then in threes. As yet they are confined to small people, in a financial sense; but they, like ' the straw,' show ' which way the wind blows-,' anil many persons anticipate a trying financial season. There are grave reasons to fear that their anticipations may be realised." The contrast to our California weather and climate during the present season (says a San Francisco paper) is forcibly shown by the reports of the weather, recently, on the other side of the backbone of the continent. Here, while the weather is really too good, and pleasant, and agreeable, in one sense, our distant cousins, brothers, and relations of all degrees, along the Atlantic States, have been undergoing one of their frequent and destructive storms; freshets; overflows of wharves and houses ; destruction of bridges aud railroad tracks ; pitching of locomotives and cars into unknown gaps, made by gushing torrents ; people forced to flee to the upper storeys of their dwellings, and the other countless disquietudes to which the unfortunate people are subjected. We must be pardoned for our occasionally boastiug of our climate. Mr Archibald Forbes, abandoning at an hour's notice his programme of a lecturing tour in the United States, set out lately for India, to describe the new Afghan war. Telegraphing from India is no joke, and the Daily jfrews will have to pay pretty stiffly for its determination to maintain its preemience in war correspondence. Each word telegraphed from ladia co3ts 4s 6d. Thus Mr Forbes's communications to his paper will cost over £100 a column for the mere charge of telegraphic communication. — Mayfair. A Chinese leper, who had been placed in the lazaretto, at Lawrence, a short time ago escaped and committed suicide. When Theodore Til ton was in San Francisco, he got up one night at the Palace Hotel in great trepidation, and violently rang for a waiter. The servant found the long-haired lecturer standing outside the door in his nightgown. " I want assistance immediately. There is a man under my bed ! " " Ob, that's all right," replied the man, cheerfully, "it's only the Chronicle reporter." And so it proved. The Globe Democrat (U.S.) says: — The capture of the wild animal reported as roaming in this country has been accomplished. Mr Carpenter and his hounds set out one night last week to look for it, and after being in the woods for some time, howls were heard in the distance. Chase was immediately given, and the object treed, but when the hunter came up, to his surprise he found no animal, but a big, burly Dutchman was bis game. He states that he has been playing this wild animal dodge for some time, and gave the following reasons for it. He says he wants to buy land in this neighborhood, and having set his mind on a certain place, took that mode of frightening the owner, so that he might purchase cheap. The whole neighborhood have been living in dismay since the cries of the animal, or supposed animal, were first heard, and teams have been frightened, causing the persons riding in many eases to narrowly escape being dashed to pieces. We (Chronicle) understand that the effects of James Allen Mackay, who was a short times since sentenced to four years' imprisonment, having been forfeited to the Crown, thoy will on Saturday next be sold at auction at the Upper Hutt. Inferalia, there will be six valuable horses and sundry ladies' and gentlemen's saddles. The Cosmopolitan proposes the following marriage vow for its lady readers, when occasion requires :— " I will continue to love my husband so long as he is loveabla, honor him so long as he is honorable, and obey him so long as his commands are just and reasonable." A Japanese paper impertinently want to know whether the general adulteration of food, which prevails in Christian countries, is the legitimate result of their religion, or only incidental ? Whether all our bank defaulters belong to the Church, and, if so, whether an honest Paganism hasn't a little the advantage ? Whether a Christianity that allows rum to be sold at every street corner, and licenses gambling houses, is any better than a heathenism which simply tolerates these things, and asks no impertinent questions ?

Sir George Grey's speech at the Thames having been telegraphed during the hours on Sunday was charged at quadruple rates, and tbe telegaph office sent in a bill to the Acw Ztalandcr for over £80. This, however, was subsequently reduced to £20, being the price at ordinary evening rates,