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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIV, Issue 34, 8 February 1879, Page 2

The Sydney Mail of 12th January says .<— " A movement has been commenced by the Chinese in Sydney to put an end to the evil practices which are said to exist among: them, and ou Saturday afternoon about three hundred Cliinamen assembled in St. Philip's schoolroom, Church-hill, to listen to addresses upon the subject of Chinese immoralities. The meeting was convened by tire Chinese merchants and other Chinese employers of labor in the city, and was addressed by a number of Chinese speakers, and by Dr. Steel, Canon O'Reily, and the Dean of Sydney. Miss Lydia Mary Fay, a missionary of the American Episcopalian Church in China, has just died at Chefu. She has labored in the cause twenty-eight years, and was the most accomplished and successful of lady missionaries there. Sweetening of brandy is carried to such an extent that the British Customs recently stopped some large consignments from wellknown firms, on the plea that the spirit was liable to ihe duty of 14s per gallon levied on liqueurs, instead of the ordinary spirit duty of 10s sd. " Stibduiug the forest " is not without its dangers, as the following clip from the Kiverton Star will illustrate :— " A settler at Wild Bush, named Dugald M'Donald, was felling a tree on the afternoon of Wednesday last, when it lodged, and he had to fell the other. In coming down one of them fell across his right leg, burying it in the ground. He dug his leg clear with his knife, but ;the tree canted and buried it again, burying nearly his body with it. He cut a stick to I bring his axe within his reach and cut his way, aud he dug himself out again. lie then crawled out of the bush before he could obtain assistance. By the time a doctor was brought his leg was so fearfully swollen that more particulars could not be ascertained than the fact that the bones were broken, the soft parts discolored, and the skin torn. He was removed to the Wallace Hospital." | The Otago Daily Times of the :Jlst ult , says: — " It appears, if our telegram is correct, that the wool export of the colony actually I decreased in quantity as well as in value last year, and we know that gold has fallen off considerably, especially in Aucklaud. When the full details reach us we shall be better able to arrive at a conclusion as to where the chief causes of the reduction in the wool market lie. We may hazard the conjecture that the rabbit in Southland has to auswer for a good deal of it, and this year we fear that the ravages of this pest, combined with the bad winter aud spring, will tell still more heavily ou that district." A recent Bntre Herald remarks: "Within six weeks 24,000 rabbit skins were delivered at the Want wood .station. This represents a vnlue to the rabbiters of £200. Not such a bad paying game after all ; and as a further proof of this we learn that a rabbiter trapping on Croydon Station has within the last month earned £25. Tet, with all this slaughter, the nuisauce does not apparently abate one jot - " The Wellington Jockey Club and the press do not appear to pull well together. The New Zeilander says: — "The Wellington Jockey Club deserve from the newspapers all that they pay for and nothing more. They know very well that one man cannot report the races, and so extract the price of another's entrance and Stand money from the various papers. For our part we would just as soon pay for two tickets as one, as the extra expense makes little difference in the cost of a daily paper. The Secretary of the Club pesters the press with locals, and one thing and another, about the races for a couple of months before the event comes off, gets the programme of the race meeting printed and published on the cheap, and sends us one press ticket. When the next race meeting takes place, as far as we are concerned, arrangements shall be entered into altogether, and if the Jockey Club likes not our terms they can take their advertising elsewhere." An Auckland telegram of Wednesday says that Mr J. S. Macfarlane has commenced proceedings against Mr Rees, M.H.R., for £10,000 damages for slander and malicious defamations in connection with Captain Reed's estate at Poverty Bay. Messrs Whitaker and Russell have been retained by the plaintiff . The Christchurch Sun states that Mr Bowen, M.II R,, the late Minister of Justice, has been offered the appointment of Inspector of the New Zealand Trust and i oan Company at Christchurcb, worth, it is said, about £1000 a year. An Auckland paper says that a Captain Turnbull has suddenly recovered his sight, after ten years' blindness. His recovery was caused by the shock sustained iu falling down a flight of stairs. A gross case of cruelty recently came ! under the notice of the Resident Magistrate at Christchurch. A girl named McGrath was brought up charged with being a neglected child. It seems that she has been keeping cows for her father, a man in good circumstances, and for the last few nights had been steeping under flax bushes, her tent having been carried away in the late gale She had been taken in and succoured by the neighbors, and it was found she was in a state of thorough exhaustion. The Bench read a severe lecture to the father, who said that if the " dear sweet child" was let off it should never occur again. She was sent to the Industrial School for two years, and the father was ordered to pay the expense. A new brake has been tried on some of the English railways, by means of which I trains running at the rate of 50 miles per hour can be stopped within a distance of less than 70 yards. Elks as beasts of burden have been tried across the Atlantic. At a recent fair in Minnesotta a splendid team of elks was shown which could drag a buggy with two passengers at the rate of sixteen miles an hour, and were so well broken in that a woman might drive them. The experiment, however, has been made before, as in Sweden at one time elks were used to convey couriers, being able to travel over 200 miles per diem when attached to a sledge.

A terrible accident recently happened to a boy named Bowles, in the Auckland! Company's sawmill, at Newton. The lad, *no was between thirteen and fourteen years oi age, was standing close to the machine which grinds the patty, when he was caught by one of the belts and became entangled in the running gear, being thrown about with great violence and horribly mangled. As soon as possible the machinery was stopped and he was rescued. Surgical assistance was sent for and Dr Purchas arrived promptly. From ba3ty examination of the injuries he found that the poor boy had sustained compound fracture of both legs, and bis head was sorely bruised. A large hole was made by a projecting piece of machinery, and the right leg waa so severely crushed below the thigh as tp hang merely by the sinews and scraps of fteah'. The sufferer was removed to the hospital iu a stn'te of collapse. Restoratives were applied, but the boy was only able to utter the words, " I want to go to sleep." The sufferer died at, 12'38, only about two hours after the accident. Mrs Clara S. Foltz has been called to the California bar. The Echo saya :— "Mrs Foltz is a widow, who has pursued her studies under difficulties that would have discouraged moat men, having no property to speak of, and five small children to provide for. Most of the time ahe has done her own housework, and ha3 occasionally delivered lectures to eke ont a subsistence. She has novr passed successfully through a j severe examination. A woman that can do all that for herself is likely, we should say, to take good care of her clients " The Melbourne Daily Telegraph of the 23rd ult. says<— "The depreciation of property and impoverishment of labor, which is special to Victoria, must be caused by purely local and artificial causes. Drought, rust, dearness of money, aud the paralysis of trade, which is affecting the whole commercial world, ha9 been felt in New South Wales, South Australia, and Queensland, as much as in Victoria. Yet in none of these colonies is there a fall in the value of real property of from 50 to 70 per cent. In none is trade so bad that insolvencies are becoming chronic; that employment is shrinking, and labor augmenting. In none are there gatherings of unemployed, or a constant stream of emigration of those who are not too impoverished to escape from the colony. In none is the dominant political party so ruthless, so rapacious, and so vindictive as to threaten ' broken heads and flaming houses ' to all who thwart them in their career." The following curt description of the blessings accruing to the colored race in New Caledonia through the progress of civilisation is taken from the Dunediu Star: — "The native revolt is concluded. The savages have at length been starved out aud mercilessly slaughtered by the French troops. From 500 to 600, it is estimated, have been fatally wounded, and have crawled into rocks aud caves to die, whilst 200 taken prisoners have been deported to the Isle of Pines. Horrible accounts are given of cannibalism practised by the natives while they were without food." A Launceston correspondent of the Tribune wires to the effect that the lion C. 11. Brornby has withdrawn his candidature for George Town, and that Mr C. E. Button, of Launceston, has been requested to stand. Mr Button is a native of Tasmania, but has only lately returned to it from New Zealand, whe he practised as a solicitor, and gained a very high reputation. Mr Button sat for Hokitika in the New Zealand House of Representatives, and took a prominent part in opposition to the Government of Sir George Grey; but finding a majority of his constituents in favor of the views of that most erratic of all colonial statesmen, he resigned his seat and retired into private life. Of Mr Button's views upon Tasmanian politics we know nothing. By a paper of a later date we hear that Mr Button has declined to staud for George Town. — N.Z. Times. Of the many stories that have come under my knowledge in connection with the Glasgow Bank, the following is she saddest. A few months ago a very hard-working literary man was released, not as usual by death, from his bondage to the pen, but by an unexpected legacy. A friend of his, who knew how hard he had to toil for many months, left him £5000, all in shares in the Glasgow Bank. The gift, which was intended to assist him in his poverty, has thus absolutely proved his ruin. Poor B. (the victim) has the pluck of a hero, and never fails to have an eye to (literary) business. "I am thinking," he says, " it would be a capital notion, and quite original, to make one's commercial man in a novel— forgive his enemy on his deathbed, and leave him £5000 as a, proof of it— in an unlimited bank which he knew was about to break. What d'ye think of it ? " «— — «— — —Ml 111 | IIIIIBM^WWIMW.fJ