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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIV, Issue 50, 27 February 1879, Page 2

Mr Macf arlane, M.H.R., has devoted his honorarium to the purchase of 800 volnmea for the country library of Waitemata district. He and the Hon. Mr Waterhouse have regularly applied a portion of their honorarium to some similar useful and patriotic purpose; but the feature remains the exception. The latter end of last month a lad found on the beach near New Plymouth the remains of a large albatross, driven in by the tide, round the neck of which was hung by a circlet a strip of muntz metal abont four inches long and an inch and a half wide, bearing the following inscription :— " Ship Ticbery, from Boston to Batavia, lat. 36.15 S., lon. 52.8 W. October, 1878. A poor Irishman at Rochester owed a rich man some money, and was unable to pay. The rich man obtained a judgment and an execution, but there was nothing ou wbich the sheriff could levy. The Irishman had two large pigs, but the law allows a man two and the sheriff could not take them. The rich man then bought two little pigs, had them presented to the Irishman, and thereupon took his two large ones. Agricultural recruits make the best soldiers because they are accustomed to " harrowing" scenes, and and are well up in their turnin •'•frill." ' F

What with numerous deputations and daily Cabinet meetings, Ministers must be getting rather a lively time of it. A pity the Hon Mr Fisher i 3 not here to bear his share of such heavy work. We understand that the irrepressible West Coast members, Messrs Woolcock, Gisborne, and Reeves, were engaged on Thursday hunting up the Minister for Public Works with a view of ascertaining what is being done towards the construction of the Brunnerton and Amberley line, or the line connecting the East Coast o£ the Middle Island, for which the sum of £30,000 was voted last session. If the West Coast of the Middle Island does not get its fair share of the good thiugs that are going it will not be for lack of most determined perseverance on the part of its members. — N.Z. Mail The writer of " Under the Verandah " in the Melbourne Leader discourses as follows with reference to Mr Bowman, a barrister Who appeared first on behalf of the Crown iv the prosecution of the men charged with aiding and aibetting the Kelly gang, and subsequently accepted a brief for the defence : — The versatility of the actor who on alternate nights could satisfy a critical audience by his impersonations of Hamlet, Salem Seudder, and Mr Affable Hawk in the Game of Speculation, would pale before the protean skill of the common law barrister. Two weeks ago we saw Mr Bowman in the role of the stem upholder of law and justice, when with fervid eloquence he urged upou the Beechworth bench the necessity of remanding the meu arrested upon suspicion of aiding and abetting the Kelly gaug. He dwelt upon the gravity of the charge upon which they were incarcerated, and strenuously urged the difficulty in procuring the evidence needed for their conviction. Last week Mr Bowman'sengagement withthe Crown having ceased, he appeared uuder a new manage ment in a diametrically opposite character. As counsel for the same priaouers, he made up as the indignant protector of oppressed inuocence. He found that the accused were illegally in custody, that the charge against tbem waa trivial, that the police had no evidence to produce, aud bullied the police magistrate because he thought the circumstances of the case warranted a further remand. No doubt Mr Bowman acted strictly in accordance with professional etiquette in taking a brief for the other side when his services were dispensed with by the Government, but from a moral point of view it does Beeru strange that the mere endorsement of a fee should have the effect of transforming a double dyed criminal into a victim or spotless purity. A new species of scandal has turned up in England. A lady of rank in London undertook to pay a tradesman's bill by presenting his wife at Court, an honor of which she was most ambitious. At the last moment the Chamberlain found out who she was and refused to i. cci ye her. The lady says she performed har part of the condition. The tradesman has sued for his bill. Under the head of " The Minister's Wife," the Lone.on Baptist Magazine has the following :— *■■ The Minister's wife ought to be selected by a committee of the church. She should be warranted never to have headache or neuralgia; she should have nerves of wire and sinews of iron; she should uever be tired or sleepy, and should be everybody's cheerful drudge; she should be cheerful, intellectual, pious, and domesticated; she should be able to keep her husband's house, darn his stockings, make his shirts, cook his dinner, light his fire, and copy his sermons; she should keep up the style of a lady on the wages of a day laborer, aud be always at leisure for ' good work,' and ready to receive morning calla; she should be Secretary to tho Band of Hope, the Dorcas Society, and the Home Mission; she should conduct Bible-classes and mothers' meetings; should make clothing for the poor aud gruel for the sick; and finally she should be pleased with everybody and everything, and never desire any reward beyond the satisfaction of having done her own duty and other people's to." "What do you think the beautiful word 'v. ife' comes from ?" asks Ruskin. "It is the great word in which the English and Latin language conquered the French and the Greek. I bope the French will someday get a word for it instead of that dreadful word femme. But what do you think it comes from? The great value of Saxon words is that then mean something. Wife means 'weaver.' You must ba either housewives or housemoths— remember that. In fche deep seuse you must either weave men's fortunes and embroider them, or feed upon them and briug them to decay. Wherever a true wife comes, home is always around her. The stars may be over her head— the glowworm in the night cold grass may often be the fire at her foot ; but home is where she is ; and for a noble woman ifc stretches far around her, better than houses ceiled with cedar or painted with Vermillion, shedding its quiet light far for those who else are homeless. This I believe to be the womans true place and bower. There isn't much difference between a grass widow and a grasshopper, after all. Either will jump at the first chance. A pound of energy with an ounce of talent will achieve greater results than a pound of talent will with an ounce of energy. One mau got his money out of the " busted " Cincinnati bank. Says the Coy. ington Commonwalth : -John Schroll, the Circuit Clerk of Campbell county, deposited 7000dols. iv Adae's bank some time ago. Yesterday he went to the bank and demanded his money, at the same time presenting a pistol at the cashier'B head. He got the money. Messrs. Jullien Carre and Co., of Havre, representing an enterprise for importing frozen sheep frora the River Plate to France, have sent out a new steamer to Buenos Ayres specially fitted up for the trade. This vessel is provided with space to convey 30,000 sheep, which it is proposed to freeze before embarcation at San Nicolas. This company enjoys a monopoly, and it is thought that it will be able to employ a dozen steamers monthly in prosecutiug this business, which it is believed will p.ove highly remunerative. Should this expectation be realised, 400,000 sheep will be imported every month to Europe, or at the rate of 5,000,000 animals ia the year. Looking to the fact that large numbers of cattle and sheep are now also being imported alive from the United States, there would seem to be a fair chance of our getting our mutton cheap, or at least a trifle cheaper than at present. — Brazil and River Plate Mail. A New Jersy artist claims to have discovered an original Turner in a farm-house in a New Jersey town. He thinks it is a Turner, because after be had turned it around several times he couldn't determine whether it was a Winter scene or the portrait of an old man.