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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIV, Issue 69, 21 March 1879, Page 2

A Cape telegram says :— Amongst the Volunteers who served in the course of the recent war, it is stated that Viscouut Maidstone and a brother of Bishop Moran's were engaged on the eastern frontier, and that a son of Dr. Arnold, the late headmaster at Rugby, was killed at the skirmish near Gomaperi, in Griqualand West. Blind obedience to official command is a matter so altogether lovely and especially to be desired by the powers that be, that it would almost seem impossible to conceive bovY the practice could be carried to an undesirable point. But the possibility, nevertheless, does exist, as the following incident may prove. A white resident of Ova'.au had noticed that his Fijian neighbour's yam crop, though over ripe, remained undug. In the course of a morning' 3 conversation with one or two lauhtis, he inquired, " why don't you dig those yams ?" • Well," replied the philosophic son of the soil, "all our yarms are tabued for the Voi Bose at Bau in November next, and as we must not touch them, they can even remain in the ground till they are rotten."— Fiji 7 imes The only surviviog private soldier who was in Fort Sumter when it surrendered in in 1869, was drowued in Newport, It. 1., last Tuesday. He had been in the service for twenty-eight years, and had not missed a roll call for ten years. His father-in-law a rebel, offered him £10,000 to spike the guns at Fort Adams, but he refused.— Alta California. If a man is on the cars and sees a young lady he doesu't know from Eve and never saw before, trying to let down the window, he throws down his paper, takes off bis hat, bows himself double, smiles clear round to his after collar-button, says sweetly •' Allow me ?" and closes the window with graceful skill and charming courtesy. If his sister says "Tom, won't you please let this window for me ?" he tucks his paper savagely under bis arm, and stalking savagely across the aisle, stauds on her feet while he bangs the window dowu with a slam that fills her face and hair with dust. And if his wife, holding the baby in one arm and lunch basket ou the other, tries to let down the window and says timidly «nd suggestively, "Oh dear, I don't believe I can get it down," he grunts, say " Eh ? oh !" and buries himself still deeper in his paper. That's what you're coming to Laura.— Hmckeye. Mr Cranky Bill, an inmate of the Chicago gaol, has established a weekly paper, " devoted to the interest of down -trodden humanity and the sporting classes," and called the Thunderbolt. To raise the 'money, I he sold his body in advance to a class of medical students for 50dols, one cause in the contract reading as follows : " And to the end that the parties of the first part may have a reasonable assurance of a speedy return from the investment by them made, is is agreed by the party of the second part that he shall conduct the aforesaid journal known as the Thunderbolt in such a manner, by assaults npon desperate characters or such other methods as may recommend themselves to bis judgment, as to make it probable that he will be assassinated or be killed within a reasonable space of time." He may live along for many years, however, as experience has shown that men may run such papers indefinitely without finding deserved death. "John, did you take the 'note to Mr Jones ?" "Yes; but I don't think he can read it." " Why so, John ?" « Because he is blind, sir. While I was in the room he asked me twice where my hat was; and it was on my head all the time." Professor (describing ancient Greek theatre) .- "And it had nc roof." Junior (sure that he has caught the professor in a mistake) : " What did they do, sir, when it rained ?" Professor (taking off his glasses and pausing for a moment) : " They got wet, sir." The Americans (a London paper remarks), are now boasting of their big trains, one of which, on the Northern Central Railroad, is reported to have been 6,200 ft. 3in. long, or a mile and 300 yards. This train is "claimed" by the Americans as the largest ever drawn by a single engine.

A St. Petersburg telegram dated January 31 says : — lt is stated that professor Botkin, physician to the Czar, has advised the burning of Wettlianka and other villages where the epidemic has broken out, together with all the furniture in them, and the removal of the inhabitants to healthy places. In spite of the heavy expense such a scheme would involve, the Czar is said to be disposed to follow Professor Botkia's advice. Somebody estimated that every man who lives to be 60 years old has spent seven nidntha buttoning his shift collar. Thirty years more ought to be added for hunting up the collar button. Some of the spots (craters) in the sun are 100,000 miles in diameter, and one such would easily swallow up the whole of the planets, Jupiter himself only making a mouthful. Mr Edison has invented an improved receiver for his telephone which enables any person standing fifteen yards from the machine to hear distinctly a whisper miles away. An undertaker advances the novel theory that the steady decrease in death, which has been for some time noticed through the country, is due to the hard times. There is more force in this than at first appears, since people are now compelled by force of circumstances to indulge in fewer luxuries, and live upon rational diet. Twelve hundred pounds of eider-down are annually sold by one company from Green land. The clear and pure brings from £1 5s to £1 7s 6d per pound. The exports of eiderdown from Denmark, the produce of Iceland, Greenland, and the Faroe Islands, average 6000 to 8000 pounds weight a year. f 5 Inquiries made as to the losses sustained by the Russians at the European seat of war have resulted in the following particulars: — On the whole, 129,471 men lie buried in the Balkan Peninsula, and of the 120,950 men sent back to Russia as sick or wounded, 42,950. The complete number of the dead is 172,400 men, not including those who succumbed in Asia Minor. The inhabitants of Cabul boast that their city holds the tomb of Cain. Tradition re ports that Mahomet describes the Puktu dialect of the Afghan tongue as the language of hell. The traveller who has carried his life iv his hand through the wild passes which lead to the Ameer's capital, finds little difficulty in accepting the legends. He is entirely willing to admit that Cain is sleeping among his kindred, and that the Pathan people sprang straight from Satan's loins. A Martyr to Sciencei — An Americau naturalist, while investigating the cause and effect of the poison of a wasp-sting, nobly determined to make himself a martyr to science, and accordingly handed his thumb to an impatient insect he had caged in a bottle, The wasp entered into the martyr business with a great deal of spirit, and backed up to the thumb with an abruptness which took I the scientist by surprise. He was so deeply absorbed in the study of remedies that he forgot to make any notes, but his wife wrote a paragraph in his note-book, for the benefit of science, that the primary effect of a waspsting is abrupt and terrific— and such words ! —Medical Press. Wellington is not a very easy place for a stranger to find his way about in (says the writer of " Notes " in the Timarti Herald), for when he is once off " the Beach " he readily loses himself among the narrow lanes, alleys, and slums into which the newer parts of the town have been cut up by speculators, and which will one day render the city all but uninhabitable. We heard of a plan of describing the whereabouts of a particular house, though, the other day, which is rather good.^ A visitor from abroad, passing through the Empire City, asked a person whom he met in the street where a well-known resident lived. The answer he received was something like this :— " Go on straight till yon come to the next stink but one. Then turn to the left, and keep on that side of the road till you have counted seventeen stinkß, when you will find another turning. Cross over there, and your friend's house is just beyond the eighth stink on the right hand side. It has an open drain and a dead dog in front of it. You can't miss it. The slops of the whole street meet just there." The visitor sent bis card by post, and got on board his steamer as fast as possible.