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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIV, Issue XIV, 31 March 1879, Page 2

An editor's life at Inangahua is lively. A female rejoicing in the euphonious name of Sally Rumble, assaulted Mr Charles Murfln, editor of the Inangahua Herald, after having called his daughter "cock-eyed." Sally's indignation appears to have been so aroused by the obliquity of vision in the editor's daughter tbat Bhe tried the experiment of curing it with a handful of pepper. 3?or this little freak Sally was sentenced to a month in Hokitika Gaol. The rabbit nuisance is fully as great in New Zealand as it is in any part of Victoria. A gentleman who has lately travelled through Southland informs a contemporary that the wonder is how the squatters get along at all. They have not yet been troubled by a land tax, but the invasion of rabbits is.much worse. On several stations aa many as twenty men are employed in destroying rabbits. On one large station known to our informant UO,OOO rabbits were killed in one year, and last winter being a very severe one, the station books showed that one-half of the sheep had died from starvation and snow. Other station* report killing 500,000 rabbits, and this at 2 id. and 3d, each amount to a> heavy tax. There is more active fun in an ounce of kitten than in a ton of elephant. A large consignment of American iheep and cattle has been landed at Birkenhwd in good order, proving fih« possibility of thiir transportation in w}at«r.

The Post bi Thursday says :— A considerable Sensation was created' in town ttiiS rfffarnoon by the appearance, posted up in various places,' of a printed placard bearing the following words : — '« Gold i Gold i ! Had the Glasgow people asked for gold m -*yment instead of taking bank paper, tbdHsands Wom^ naTe heeu saved from ruin. Thi3 should prove a yarning !" The placard bore neither signature nor imprint, aud was set down" at once by all sensible people as a dastardly attempt on tbe part of somebody, in" rßveflge for some real or fancied grievance, to cause a getfeftd panic;. The motive, bowever, was to* transpgfeflt for tbe device t» mislead any reasonable person, and although everyone wii talking about it this afternoon, it wa!s alluded' to Oflfy >u terms either of severe reprobation or of utter contempt The printer who wafs made a tool of to produce this prectoiiS poster bas of coarse rendered himself liable to heat? penalties, and we understand that a reward will be offered for. his detection and conviction. The Timaru tieraid says :— " The grain in this district is nearly all harvested, and in most cases threshed as welt. Tfea number of threshing machines at work is astonishing ; some three or four years ago, three or at raos four machines served the whole district. This year we have ten or a dozen. By these means the grain must be more readily placed in the market, aud should relieve the farmers of some anxiety. The prices offered this year, for wheat especially, can scarcely recoup the grower for his outlay. A natural sequence of the termination of harvest work is, I am sorry to say, an increase in the number of ' drunk and disorderlies/ These ordinarily decent pople now fritter away their hardlyearned wages -Without, as it seems to me, either enjoying themselves or improving their constitutions." Nearly all who are interested in gardening and fruit-growing have heard of the extra-ordinary-sided vine growing in the Southern portion ot California. The old vine was about 80 years of age trien it was cut down, and a section of the trunk of the vine was sent to the Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia. The stem measured several feet in circumference, and for many years before it was cut down it produced annually about 12,0001bs of grapes. About twelve years before the oid vine was destroyed, a cutting was planted from the parent stem, which at the time of the Philadelphia Exhibition had attained a size little inferior to that of the parent vine. Tbey were each cultivated in tbe same manner, the main stem was grown a height of from ten to twelve feet, and then allowed to spread out in ail directions. Each vine covered fully an acre of ground, the horizontal branches being supported on trestles beneath. The following advertisement appears In a late isstie of a Wanganui contemporary :— " Wanted a first class man to slaughter and for boiling down, &c." Now it is hardly credible that our Wanganui friends are in tbe habit of slaughtering and boiling down butcher's assistants, but the wording of tne above advestisement would lead to such a supposition. A carpenter, who is erecting a house in Garrett-street, bas found his timber disappearing mysteriously. For several nights he watched in vain to discover the thief. Last night, however, he hid himself near the building armed with a gun loaded with dustshot. Some time after midnight he saw a man making off with some of the timber. ' The carpenter called out to the thief to stand, but the latter bolted full speed. The carpenter flred at him, and evidently hit him, for he made the air ring with his cries as he skurried. — Past. A recent Dnnedin telegram to a contemporary says :— An accident, attended with fatal results, happened last night. Andrew Pasley 18 years old, and the son of Mr Robert Pasley, a farmer at tbe Upper Junction, left his father's residence between 7 and 8 o'clock yesterday evening for the purpose of rabbit shooting, taking with him a double-barrelled pistol. He was not again seen till about 7 o'clock this morning, when a young woman named Eliza Lemond found his body in his father's paddock with bis brains blown out. In the deceased's right hand was a pistol, and the left side of his face was blown in. The place in which he was found favors the opinion that he was stepping back to take aim when his foot, tripped on an incline causing the pistol to go off. The body was immediately removed to the father's house. Rabbit poisoning (says a Kaikoura correspondent) is now in full swing on •Mr Bullen'a and other estates, the same being very favorable for this operation, owing to the dry weather. The poison used is phosphorus and oil of rhodium. Persons should now be very cautious of eating rabbits even when they are shot, for it is well known that rabbits, in many cases carry tbe poison a long time before dying. Sometimes it will kill in two hours, but they may run two or three weeks before it takes effect, and as they roam a good deal it may not be safe to shoot them for pot purposes, even within a mile or two of where poison is laid. If they could get to water tbey wonld die quickly, the phosphorus causing them to drink until they burst, but if it is not to be had it takes a long time to consume them. One very curious result has already followed the residence of the Pripcess Louise in Canada. A friend wrote to me to say: — " Already all the vacant houses in Ottawa are occupied, not by Canadians but Americans, who have come across the border to settle close to the Princess. Upwards of a hundred Yankee favourites have arrived for this purpose, and rents are rising daily. I hear that some of the American ladies have actually come from San Francisco and brought all their jewels with them. They are very anxious to show the Princess how much they possess." — Mat/fair. A good thing is told of a Washington belle, Miss L., noted for her wit. At a dinner party the lady in question, who is the daughter of a distinguished judge, waa seated next to a gentleman whom she had not met before, and who was on a visit to the city on business which brought him in contact with the judge mentioned who had shortly before becided a case against him. At tbis dinner tbe gentleman who had not caught the name of the lady when introduced, took occasion to vent his feelings and express his opinion of the judge in terms anything but complimentary. An awful pause in the conversation indicated something wrong, and the gentleman took occasion to express to the lady his hope that tbe judge was no relation of hers, to which, to the infinite amusement of all present, she replied, "Oh, no; only a connection of my mother's by marriage." A shout of laughter could not be prevented, and tbe gentleman, after a little reflection, cama slowly to the conclusion that the judge's family were too much for him. It is -very satisfactory to observe, says the Otago Daily Timet, that while Victoria is complaining that during the year ending 30th September last, the deposits in her banks have decreased by £697,413, those of New Zealand a much smaller and younger Colony, have in the year ended 3lst December last increased by no less than £1,658,360— viz., from £7,758,717 to £9.417,107. Even the prosperous and progressive Colony of New South Wales only increased her deposits by £409,434 in the year. Besides this, a comparison of the New Zealand advauces shows that additional resources from outside, not of the nature of deposits, have been used to the extent of about one million.