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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIV, Issue 103, 7 May 1879, Page 2

The New Zealand Timei states that the fall in the price of wool is aaid to have left the Victorian woolgrowers in rather a fix. Instead of having a balance to receive oyar and above their advances as the proceeds of their sales during the season, at least half a million sterling has to be sent to England to made up the difference between the estimated value and that actually received. The Melbourne Leader's annual agricultural returns for Victoria show a tota! wheat yield in the colony of 7,042,964 bushels, the average yield having been a fraction under 10 bushels to the acre, and the area placed under crop, 714,792 acres, leaving a surplus for export of 1,316,612 bushels. An American paper gives the following information respecting the salaries of dramatic artists in the States :— Booth, Sothern, and Bducicault get £100 a night. Owens is said to be the wealthiest actor in the profession, and is estimated to be worth £400,000. Adelaide Neilson is worth £100,000; she has played for £200 & night. Jefferson gets from £600 to £1000 a week. Lotta is worth £50,000. Edwin Booth refused an engagement of 100 nights at Booth's Theatre at |£200 a night. Fanny Davenport is good for £200 a week. Mr John Parry, the well known humorous singer and pianist, died on 10th February, at East Molesey, at the age of 69. Nothing can exceed the popularity of the German Emperor. His Majesty can hardly enter any theatre without the audience rising to their feet to hurrah and chant the national hymn; and such is the ceaseless stream of gifts kept pouring into the palace by his offectionate subjects that the aged monarch has at last been compelled to remind the public of a half-forgotten order in council, forbidding the presentation of books, music, objects of art and industry, &c, without leave being previously asked for and obtained. The following item of news was brought tp Auckland by the steamer Enterprise from Samoa :— Tongatahu was visited by another hurricane on the 7th and Bth ultimo. At Nukualofa (the port town and seat of Government) all the buildings facing the beach, commencing with Messrs Godeffroy and' Sons' Western copra house, to the Government copra house, inclusive, have collapsed. Folly two-thirds of the native houses are blown down. The new Catholic church at Maofaga has completely collapsed, and the new houses in course of erection were greatly damaged. The roads up country are impassable, on account of the blown down trees. And the damage to native houses is fully equal to the average. At Nukuarapu the cocoanuts are damaged to the extent of at least half the expected crop. The mercurial barometer fell from 29 60 to 28, when there was a lull, and when the mercury began to rise the gale decreased until at 29-18 it was moderate, the wind having, contrary to the rule in the Southern hemisphere, gone round to the south, instead of the north. The ships in harbor have to thank this circumstance for their safety.

The following baby atory is told by the Manawatu Times and vouched for by the Wellington Chronicle :— " A woman, named Rosanna Bond, living at Bulls, on Wednesday applied to Mr Ward, R.M., at Foxton, for a protection order, and to have the custody of her two chfldren^obe a baby aged twehtytwo years ; the secbhd. being teii. In supptfrfc of so singular ah application^ and in explan* atlpn of the sqtnewhat paradoxical appellation of • baby ' bestowed upon an adult ol twenty-two 1 :. g% Y ornJd evidence that Hie 'child' Mi n^ven ,from the titiie. of birth", increased one inch in statue, or an iota in maturity. Notwithstanding the number of years which had passed over the head of the fought- for ward, it appeared that it had to be. carried ab'put in the arais^ datl neither epfedk not recognise anyone, and required, to be spoon-fed, like a newly-born baby. During the hearing of the case it transpired that while neither bodily nor mental development had occurred, the usual facial change in conformity with the number of years had taken place, so that to the beholder there appeared a woman's head upon an infant's body. This child is the third ' bond * afld pledge between Edward and Hosiflaj and is 22 years old. She Is an absolttte infant In everything but age. Her stee is that of & babe abotit 6 months old ; the hair, which is dark, might belong to a child of three years • the mouth expresses a considerable age; add lines are gradually showing themselves Upon 1 the Countenance. The expression of the featuYes is said to be repulsive and idiotic, suggesting in a rtiarked degree that the child is in every Way a monstrosity. Tile father and mother of the child had lived very unhappily, and, being separated; the latter wished to have the custody of the charge, ,of whom she seemed particularly ftind. tinder the circumstances the Court made an order that ! she should have custody dud rip the life-time ' of the child,, which, it considered, would also probably embrace its infancy. An hoteikeeper who resides, say, at Wangauui, is as decided an enemy to overindulgence as Fox, or Stout, or any of the crowd. One morning a young blood who had been sowing his wild oats the evening previous, and who was rather proud than otherwise of his dissipated feats, asked him "What is the best thing, Mr M , for a young fellow like me who has had too much over night ?" "A thundering good kick in the rear, my young friend, and that's all you'll get here " Young blood declined undergoing this .reviving process, and departed with coppers still burning hot. The following good story is told of the exPrince Imperial of France at the Shoeburyness School of Gunnery: — One young gentleman, of about his own age, imagined himself a sculptor in embryo, and he persuaded the Prince to permit him to make a cast of Napoleon IV. To that end a pile of soft mud was pressed tip into position on the beach, and the Prince kneeling, pushed his face down into the soft mass courageously, but fearing that it was not sufficient to produce a first-rate impression, the young arlist took him by the back of the neck and crammed him down still further into the mud, and then, when he considered that the proper indentations had been received, he permitted the half-strangled Prince to arise and go and wash himself. The mixture of plaster of Pan's was ready, and a highly interested crowd of young officers and men gathered to see what success had crowned the efforts of the regimental artist. When the solidified cast was taken out it looked as much like a bell-necked squash as anything, for the plaster had somehow enlarged the original cavity left by the Prince's nose, and run down into the ground about ten inches The Prince joined as heartily as anybody in the laugh that burst out at the sight of that caricature, but he refused to pose again, saying that he thought they would never get such another striking likeness. It is still in the mess room at the barracks, and is labelled " Bust of Napoleon IV." " Eliza," said a fond mother to her daughter, recently, as that daughter was about going off in tow of a young man who worships the very sidewalk she walks upon, " go to the bread-box and eat a good big crust of bread before you go out." " Why, maw," replied the blnshing girl, " I don't feel the least bit hungry. We've only just had tea." " I know it, but you will be hungry before you get back; and when Adolptus lakes you into a restaurant you'll eat ice cream and sponge-cake and ham sandwiches and oysters enough to scare him out of a year's growth. You silly girls don't think of this, but we experienced women do. When he asks you to go in and bave some oysters, even if you are hungry, don't. Say you do not approve of girls wasting the money of their future husbands on trifles, when it might be applied towards furnishing a house. This always takes the young men: it sets them to thinking of housekeeping and matrimony; it makes them believe that you are the incarnation of economy, and would make an excellent wife; and so they often say things which give you a hold over them, or are effective before a jury." Eliza treasured up these sagacious counsels, and acted upon them with such earnestness and effect that when she came home she was an engaged woman ! The Nineteenth Century for March contains an instructive contribution from Lord Blackford, entitled "The Causes of the Zulu War," in which he states that Cetcwayo's army is composed of 60,000 men, well disciplined, good shots, admirable marchers, patient of fatigue, and generally thoroughly warlike. His lordship demonstrates very clearly upon whom the blame for the war should be in his opinion placed, viz., in the first place on Sir Theopbilus Shepstone, in siding with aod adopting the policy of the Boers as against the Zulus, the latter having been up till then friendly with the British, and, later, to the exceedingly harsh terms of Sir Bartle Frere's ultimatum to Cetewayo's, which demanded the immediate disbandment of a magnificent army, who were to be sent to their homes, never to be called out again without the consent of the British Government. This, he argues, would be a similar case to the Emperor of Germany, in concluding a treaty of commerce with England, threatening that unless we immediately burnt our navy he would make war with us. While admitting the magnitude of the late disaster to the British regiments, he is of opinion that we have got off very easily, in comparison with what might have happened, and is filled with alarm at what may even yet be the consequences of the unnecessary war, into which " one man's powerful will appears to bave plunged an unconscious country and reluctant government, without adequate means of insuring success." We take the following from Land and Water-.—" Captain Bogardus on the Bth and 9th instant undertook to break io two days 6000 glass balls thrown at 15 yards' rise from a trap. He wagered 1000 dollars even that to accomplish this task he would do so without having to fire at 6200 balls; 500 dollars to 1000 dollars that not more than 6100 should be used; and 100 dollars to 1000 that they would be broken without a miss. The match lasted two days, and Bogardus broke 5680 balls without a miss, and only missed 13 out of the whole 6000. Hia thumb was much burnt by the heat of the barrels, caused by such continuous firing." No Englishman can pronounce Cetewayo's name as Cetewayo himself pronounces it. By South African colonists and in the lobby he is called Ketch-wahoh, with the accent on the penultimate. The "eh" in the first syllable is the nearest that a white man can hope to get to the « click " of the Zulug. On the first of January; the debt of the United States, less cash in the Treasury, was £405,739,924. . ' ,

A Ifect&rer recently alluding 1 to the way in which transporting to Another lafid brings out the finer qualities, the shrewdness, and enterprise of the Irish, recounted the iolfowing aaeedote:-I remember the fgreat conflagration at Sacramento City, California, by which the entire business portion of the city wJi? laid in ashes. Weil, when the fire was at its tnaXifflu'th fury/ an Irishman named M'Nulty, who owned some of the heaviest business establishments in the city, gazed for a few moments on the work of destruction* and then Instead of foldiog his hands and weeping of el the disaster ,• he went to the nearest livery stable, turea d fleet^boted horse, rode like John Giipio during the re* inainderof the nigiii, and before daylight next morning had purchased every foot of lumber and every saw mill at Grass Valley atid iWiida city. There is possibly no human being on eaf th 1 tflid vFetAd think of running off by the iighfc of his oWn tfMhwg property in order to literally make his fortune ob't of the disaster except an Irishman migrated to America. The result wag that he almost immediately realised out of the sal? of his lumber fourfold as much money as he lost by the great fire." In the single State of South Carolina no less than Gs,ooo negroes bare signed an agreement to remove to Africa, if provision can be ffla<lo for their transportation at a nominal price. The Standardj which' has outstripped its penny contendpofaries in the length and excellence of its telegrams from Afghanistan, has accomplished' tnis Creditable feat at au outlay almost unprecedented in theanna^ of English journalism. A single telegram coat utfward of £600, Ua amortnt in excess of that chatged fof rill the press telegrams from India put together ori Certain days. The Cosmopolitan Press Agency gives the following list of the countries and Stated who have condescended to honor England fry borrowing some of her Srfperfiuous pocket money, and who, moreofefy Rave not thought it worth their while to reimbfff'a* her •— Turkey: Principal unredeenied,£l97,3oO,245 j interest overdue, £11,423,594. Peru : Principal unredeemed, £32,353,000; interest overdue, £2,638,399. Mexico : Principal unredeemed, £27,000,000; interest overdue,. £9,388,580. Venezuela : Principal unredeemed. £6,661,820 ; interest overdue, £2,817,862. Virginia: Principal unredeemed, £5,521,320; interest overdue, £698,732. Honduras: Principal unredeemed, £5,398,570; interest overdue, £2,010,619. Costa Rica : Principal unredeemed, £3,304,000; interest overdue, £471,972. Bolivia: Principal unredeemed, £1,654,000; interest overdue, £198,480. Alabama : Principal unredeemed, £1,444,000; interest overdue, £462,080. Ecuador: Principal unredeemed, €1,625,000; interest overdue, £164,160. Greece : Principal unredeemed, £2,400,000; interest overdue, £6,122,000. Guatemala : Principal unredeemed, £542,000} interest overdue, £51,374. Liberia j Priucipal unredeemed, £100,000} interest overdue, jg2l,o')o. Louisiana : Principal unredeemed, £4,487,000; interest overdue, £916.000. Paraguay; Principal unredeemed, £1,505,400; interest overdue, £331,188. San Domingo : Principal unredeemed, £714,300; interest overdue, £192,861. Uruguay: Piincipal unredeemed, £3,164,800; interest overdue. £189,388.— Total, £335,094,423. The Egyptian debt is not included in the above. An eccentric character named W. Sydney Weswick died in 1863, leaving over 30,000 dollars (£6000) in a bank in Philadelphia, Pa. None of his heirs were discoved till recently, when they were fonnd to be a brother and two sisters, one of the latter being the wite of Signor Arditi, musical con ductor of Her Majesty's Opera CompanyThe money has been paid them. A remarkable family lives at" Belfast Me. It consists of George M'Donald, his wife, and ten children — seven sons and three daughters. The united ages of all amount to 565 years, the parents being 76 and 71 respectively, and the children from 32 to 51 years. The Hartford (Conn.) Courant was started on the 29th of October, 1764, and from that year to the present it has never once failed to appear to time. The publishers say — " Everybody who subscribed in person for the first year of the Courant is entitled to receive it for 1878 gratis, and is invited to come and talk over centennial matters whenever he feela like it." According to statistics that will shortly be published, it transpires that upwards of £4,250,000 was raised in London last year for charitable objects, and on a calculation it will be seen that this is more than £1 for every man, woman, and child in the capital. Wars will never cease; nations are warring one^ with the other; : - the various sections of society war against each other; every political faction has its common enemy; and man, whether in isolation or in congregation, is warred with and attacked by a horde of destroyers in the shape of diseases and sicknesses, whose name is legion. But happily an un mistakeable peacemaker is at hand, the most frightful diseases succumb to those unfailing and invaluable medicines, " Ghollah's Ghbat Ikdian Cubes," which can be had of all Chemists.