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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIV, Issue 158, 4 July 1879, Page 2

Another of Westport's old identities (aays the local Times) has shuffled off the mortal coil of bachelorhood. On Wednesday Mr John Hughes was united with Misi Askew, of Nelson, in the silken bonds of matrimony. In honor of the auspicious event Mr'George Jervis, Mr Hnghea' manager, treated the boarders at the Empire to a champagne sapper on Wednesday night, and also kept open house daring the afternoon and evening, when champagne flowed as water. A Watkins Testimonial Fund is now being established at Greymoutb. At a meeting held on the 24th ultimo, it was resolved that a sum not exceeding £100 be devoted for the purpose of creating a scholarship at the Greymootb State School, to be named the Watkins scholarship -, and that the surplus be devoted for the purpose 1 of erecting a monument to the Rev Mr Watkins' memory at the place of his burial. A shipment of copper ore (aays the Post of Wednesday) has just arrived by the Charles Edward from the D'Urville Island copper name, for conveyance by the Auatralind to n O^ &T £? h sme!lia « works, Newcastle, si.h.Yf. The shipment consists of what is known as silver-grey aud procock, taken from the lowest or 100ft level of the mine It is much better selected than the previous shipment of the company, and any person interested in copper mining would be repaid by insp«ctiog the ore, and observing (he workmanlike manner in which it has bfeen dressed and prepared for smelting by the preqent foreman qf the mine. It la anticipated that the present shipment will show a high percentage of copper.

A Dunedin telegram ssya:— Cbalmerißeid waa examined at great length yestojjiKlay morning. : He admitted ' tbat ; he startpfc in business three years ago without any capital, And diving £1500. At the end of laafcitftrcb, when the bank "put on the screw*," his account being overdrawn £900, all the monies which he bad received for investment went in reduction thereof. Among his victims were two young men just out from Home with a little capital. The Maoris of the Mandwatu district in* tend holding a "jubilee " in January next to celebrate their conversion to Christianity. A circular to that effect, says the Manawatu Herald, has been sent to Governor Robinson, the Native Minister, Bishop Hadfleld, and a large number of native chiefs and clergymen in all parts of the island. „ Commenting on the resignation of Mr milance, the Auckland Star says :— " Long habit of Government, in a sphere in which he :■ was virtually supreme, has not improbably Imparted an asperity to the Premier's manner jpf pressing his views on the Ministry which , is distasteful to his colleagues, but the higher iaterests of the country and patriotic sentiment ought to induce them now to waive any small personal feeling in view of the national int#Bts which now i, SPl nd °$ a Bt s on fe an d unj te4 administration. With a crisis in native affairs and financial embarrassment hanging over the Colony, it is not an edifying spectacle to see a Cabinet wrangling among themselves." The Shen Pao (Shangahi) in a recent issne publishes a letter from a mandarin in Shansi, North China, relating to the famine-stricken districts.* In the Talydan Fa, the capital of the province, and its suburbs, the Government Burial Board buried no leas % hen 12,000 corpses of persons who died of typhus, whose relations were too poor to provide for '" The number of mandarins who died of fever was about 300. In the four southern departments, Pingyang Fu, Chiang Chow, and Chiai Cow, only about three-tenths of the population remain, the rest being dead or gone elsewhere. In the two districts of Yuanchu and Hocking in Chiang Chow only one-tenth is left. Cannibalism has become too common to be taken any nottcerof . People who have money left are afraid to have public funerals when members of their families die, lest they should attract attention, and the bodies be eaten. The three public sonp kitcbeas at TaiyuanFu use a hundred piculs of 'rice every day. Rice still costs one tael five mace per bushel (of about 12 catties). Melbourne "correspbndeVroi! the Otago DaUq Times, says :— The Hon Eli Perkins great American Discovery, Lhaama rubra, or Peruvian" bark, which professes to be an absolute cure of intemperance, and to produce a lasting aversion to spirituous liquors, is moving the Melbourne temperance societies to action, and the publicans to objurgations not load but deep. Report says it has been tried here with good result. Unfortunately the genuine article is hard to be obtained. There is. plenty of Peruvian bark, but the one required' put of the 80 different varieties is that taken from the small limbs of the red variety, and called by the druggists « quilled bark 1 ," because it comes from twigs about the 1 size of a quill. Should any of ybui ctieinist9 have in stock a larger quantity than the exigencies of your abstemious city may require, they may find a profitable market here.