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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIV, Issue 206, 11 September 1879, Page 2

Yesterday I was shown an interesting document (says a correspondent in the Canterbury Timea), to wit the first (numbered No 1) policy issued under the Government system of life insurance. It was taken out at Westport. The 3um insured for is £500, and the application was received by the proper officer a few seconds after tbe Act came into operation. Curiosity afterwards led me to ask Mr Luckie, Commissioner of Annuities, for the number of the last policy issued. It is 12,869, and the amount that has from the first to last been assured is £4,529,000. The gentleman who took out the first policy is still alive and hearty; but curiously enough all subsequent applications made by him for iusurance in other offices have been refused on the ground of hereditary consumption in the family. I suppose the Government would not have refused No 1, even had the applicant been a centenarian. A curious case haa arisen in connection with the law relative to marrying a deceased wife's sister. Mr T. Wilkins, of Cheltenham, having married hia deceased wife's sister, the vicar of Cirencester refused to administer the sacrament to her. The Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol having beeu appealed to, wrote thus to the vicar :—" After having carefully considered the report you have made to me, it is my judgment that as the law of the Church and the land are both explicit, you could not have acted otherwise, though I know well that it has given you much pain to have been obliged so to act." Among apparatus wbich may be called literary aids is a reporting machice. It is said that after a fortnight's practice any person of ordinary ability can take down any speech, however rapidly delivered. It is a small instrument, piano-like in form, with twenty-two keys, white and black, and the stenographic characters are smal! and impressed on slips of paper. i Enough cloth can be woven in Massachu- i setts in 60 days to supply all the people in i the United States with clothing. <

The Ashburton Mail, of the 2nd inst, says —"A truly horrible act of sacrilege has been perpetrated at St Stephen's Church. On Sunday the large gilt cross, which has long been a weapon of offence, in fact a stumbling block to sonle of the members, was missed from its accustomed place in front of the communion table. It appears that the sacred emblem has been not merely removed but stolen. When or by whom the terrible crime against Christendom was committed no one knows. Some of the congregation are fearfully indignant, while others are ' chuckling in their sleeves.' " The Otago Daily Times in congratulating the Dunedioites on having returned three Opposition members, saya :— Our good city is now thoroughly well represented. The reign of the philosophers is ended, and we are once more under the dominion of common sense. The three gentlemen who were elected yesterday, are an honor to the constituency, and their presence in the House will he so far a guarantee of good government. We have no desire to crow over our victory, but we cannot help expressing the hope that our neighbors will follow our example. The Ashburton Herald tells the following story of a political, though not politic, landlord:—A well-known horse dealer called at one of the country hostelries, some 15 miles from town, the other day with a friend and asked for two drinks. The landlord, whilst serving them, asked, "Who are you for, Wright or Hart?" "Ob, Wright, of course," was the reply. "You be biled," says mine hostj "You'll get no drink here," andthe glasses were unceremoniously swept off the bar, and the Wrightites had to pursue their way and queuch their thirst with the " aqua pura ', of the Ashburton. Strollers on the Wellington Wharf have their attention attracted by a large number of railway waggons, which are being landed ex Loch Cree, bearing the brand of Messrs Guthrie, Larnach and Co. It is said by the Chronicle that fully £2(J00 worth have come by the Loch Cree, and tbat £1500 worth more are now on their way. It is further said that similar shipments are arriving in all the chief ports of New Zealand. These waggons come to the order of the Government, and the quidnuncs "want to know you know" how it is that Mr Larnach's name has aught to do with them ? Does he pocket a fat commission on the purchase of them in addition tothe £2000 he received for services rendered to the country, which now mourns his absence ? Mr Laruach loves New Zealand for the sake of the " siller " she pours into nis capacious pockets. In the course of a recent debate Mr Stewart is reported to have said :— " It seems to me that the large majority of the occupants of the Resident Magistrates' Bench are not really competent to undertake and discharge the important duties which devolve upon them. No doubt, in timeß past, and possibly np to the present time, it has been difficult to get what might he termed ' properly-trained persons 'to under take these duties for the salaries offered ; but I must say that in some of the large commercial centres due regard has not been shown, in the appointment of Magistrates, to the fitness of persons appointed. I can poiut to instances in the Colony where parties have been placed on the Beuch possessing no special qualifications, no special training, no judicial cast of miod whatever; and the consequence is that you might verv often go into Court and toss up a shilling as to whether you would succeed or not." We clip the following from the Westpon Timet :— We need scarcely say that thc speaker referred to is an American .— "AI the Liberal Association on Monday night Mr J. L. Munson enunciated a doctrine apparently believed in by many of New Zealand's M H.R.'s, although, perhaps, theii feelings are not so openly expressed as in the present case. Mr Munson remarked thai people talked of going in for ' Measures, not men,' but he wanted a representative whe could sit on a rail, like a 'coon, and always fall, in the nick of time, on^he winning side, as by always voting with those who held the purse strings a member would obtain the greatest benefits for his constituents. Mr Munson did'nt care whether Grey, Fox, Atkinson, or anybody else ruled the Colony so long as the district in which he held a stake received a fair share of the expenditure of borrowed money, and to that en J the member for the district should always be wilh the Ministry. A wholesale manufacturer of tobacco was fined £50 in Birmingham recently for selling a smoking mixture consisting of tobacco, caihomile leaves, and liquorice. Three retailers of the mixture were also fined. The French scientific gentlemen who manage the electric light at the Gaiety Theatre, in London, declare that with machinery valued at £3400 they are prepared to light an area of 1540 yards long, by 44 yards wide, with 36 electric lamps, having an illuminating power equal to 2000 of our existing street lamps. The late Bishop of Oxford prided himself on being able to identify individually all the clergy of his diocese. But on one occasion, when Dr Wilberforce was dining with a number of them, he observed one clerical brother whose name he did not know. Unwilling to confess his ignorance, and too cautious to make inquiry, the good bishop approached the unknown, and by way of a feeler remarked to him, " I forget bow you exactly spell yonr name ?"— to which the somewhat discomfiting reply was, " Jo n-e-s." A curious instance of the recovery of lost property happened in the parish of Seacrof t, and was recorded in the JSewcastle Chronicle at the time. Iu June 1870, two Jews hawking from door to door, called at the house of a Mrs Burrell, and while her back was turned stole a gold watch and guard out of the room. It was the work of a moment ; and when she found out her loss a vigilant search was made. The men were chased and found by the police at the Bradford Hotel, but none of the lost property. The men were tried at the Town Hall, but discharged in the absence of sufficient evidence to convict. One Sunday morning in 1877, as Mr Carter, farmer, and Mr W. Linley were walking in a field looking at some cows, they stood talking at a gate for some time. Seeing something glitter in the hedge-bottom, they took it up, when it turned out to be Mrs Burrell's waich. It had evidently lain there for seven years. It is supposed that the men, afraid of being caught, hid the watch, aud forgot all about the place. Mrs Burrell, naturally much gratified at the recovery of her watch, made the finders a haudsome present A lady once regained a locket under curious circumstances. She was travelling in Australia, and was walking in Melbourne one day, when a friend with her enquired whether she had ber locket on when she came out. Mrs Dunn replied that she had; and putting her had to her throat missed it. She retraced her steps and searched carefully; but no trace could she find. She also advertised the los3, and offered a handsome reward ; but it was no use, and she returned to England soon after She happened some years later to have occasion to go to Southapton, and while walking out, saw in a shop window a locket the fac-smile of the one she had lost. She entered the shop and asked to look at it closer, and inquired if it opened. The woman said it did not. But Mr Dunn pressed a spring, and there was the face of a son she had lost, and in whose memory she had the locket made. Upon her claiming it, the woman said that a soldier's wife just come from Australia had sold it to her, saying that she had picked it up in a Melbourne street. Mrs Dunn recovered the locket for a small consideration.

A dispatch to Tlie Timea, London, on May 18, from Calcutta, says that the report tbat 20,000 to 30,000 persons died from cholera { while returning from a religious fair is repeated. ( A Parisian has patented a method of pro- , tecting iron from rust. He coats the surface to he protected with a thin film of borate of lead having a little oxide of copper dissolved . iu it, and suspended in it bright scales of precipitated platinum. A red heat is employed to fuse the composition, which is applied with a brush, or employed as a bath for smaller articles. The gunnery experiments which were made on board the Dreadnought, with the ( view of ascertaining the cause of the burst- j ing of one of the Thunderer's 38-ton guns, , are stated to have cost no less than £3,000, without reckoning the pay of the officers and men who were engaged in them.