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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIV, Issue 270, 25 November 1879, Page 2

An A uckland telegram says:— The tobacconists hare sent a mem orial to Sir George Grey against the new duty, and in favor of a license, excluding grocers. The latter are rather indignant at the wording of the memorial, which describes as " illegitimate dealings " the sale of tobacco by shops not exclusively devoted to the trade. The Host of Friday says : - One of the hardest frosts which has taken place, at this time of year, at Falmerston, in the memory of the oldest resident, was experienced on Saturday night. In the town, all the fruit io the various gardens has been more or less destroyed, and the damage done has ranged from £5 to £25, The greatest loss however, has fallen upon the farmers, who have had their crops of potatoes destroyed. The jury who sat on the Miller inquest this morning (says the Post) had a very unpleasant task in viewing the bodies, which were in exactly the same position as they were first discovered. One or two of them were quite overcome by the sight, and had to go out to the fresh air a short time before they were sufficiently recovered to go on with the inqu ry. The new tariff (says the New Zealander) has occasioned no little consternation amongst various trades, including specially grocers, flour dealers, druggsts, tobacconists, and fruiterers. An excellent excuse is offered for an outrageous advance in prices in all cases, though it varies in degrees, and in some lines is actually forced on dealers. No possible objection cau be taken to an advance in proportion to the increased duties, but we would earnestly press our traders of all kinds not to make it out of proportion to the raised tariff. If they do, they will surely bring retribution on themselves, and will do mucb to create co-operative societies, that have been so successful in the Old Country, and have so fair a field in New Zealaud. Timber is so scarce in some parts of Nebraska, that an ingenions farmer grafted all the telegraph poles along his quarter section, and such is the fertility of the soil and the vitalising power of the atmosphere in that country, that in two years he had a full bearing orchard. But it didn't do him much good, for every night the telegraph operators at Omaha and Lincoln stole bis apples by telegraph, and had the colic just as naturally a 9 any boy that ever climbed a fence. A puzzle for the curious. There if, at GoldiDg's, watchmaker, Liverpoot-street, a mysterious clock (says the Lyttelton Times). A pair of hands register the time upon a clear glass gold lett rey dial. Take the hands off and the glass is found to be only a dial suspended in the air. There is no mechauism about it. Put the hands on the dial at any hour you please, and — hey, presto I— you have the time true as the compass to the north. The hands obstinately refuse to be put wrong. Spin them on their spindle, turn them backward and forward, manipulate them at will, but like things of life they fly back to the correct time, irreversible as the finger of fate. And yet there is only the pin on which these wonderful handy turnonly that and nothing more. There are no works to be seen, nothing to account for the secret of this very mysterious clock. It is the latest invention of horological science, and has only one other known representative in the colonies. The novelty was manufactured at Mr Golding's establishment. " Why do guns burst ? " asks a contemporary, and then devotes nearly a column to answering the question. Guns burst, says the St. Louis tost, because powder is put into them. You might use a gun seven hundred years, and it wouldn't burat jf you kept powder out of it. j

When a bandsofrje Baltimore lady asked a pedestrian to knock a fnafi down who had been following her; he swiftly obeyed, and was much astonished to learn that it was her hmband. The Globe hears that the Russian Synod hsis voted 50,000 roubles towards spreading the Mußso<rfeek religion in Japan. Intelligence received by the Synod from its numerous missionaries in the Mikado's dominions reports a rapid increase in the number of converts, at Tokkio alone there being no legs than 1000 Japanese professing the Rusao-Greei; faith. Last ymr the aggregate steel production of the world wa3 somewhat otffir 3,000,000 tons. Of this quantity the United States made 732, fiiae tons. Great Britain 807,527, Germany 240,000, France 140,900, Belgium 75,000 Sweden 20,000,- and Austria 35,000.