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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XV, Issue 175, 24 July 1880, Page 2

A movement is on foot in England to start a home postage of one halfpenny, an ocean penny postage, a sixpenny telegraph service, and a universal money-order system. A committee is in course of formation to press these important questions on the new Parliament. Much land has lately been let by tender to potato-growers in the Belfast district, Victoria, at a rent of £h and £6 per acre for the crop. A school teacher at Fox ton has lodged some complaint against School Inspector Foulis with the Education Board, and apparently got the best of it. Amongst other grievances he complains of the Inspector's "sweet Doric." Dr Hodgkinson says :— "As the colony has played the Prodigal, ruined its constitu tion, and wasted its substance, peradventure, now that it it has spent all, and begun to be in want, it may, like him, arise and return to the paths of public virtue and sobriety." A patient named Bishop, who recently \ died in the Yarra Bend Asylum, to which he was admitted years ago, and who bad always taken an interest in sporting matters, for five years in succession foretold correctly the winuer of the Melbourne Cup. The last two or three years he used to say he knuw which horse would wid, but he would not tell. A French anti-tobacco society has petitioned M. Lepfire, the Minister of the Interior in France, to forbid the Bale of tobacco to boys under 16, and the smoking by them in taverns and out-of-door cafes.

A curious old bye-law has been put in force at Shrewsbury, Emma Fawcett, proprietress of a travelling circus, being fined £1 and Us 6d costs, for driving 1 10 vans and 30 horses through the streets of the town upon Sunday. Already the butchers in England are trying to create a prejudice against the Australian fresh meat. They want to make out that meat that has been frozen loses much of its flavour, that as soon as the importation ia commenced prices will go up in Australia, and that it will not pay to sell Australian meat in England at less than 6d per lb. The Earl of Saudwich, who is the owner of the St. Holme estate, Huntingdon, has, in consequence oil the severe floods which have occurred during the last two years, instructed bis agents to iniimate to the tenants of the estate that at the nexb rent audit lie will retilrn the whole of the last year's rent. His lordship bits further intimated that the rental will be reduced In all cases, viz., from £2 5s to £1 18s per acre. The Post, speaking of the specimens of alleged defective workmanship in the railway waggons referred to in the Civil Service report, says:—" Some of these are now on view at the Parliamentary Buildings, and certainly do not compare favourably with the specimens of proper workmanship placed by their side for comparison; in fact they fully justify the terms in which they were described in the report." A correspondent of the Auckland Herald says: — A few mile 9up the Waikawau Creek there is, or recently was, a kauri some 70 feet, in circumference. Ido not mean to say that its top reached unto the heavens, for I am inclined to think that it was rather of the Dutch-built order. However, can any of your correspondents tell of a larger one in New Zealand ? " The following extraordinary note has been addressed to the editor of the Auckland . Star t — "Dear Sir — I Jhave carefully and patiently looked in yout paper for ('months for the death of some individual I was acquainted with, but; not a single sc ill I care anything about has dropped off. You will please to have my name erased from the subscription list." London music halls are rapidly becoming political arenas. So-called patriotic songs are sung, and the audience is invited to applaud and hiss in turns, according to their sentiments. A decision is then given as to whether the " ayes " have it or not. Lord Headley and Mr Hunt were lately in a box at the Metropolitan, and being recognised, were obliged to address the audience, and the acrobats and corniques were nowhere. It was announced at the weekly meeting of the Toxteth Guardians (the Liverpo I Mercury says) that Joseph Caps tick, & pauper lunatic, chargeable to the union, died in the Lancaster Lunatic Asylum on the 19th of April. The deceased was sent to the asylum on the 17th May, 1827, being then 18 years of age, and it is estimated that the cost to the ratepayers of his maintenance there during the last 53 years has amounted, with compound interest, to about £5500. Referring to the paralytic seizure by which Mr George' Hunter, a well known Wellington merchant, was attacked on Monday last, the NZ Times says :— The fell stroke that has laid Mr Hunter low is one that all busy brain workers stand in peril of, and to whom such examples ought to be emphatic warnings not to be disregarded. Brain disease in its various and perplexing forms has been steadily on the increase of late years, and one of its phases— paralysis — is most prominent. At Home medical journals are full of admoniiions to the busy and seemingly untiring commercial men, and but with little effect, for the whirl of business is no more to be resisted than the ancient mae'strom by the sea vessels of the day that came within -its influence. And so men labor in their prime, tax their powers beyond fair endurance, and in their age, and sometimes sooner, the Nemesis finds them.