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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XV, Issue 233, 1 October 1880, Page 2

There are no less than 400 lenantless houses in Wellington, 200 being in one ward alone, and during the last twelve months 3000 per-; . sons have left the city. ; The English, Scottish, and Australian; . Chartered Bank haa purchased the corner; block at Collins and Queen-Btreeti, Melbourne,: opposite the Bank of Australasii, a quarter' of an acre, for £60,000. In the Victorian Assembly, last week, Sir B. O'Loughlen delivered a warm apeech against the retrenchment in the Law Department. He declared that the Civil i» how more demoralised than in 1875, and without the excuse of a political crisis. He further said that the present violent retrench-; ment would meet his strenuous opposition. ' ; Miss Eva Carmichael, the heroine of the' Loch Ard disaster, is about to be married to. Mr W. C. Mackay, the son of a wealthy' Dublin merchant. She has a fortune of £350! per annum. ! A Hokitika telegram of Wednesday say»! that H.R.H. the Prince of Wales, R.W.j Grand Master of the Freemasons of England, has appointed Mr John Bevan, of Hokitika, as R.-W. District Grand Master, in succession; to the late Mr J. Lazar. Official intima-j tiou was received from Lieutenant- Colonel j Shad well, clerk, of the appointment, by the) San Francisco mail last Saturday. % '. | Messrs Campbell Bros., of Southbridge,! I Canterbury, have received a very encourag-i ing return on a shipment: of oats to the Old After' paying freight (53s per ton) \ and other charges, amounting to la 3£d per bushel, as well as allowing for loss in weight , and> on Backs, they have netted the very ■ satisfactory price of 2s s£d per bushel. | The Age says that the last trip of the \ Tararua from Port Chalmers to Melbourne ; was quite an eventful one, the following oc- i currenceß bapening within the apace of the ■: few days occupied by the passage. The! first; unfortunately, was of a fatal character : I : — "A steerage passenger who embarked at* Dunedin wa« missed on Tuesday morning, the 14th, and though every search waa made, and the whole of the passengers mustered, no trace of him could be founl From documents discovered in his pocketbook his name proved to be Michael Carr, lately a resident of Southbridge, Canterbury. Ho was last Been by a fellow-passenger in his bunk at 10 o'clock on Monday night, but was not missed until six next morning. Carr had been Buffering from neuralgia; it can only be surmised that the deceased went on deck during the night and was precipitated overboard, as a heavy sea was running at the time, and a hard gale vraa blowing from the south, causing the ship to roll heavily. During the time he was on board he appeared to be a steady and respectable man, but rather reticent. An event of a far less sorrowfuTcharacter occurred on the Friday previous, when one of the steerage passengers gave birth to a pair of fine Jboys, all of whom are doing well. Much sympathy was felt for the poor woman, no medical nun being; on board, but Mr. "Jones, the purser, who has had a little experience, rendered all the assistance necessary. The mother r had every reason to be thankful for Mr". 1 " Jtfnes* ability and attention. The next noticeable event was one which terminated very .happily, viz , a marriage. A gentleman, who by accident was carried on from P6rt Chalmers, gained the affection of a jyoung lofty/ wb'dj,' with s tier parents, were passengers en route for England. Such was. the devoted .attachment of ttie "young couple that licence was obtained at the > Bluff, Awhere they were married,,, the young ,lady returning 1 - with: her tiaiband toPuuedjo."

There are some things (says the Auckland Herald) of which it is said, the longer you look at them the less you like them. This does not hold good of stone-breaking, for the longer the unemployed look at ifc, the better pleased they seem at the prospect. There are now seventeen on the list, who are prepared to grapple with the stone-hammer, and it is believed that the number will be made up to a score before the Council meeting on Thursday. "Silver Pen" writes to the Herald from Sau Francisco : — And now conies the news on the wires that one of "our girls" has gone and eclipsed all the professional loveliness so long starring it in London city. Miss Minnie Thornberg is 23 years of age, six feet three inches in her stocking feet — rather tall, but then there is no accounting for taste, so when young Lord Croppev saw her he fell in love with and married her seven years ago. Yet never till now has she stung the phlegmatic English (who are always so slow) with the force of her beauty, and she fell upon their vision like a dream, in a flowing white cashmere robe, a straw bonnet trimmed with roses, fe&f white, and yellow ; with one glove off and the other glove on, the one on being clasped with a ruby serpent studded with sapphires and diamonds. Of course this town is quite proud of their " beauty," and it is a little singular" that Yankee lasses are taking the palm all over Europe, England, and, indeed, everywhere, well, they are loving till— they open their mouths ! The style of farming adopted in California is shown in some recent proceedings of the Vigneron Club in Adelaide. The hon. secretary brought before the meetiug a very in-r teresting letter received by him from a gentleman well known in South Australia, but now in California. The communication' which was dated 29th July, was as follows : — " I wrote you one or two mails ago, and I now enclose letter addressed to myself,which tells its own tale. If you entertain the proposals therein made you will have no difficulty in obtaining the things wanted; Here, in this State at least, 20,000 acres will; be put under vines next winter. You and, my friends of South Australia Can hardly form an idea as to the style in which things are' done in California. No more is thought or. said about a farmer putting in 12,000 acres; of wheat than if he put in.loo in Australia.; Just to give you one or two examples.; Three months ago a gentleman, manager of ( a company, asked me if I would give him the; refusal of my services to plant 2,000 acres with vines. Only yesterday I was occupied; with a gentleman who has a convenient bit of land, 1,200 acres, which he wants plantedj without fdelay, part of it with some of the things that are wanted from you. I know him to be exceedingly wealthy. A few days ago he sold 11,000 acres of standing wheat: Th« present proposal is only a small beginning, and I think in one or two seasons the number will be doubled. Have my assur-j ance that the proposal is thoroughly reliable and sound ; were it not so I would not touch it. Eemember, merely thousands will be of rio use, it needs millions." j When a man is liable to be cross-questioned it behoves him to think twice ere speaking^ once, if he would not trip over stumlling-: blocks of his own creating. A gentleman; giving evidence before a Parliamentary Committee said that in some districts the nura-; her of crows upon a farm wonld average at least 50; that the birds were of great service in destroying the wire- worms j and where they did not exist the farmers were obliged to hire boys to do the work of the crows, paying them at the rate of three half-pence per 100 worms. Mr John Bright inquired how much a boy could earn worni -killing, and wbb told mnepence; but, when asked if a boy made ninepence a day at the rate of three halfpence a 100 wire worms, how many of these noxious crpatures he destroyed in a day, the witness, turning restive, replied that he did not come there to answer arithmetical questions. Mr Bright, however, was not to be put off in that way. Ho asked if a boy did the work as well as a crow. "A crow is worth 50 boys!" was the rash reply. Then quoth Mr Bright— "lf a boy is worth ninopence a day and a crow ia worth 50 boys, how ninch is the crow worth to the farmer in money?" Not unnaturally, the gentleman loßt his temper; but in vain. Paper, penj and ink were handed to him; and after battling with the figures awhile, he announced that a crow was worth just 37s 6d. a day to the farmer. He was then asked to inform the Committee what, at that rate, was the yearly value of the bird; and of course could not make it less than £684 7s 6d. His persecutor next reminded the badgered one that he had given 60 as the average number of crows on a farm, and desired him to find the aggregate annual value to the farmer , of his proper quota of these useful birds; thereby eliciting the startling information that the farmer must be a gainer of over £34,000 peri annum by his half-hundred crows. Thus was the gentleman taken at his word, with a rengeance! , \