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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XV, Issue 238, 7 October 1880, Page 2

■v. ; ._ .■_*L'_J_'.__[_^J__ " -- J_L_ ..'_ . ---''■' -*' A lunatic named Ford contrived lo make his escape from the Asylufti yesterday, and before he was missed was out of si ( ->ht, and although the police have beeu out after him he had not been captured up to the time of our going to press. It is Supposed that he has made for Havelock, where he had been iv the habit of working, and the police there have been telegraphed to be on the look out for him. He is of a very quiet temperament., and perfectly inoffensive, so that there is no occasion for any alarm being felt oh account of his beiug at liberty. The Education Bohrd have received a notification from the Minister that a sum of £50,000 which was voted by the Parliament for building purposes has been apportioned, and that the Neleon share will be £1200. Who is responsible for the division or how it happens that only one-fortieth part of the whole is to come to Nelson. does not as yet seem to be very cleari.y known. Howeyer, pending further enquiries, we niay efcpress the hope that, as this is just about the sum that the Board Jrourld itself compelled by circumst&tieea to deduct from the salaries of its officers, it may, noto that it is unexpectedly in receipt of the amount with the loss of which it was threatened, see fit to restore to . their old position many of those who could ill afford to lose that portion of their incomes of which they were to be deprived. Mn Edward Higgins, of Bell Grove, met with a severe accident yesterday af tetuoon while on his way to the Wakelield railway station with a bullock dray. Hfe . was in the act of regulating the brake when he slipped, and the whole weight — about three tons — of the dra}' and a heavy load of fencing came on both ankles, one of them being badly crushed. He remained iv this very painful situation for a Quarter of au hour or more until assistance was rendered, after which he was removed in Mr Drager's carriage to his father's residence at Spring Grove. A meeting of citizens for the purpose of considering the desirability of raising a loan for certaiu works in the town will be held at the Provincial Hall this eveuing at 8 o'clock. Beeeeuing to the late murders in Auckland by a Fijian, Mr Justice Bichmond in charging the Grand Jury said :— Hia acts appear to have been a sudden and quite unexpected outburst of ferocity, for which, so far as I am aware, no cause has been assigned or suggested. In the abseuce of any evidence of mental disenee this prisoner must be held responsible for his acts as a rational creature. Whatever may be the doctrine of theorists upou the subject, no sane human being is allowed in our Courts of Justice to Bet up the plea of an irresistible impulse to crime. How far this prisoner may be a fit object of the intense moral repulsion which is excited by wilful and deliberate murder is quite another matter, and one with which none of us here at present have any concern. So far as this community is affected, the occurrence is to be regarded as a shocking accident — much as if some wild beast had broken loose from a menagerie, and had caused the destruction which we deplore. A recent telegram from Brisbane stated that the schooner Ripple had arrived there from the Solomon Islands, at one of which she was attacked by the natives who killed the captain and two of the crew, and wounded several others, and were only repulsed with the greatest difficulty. Further details of the affair state that the Japanese and the crew of the Ripple fought like demons; using their rifles after exhausting their revolvers The latter killed at least fifteen men. A King native named Beta was the first mau shot. The natives when beaten from the ship fought from their canoes. It was a dreadful spectacle on board the Ripple. The killed and wounded, with spears, arrows, and axes, covered the deck. Six are dead, and two more are not expected to recover. The newspaper readers of Marlborough have of late beeu much diverted by a correspondence that has been carried on in the local Times between two connections, Messrs Ward and Goulter, as to which of the two has succeeded in raising the better class of wool. From tbe latest letter, which is from the pen of Mr Ward, the discussion appears to be getting lively, for thus does he write of his opponent, whose reply, when it appears, will probably be equally spicy :— "But Mr Goulier ia the "practical" man, for I can remember, mauy years ago, he tried experimental sheep breeding, and imported some valuable rams from somewhere, aud I must confess bo produced very remarkable animals from his importations : they were not so much celebrated for profit as neatness. You could nearly have got a full-sized wether into a quart pot, and I feel sure if he had persisted in his improved method of sheep breeding until now he might have got the whole of his clip of wool into one bale, and congratulated himself on the great saviDg of woolpacks." The Taranaki Herald of the 2nd instant contains a report of a farewell dinner given to Mr A. Simpson, the late Manager of the National Bank iv New Plymouth, on the occasion of his removal to Wellington. The chairman, in proposing the health of their guest, alluded in very complimentary terms to the tact and judgment displayed by Mr Simpson in tho difficult position he occupied at time when Now Plymouth was passing through the most severe commercial crisis it had ever experienced.