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

The London Times devotes two columns and a half to a description of the destruction of the Kelly gang. \ The Christchurch Press tells us tbere is no mistaking what Grey ism was. It was admirably summed up by one who may be assumed to have been an authority. After one of Sir George Grey's great meetings at Christchurch, an enthusiastic member of the audience, on gaining the open air, was heard, as he heaved heavily against the wall, thus to express his approval of tho speech : " Tha'sh yer style 1 No more gen'lemen ! No more propputty 1 No more nothink 1 Hooray for Sir George Grey !J" The Dunedin Herald is thus caustic and plain-spoken about an amateur singer at a receni entertainment : — In order to prove thafc this singer has been ill-advised to come forward at this early stage in his study of vocal music, we shall take tbe liberty of giving bim a few valuable bints for use on the occasion of his next appearance beforo a public audience: — lst. lt is nofc necessary for a singer to keep time audibly with the right foot. 2nd. The body should not bo allowed to swing to aud fro as if it were a big pendulum in regular work. 3rd. The voicj should be reasonably cultivated before an amateur or a professional vocalist appears in public. We entiiely object to an audience playing what amounts to a practical joke on an amateur Binger by recalling him, when they know perfectly well that be has been mistaken in his views as to what is due to music as a science. If the gentleman referred to had not been induced to sing an encore song last nigbt, we should not have had the pleasure of bearing " Dear England" described as a country " i where the prinirotheth bloom," and the wish expressed, " Glory be with her and peath evermore." ;

Rpferring to a recent meeting of the unemployed at Greymouth the Jioss Advocate says :— We may mention there are at present employed on the Greymouth barbor works one man and a boy. The former's employment is standing. at ease eight hours per diem stock of, and the exact poai'ion of, each, boulder as it rolls away into the Grey river. The latter's work is to hie to tho Resident Engineer at these intervals wiih the news — " another boulder gone, Sir. 11 One of the passengers tells " Atlicus" that on the night wben tbe Sorata struck all was confusion, women f.inting, men running hither and thither, and seamen swearing with true British energy. At this critical moment, when the cry on all sides was for the boats, and wheu trunks were being eagerly opened by owners anxious to save something of their valuables, the understewards went tbe rounds and presented tbe wine bills for settlement! The editor of the Wellington Chohicle apprehensively acknowledges, receipt of the following epistle:— "Port Nicholson. The Editur, Eronikel. Sur,— lf you doant print tm? J??e letter ijyich is inside, me and njy bull piip will w&nt.tq knoaw the reeßih Y. Yburs til deth, A.B.C. P.S.— My Will ptip has chawd up 3 bloomin editurs. Inishuls as be 4 " The editor has armed himself with a Gatling gun. A corresponded Writing from Kafamea to tbe Westport Times says:— The contractors are pushing ahead, with the rpad, but four shilling fdr June Hc>ur§ work iS not etiobgh when provisions are so expensive. However, . that is what the men will get, 'and it is what they received fpr the last contracts. They say they want the uioney to take the rbad as far as tbey can. The first water race was finished twenty days ago, and the two men (Allan aud Brown) washed up last Saturday week. The result was 14ozs for twelve days work. N o t had that for two men, and at Karamea'. _ . The profuse expenditure of public money, says the Dunedin Herald, has fostered habits of unttirift. atid extravagance among the people at largo ; the colouy, in a word, has grown ItlkUriouS and gehleel before its time ; our youths are all for the higher education (save the mark !) and gentlemanly billets ; manual labor is degradation, fit only for diggers and clod-hoppers ; and thus Young New Zealand, instead of cheerfully and rhanfully subduing the earth with the labor of its hands, prefers to strut abottt the Streets as an impecunious dandy. The following advertisement appears in the Akaroa Mail:— "1.0.C S —Tho Independent Order of Cockatoo Settlers invite tenders for tbe service of a 'jEree ranger.' His duties will be to harass the smaller birds, to be ever on the alert, prowling around their nests, and •tormenting until they are finally confiscated and abandoned to our own use. Qualiflca tions — A bankruptcy member, a smooth slippery tongue, and a broken down swell j none others need apply. Testimonials to be sent to the Gilded Hall, Head of tho Bay." The first thing is to make your sermon plain. Mr Bloomfleld preached on the text, " The fool hab said in ..hia heart, • There is no God.* " Wishing to find out how it pleased bis people, he called on one of his congregation and asked bim how he liked tbe sermon. The reply, which made Bloomfleld a sadder and a wiser man, was, " Well sir, I must say that I can't agree with you. In spite of all you've said, I think there must be a God." Referring to the proposed sale of land at Te Aroha to Messrs Grant and Foster, the Thames Star saya: — Much of the lacd though rich, is swampy, and the persons who settled on it would need to be provided with capital to expend on it before it could be made reproductive. Mere cockatoo farming would be almost certain to result in the ruin ofthe settlers. The English farmers it is proposed to introduce will have Borne capital to tide them over the flrst few years, and coming from Lincolnshire may be expected to be somewhat acquainted with the treatment of low lying and swampy lands. The benefits to tho district at large through having such a class of settlers would be incalculable, and the only thing we regret is that the Board could not sco their way clear to charge lesß for the land ; indeed sooner than miss this opportunity we would prefer to see the land disposed of to them at a very low rate, as long as the conditions of settlement were insisted upon. The successful farmer does nothing for a livelihood but farm. If he has money, he invests it in a way that will improve bis farm. He informs himself as to his business, and goes to work in an intelligent manner. Upon his farm no weeds stand as high as a man's head, no fence is neglected, building dilapi- ■ dated, implements left exposed to the weath" er, stock unsheltered aud uncared for, but ' everything denotes thrift and enterprise. A " poor victim " of reduction writes to the Christchurch Echo as follows: — "I want to know how I am to live on and pay my way out of 6s a day ? I have a wife and four children to support, and my cost of living is: Rent, 10s per week; firing, 3s; butcher, 7s j baker 3s 6d; grocer, 10s; vegetables, 2s 6d; leaving for clothing, tobacco, and beer, nil. As to recreation, I don't want any; and, as to sickness, it must take its course. I must get into debt (and that I mean to do), for that is my only means of preventing semi-starvation, but then, Sir, being a Civil servant I cannot claim the protection of the bankruptcy laws under pain of dismissal. So I ask a generous public what am I to do ?" Dr Tanner's feat of endurance, says an American paper, is more than a mere sensation for the New Yorkers. It has become a fashion. Crowds of beautifully-dressed ladies wait daily on the fasting. man, and, as ' may be imagined, wagers were freely laid as to his success. The whole business, however, to the cool onlooker appears simply revolting, and the pseudo-scientific interest imparted to the feat is merely a piece of hypocrisy. I trust the practice of fasting will not set in here, and be added to our own walking and swimming crazes. Happily, few persons would submit to such an ordeal. In reply to a letter from the committee of the Sydney Weslpyan Church, in reference to Sir Henry Parkes's action on the Proctor Sunday lecture question, the Premier says: -"I am gratified that you rightly com prehend the grounds of interference with > Mr Proctor's proposed lecture on the Sunday evening. I yield to no man in my desire to < maintain unimpaired the . liberty of speech, ! but well-ordered liberty in tbe perßon ;is ( limited by due respect for the liberty en joyed by others. The people who on a Sun- 1 day night conld disturb tho worship in St James's Church by their cheers and groans < couldn't, I fear, bave a very clear conception of this well-ordered liberty." He con- , eluded by saying: —"If Sunday could bei secularised for the gratification of the tastes i of the well-to-do, the day would soon, by au J easy transition of customs, be secularised for the employment of those who are not their own masters. Sunday is especially tbe British workman's sacred day, and I trust he will ever hold fast by it." "Broadbrim," the New York correspondent of the Westp'rt Timet, writes :— Over 43,000 in a month, almost 2000 on a siugle vessel, and nearly 5000 in a single nay, is the startling rate at which we are adding to our population. It is one of the sights of the city to vißit Castle Garden, tbe place where the immigrants arrive. Every quarter of the globe and the Islands of the Sea, seem to hero find a representative : Russian, Dane, Norwegian, Swede, dark haired and dark eyed sons and daughters of Italy and Spain, blonde Germans and Hollanders, English, Irish, French and Swiss : here and there you see a Chinaman and a Frank, while Roumanians', Albanians, and Greeks are by no means uncommon. The great body of emigrants who arrive here depart immediately to the far West, where many of them have friends whb bave preceded them ; aud those who have not look hopefully westward with the prospect of building up a home on its fertile praries. One thing is very romarkable, and that is in conversing with hundreds of them, not one of them ever appears to have heard of the Southern States. The great Northwest appears to be the " promised land," and thither tbey go. One feature of the emigration from Northern Europe which is particu*larly striking, is the absolute simplicity and honesty of the emigrants. They come here to labor, not to hunt for office ; they look to the rich prairies of the West, where they expect to build up their homes, iustead of the gin-miils and brothels where aldermen ar? manufactured,' and State elections are decided. „

The Dunedin Herald is not complimentary lo our legialatora when it says:— "Boys will be boys, and our greenhorn Parliamenters are surely as much entitled to a fair amount of indulgence as the larrikins for whom Dr Stuart pleaded so partriarchally a few days ago," A kindly widow lady in Sydney adopted a little boy, brought him up as her own, and lavished every affection upon him. The youth repaid her kindness when he became a man by marrying bis benefactress. She is 75 and he 30. lam told the pair are " most devoted to each other, sbe is such a nice old lady oue cannot help liking her." Talk about a man marrying his grandmother after that! — Observer. A new industry has lately come into existence on the West Coast mountains. On the banks ot Lake Lyndon, between Christchurch and Hokitika, may be seen an ice house, full to the roof with large blocks of ice obtained from the lake adjoining. It is the intention of the enterprising dealers to dispose of their winter gathering during the summer months in the City of tbe Plains, or wherever the public most desire to cool tbeir sparkling or still Moselle, their creams or jellies, or their burning coppetSi The Christchurch Press received, and gives for what it is worth, the following telegram from an unknown correspondent at Reefton: It has been discovered that a bed of rock within a few feet Of the surface prevents the driving of piles for the General Government bridge over the lnangahua river as contracted ftir. This is apparently a gross engineering blunder— Great public indignation is felt and freely expressed by the whole j press of the West Coast against the threatened deprivation of District Judge Weston. His seven years* 1 administration on the Bench has proved exemplary in the highest degree, and his summary deposition without cause is viewed as a violent, wrongful, arid wholly unprecedented breach of the independence of the judicial Bench. The strongest public feeling prevails on the subject. I The London correspondent of the Melbourne Argus writed i— The) telephone is getting to be pretty generally laid between i " churches and chapels and the houses of the well-to-do bedridden." Chants, hymns, and lessons are distinctly heard, but only a very little of the Bernion. This, I fear, will prove a great temptation to some churchgoers to stop St febme, When We consider, too, that tbe collection plate cannot he sent by telephone—but there, I will impute no motives. In the Live Stock Journal (of all sources to supply a romantic incident) there is (says a correspondent of the Argus) au account of a yery sober retriever— let iis hdpe or a mourning colour — who always attends the funerals of the household in which he is located. If attacked by another dog during the solemn ceremony he takes no notice, but treats him with contemptuous silence ; and when the ■ervice is concluded begins to howl as if at :an Irish wake. Except the howling this is surely most exemplary conduct. lam vary . staid at funerals myself, but if attacked by • a dog— well, I am afraid I should exhibit [emotion. Says the "Ashburton Mail" i— An instance \ of the manner in which the Railway Depart- : ment conducts its business has lately come under notice. A portion of the planking of the gangway leading oif the platform at the Rakaia station was found to be rotten, necessitating the putting in of three new planks, averaging in length about ten feet. The station inaster, as in duty bound, reported the matter to the proper authorities. A workman was sent down from Christchurch, who took the dimensions of the work that wanted doing, returning to town again by the next train, coming up again the next— or a day or two after — and fixing the planks in their places, the work necessitating the driving of about eighteen nails, when the job was finished. The man travelled one hundred and forty miles by train, spending the better part of two days and carrying the timber thirty-five miles, to execute a job that could have been done on the spot in half-an-hour, at a cost of not more than five shillings 1 Au English paper thus records the advent • of an "Enoch Arden " : — The inhabitants of a quiet little town in England (Kimbolton, Hants) had a moat sensational item to digest on August 9 last. On the evening of that day tbere appeared a stranger — in itself a • matter of interest in that sleepy, out-of-tbe , way-place. After a time the stranger was recognised as John Willows, who, about 25 ; yeara previously, bad been transported for : sheep stealing. For some years nothing , whatever had been heard of him. His wife, after waiting 24 years, married again, her husband being a steady well to do man of the i labouring class. At the time our corresponI dent wrote— August 11 — the village gossips had not determined what was to be the issue I of the affair. There is a woman in San Francisco who falls asleep every time she sits down, and even wheu standing by the window Bleeps there, to the no small surprise of the passers by. Some months ago sbe bad a tumour taken from her side, and ever Bince she had had continual pain in the back, allayed only by taking laudanum, which dose, from fifteen drops, she haß insensibly augmented to three tea«poonf ulls a day. As she eats her breakfast the spell comes on, and she sleeps for hourß, and no matter what her occupation may be, off Bhe drops into the embrace of Morpheus. She cannot give up the drug, and the poor woman has so little strength that upon awakening from her sleep she is unable to Btretch forth her hand. 11 Broadbrim," the New York correspondent of the Westport Times, concludes his last letter as follows :— And this briDgs me to the Dog Show. Of course we must have sensation in New York. A murder, an elopement, a failure, a sudden disappearance, a French cook manufactured into a foreign Count or something of that sort ; a revival or a walking match, it makes no difference, and when these fail üb, we fall back upou the puppies. We aro goiog to have a Dog Show. The globe bas been ransacked for curs, aud we are going to have tbem all in New York. Everything in the shape of dog flesh, from a Siberian blood bound to a Skye terrier, the miserable little sore eyed mannikia that tho fine lady carries in her muff, the black muzzled ball that ornaments the front of a butcher's cart, the villainous spitz > suggestive of hydrophobia ; all the;snarling > little curs that run through the fence and get > a nip at the calf of your leg before you know >it ; we are going to have them all. The exhibition takes place in the Madison Square Garden, and that the lives of these valuable canines may not be placed in jeopardy, a j council of eminent architects has been called. Every part of the building has been thoroughly > examined. Now supports and braces have bsen placed in the roof and walls. The lives of the dogs hava been insured, and five medical experts have been engaged to take charge of the cano-pbarmaceutical department. This ia eminently proper and just, 'every dog has his day ;' but one cannot help thinking that if one half of the care, foreBight, and humanity which is expended on these dogs had been given to the multitude Msembltd at tbe Hahnemann Fair ninny precious lives might have been Bayed, and the city spared a horror, the like of wbich has not been known for many a day. Still we are going to the dogs, when the Bhow openß, and if any of your readen feel interested in what oc-curs thore, respectfully inform them that it will be continued in our next.