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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XV, Issue 247, 18 October 1880, Page 2

Several small parcels of gold (says the Martborovgh Times') have been brought into town from the Upper Wairau diggings within the past few days, but the old story is repeated that there have beeu no large finds, but sufficient is being obtained to warrant further prospecting and encourage the belief so generally entertained that payable gold exists in very considerable quantities jin the locality. ! We learn that the Hon W. J. Clarke and hia brother, Mr Joseph Clarke, have irented the new and Bpacious hotel, called "jEsplanade," St. Kilda, for fifteen weeks ;at the modest sum of £1000 a week, for the entertainment of their friends and others, visitors to the Melbourne Exhibition. ! One of the many peculiarities attached to our expensive importations of immigrants from Europe lately came to light in Otago. It appears that •• an old colonist " wanted a trip Home, bo he went to the Immigration department and nominated a tamily .whom he wished to bring to New Zealand, i This being comfortably settled, he took his departure. The family in question had no existence, but our friend got the nomination papers which he had sent to some friends, and with these he very soon fabricated a family. There were several of them, aud be managed to extract some £30 from the lot in return for the bogus nominations. The depnrtment of immigration in England is evidently worked on a peculiar system by which occasionally really good men have been rejected, while useless people with forged certificates have been Bent out to vegetate among us. A rather humorous episode (says the Auckland Herald) occurred yesterday in the Supreme Court. His Honor Mr Justice Richmond, in discharging the jury, desired them to proceed to the Registrar's office, where they would be paid the sums allowed them by the Government for the expense of attending the Court in the service of the colony. The following colloquy took place : — His Honor: " But stay — will that be liable to 10 per cent ?" (Laughter.) The Deputy-Registrar, with the flush of a recent bitter experience, said: "They will have to pay a stamp duty on their allowance whenever it exceeds 40a." Hia Honor: " Oil, is that it ? Then go, gentlemen, to the office of the Registrar, and he wijr give you what is due to you, subject to such reductions as the exigencies of tbe country require." The Rev J. S. Rish worth, Wesleyan minister, formerly of Blenheim, has been lecturing in Christcburch on the "Waikato Campaign." One of the features of the affair was the singing of a Maori song. - ,

The MarVorough Times learns that Mr Pickering (of the firm of Sharp & Pickering) has secured what is generally considered one of the best sites in Blenheim for a residence. It is situated at Southside, and was laid out some five years ago hy Mr Cyrus Goulter, and the plantation is now, of course, in full vigor. We believo that Mr Pickering intends building shortly. Captain Steele has received advices that some of the farmers coming out uuder the auspices of Messrs Grant end Foster are to leave England in September for their new home in New Zealand. Mr Grant's two sons will come out shortly to take charge of the settlement, and until their arrival Captain Steele will continue to act as ngeut. The New Zeaar.d Hera'd believes the general impression will be that the negotiations have been brought to a satisfactory conclusion, and tliat the colony as well as the Lincolnshire farmers will be mutually benefited. French law has ruany eccentricities ; for instance, a gentleman is stopped in ths street at midnight by a thief. Drawing a pistol from hia pocket, he forces the man to. walk quiedy before him to ths station. Arrived ■thpi'o he tells the chief what has Occurred "Very well,'* replies the officer 5 "But have you permission 10 carry arms?" "But without the pistol which I happened to have I I should probably have been assassinated." " That is possible ; but th.^ police ordinance exists, and it is necessary that it be obeyed." 1 Is it allowable to carry arms which are not deadly if" •• Certainly." "Then look at my pistol. It has no hammer. To oblige a friend I was going to take it to a gunshop to have it repaired. 1 ' " Ob, if I had only Unown 1 " cried the thief. No Chinese farmer ever oows a seed of any kind of grain before it has beetl Soalied in liquid manure diluted with water, and has begun to geminate \ and experience has taught him that this operation not only tends to promote the growth" tlnd development of the plant, hut also protects the Seed from the insects hidden in the ground. We learn from, a Mudgee contemporary that Mr George Rouse, of Diraganbil, has cut the following weighty fleeces from half a dozen of hi* champion rams .-—Prince Imperial, the Mudgee show ram, cut 16lbs ; Royal Duke, l4lbs 5 Nugget, I4lbs 4z9 ; President, the Dubbo show champion, Islbs 2rzs ; Sir Water Scott, ifilbs ; Defiance, 14lbs 20z3. The fleeces taken from ten hogget rans average from 9£lb3 to 121b9, the average all round being very nearly 1 1 lbs. The question of teetotalism and longevity as illustrated in the death rate of various tfrieudly Societies has had another test applied to it recently, which confirms previous experiences of Life Insurance Actuaries. At the r<- cent jubilee celebration in Bradford, Mr Thomas Ounlifle, editor of the liech bile Magazine, read a paper which had been prepared by Dr F. R. Lees. In it he gives the annual comparative statement of the Colue Wesleyan. Friendly Society and the Colne Tent of Rechabites. The average rate of sickness for the Wesleyan Friendly Society was 10 days 19 hour?, and the average death rate was 139 per thousand, which gave a gain in favor of Rchabitism of 5 days 1 hour per member, and a lesa death rate of 4 per thousand. He then compared the Bradford District of Oddfellows, M.U., with the Bradford District of Rechabites, the members of both orders being engaged in the same occupations, living under th« same influences, and in similar localities, yet showing a marked difference in the sickness and deaths of the two orders. The average is taken over eight years, and brings out the following results :— Rechabites : Average sickness, 4 days 2 hours j death rate, 1 in 141 ; payments 5s 9Jd. Oddfellows : Average siukuess, 13 days 10 hours; death rate I in 14; payments 13s Id. In France it seems that Republican juries take a very lenient yew of the excesses of the fair. The other day Mdlle Rosalie G-allois, a very young and lovely girl, had been most cynically and shamelessly betrayed by a baker named Chaumont. No greater scoundrel than Chaumont was ever horsewhipped; butßosalie Gallois' great revenge did not fall short at whipping. She deliberately practised shooting for soma days, and then "went for" her recreant lover with a revolver, Three bullets took effect, but the baker recovered and was' able to give evidence in court. Mdlle Gallois herself said that, if she were imprisoned for ten years, she would begin shooting again ai soon as she came out. In spite of this, the sympathetic jury acquitted Rosalie, and the baker must go in some fear for his valuable life. He deserves no sympathy, and tha applause of the audience showed that their hearts at least sided with Rosalie. The San Francisco Alta describes the process by which most of the wheat of California is thrashed by steam, usually tho day it is cut The sickle is set on a level with the bottom of the lowest heads of grain, so as to take off no more of the straw than is necessary. From the platform behind tho sickle the grain is carried by an endless apron or elevator into a waggon driven alongside the header ; and this waggon, relieved by another at short intervals, transports the grain to the thrashing machine, which is not infrequently moved from one point of the field to another, so as to be near the header. Or, if the thrashing is to be done after the cutting, the header wagons throw their loads into piles, very different from the stacks carefully built of sheaves in those climes where the thrashing may be delayed until late in the fall, The management of the steam thrashing machine is usually the exclusive business during July, August, and September of its owner. If tho machine is one of the ordinary size, he expects to thrash about 1660 bushels — 100,000 pounds — in a day; that is, if the crop is heavy and the circumstances favourable. He employs a dozen men, who are ordinarily boardered by the farmer, and he receives from 5 to 8 cents per bushel for thrashing. His total daily expenses may be 60 dollars and his average gross receipts twice as much per day. A petrified human body weighing 1 nearly 2000lbs is said to have been found recently near the City of Washington. It measured six feet three inches in length, and was broad in proportion. The chest, arms, and legs were magnificently shaped and well preserved, and the head and tho rest were perfect. It had evidently lain upon its back. One leg was slightly drawn up, and the left hand was clenched, but there was nothing in it. Tbo right band grasped a tomahawk. The hair was rumpled and matted. A large hole was found in the forehead near the right eye, which looked as if it had been made by a bullet. The theory advanced is that this was some great chieftain who had fallen in battle with the early settlers, and his braves, being worsted, were obliged to retreat. Not haviD<j time to carry his body off with them, and not wishing tbe whites to fall heirs to it, they hastily dug a grave, and here deposited the' mortal remaina of their beloved leader. It is in perfect form and preservation, the features of the face depicting the death agony. Mr Edward Taylor, of Liverpool road, London, complains of the non-delivery of letters from New Zealand. He is informed by his friends in Wellington that five have been forwarded to him during the past two years, none of which he has received. Ho is also informed that the Postmasterat Wellington has stated that 500 letters have been lost during that period. If this be true, the sooner the authorities make inquiries into the matter the better. There must be somethiug radically wrong in tho Bystpm of transmission adopted by the Wellington Post-office, else it is quite certain a loss of 250 letters annually would not occur. The Rev. Harry Jones, rector of St. George's in-the-East, is travelling in Palestine, and seems inclined, in some respects, to quote Longfellow's words, " Disenchantment, Disillusion I" He writes : "I am sorry to say that the first little boy I mot in Nazareth cried ' Backsheesh ?' and because I did not give it threw a stone at me. It he had known bow full my heart was 1 He waa a handsome boy, too. Nazareth" ho adds, "is made up of western churches and eastern stinks." He saya, " there are two features, however, of Nazareth which belong to the age of Our Lord. One is the fountain just outsidejthe town, where all the women go to draw water, and where Mary often went leading maybe her boy by the finger, as a mother did while I looked on " A clergyman has invented a practical means of lessening the number of deaths by drowning. A chemical preparation is inserted between, the lining and the cloth in a portion of the coat, waistcoat or drees, The

moment a man falls into the water the coat Dflates, and. he cannot keep his head under the water. An interesting exhibition of this waa recently made in the large tauk at the Westminster, Aquarium. An attendant put on a coat with a preparation inserted in it. He fir3t went under a shower bath, where he was thoroughly drenched, to show that inflation would not take place under the ordinary circumstances of a shower, he then took a " header" into the water. He reappeared at the surface almost immediately, and the coat promptly inflated. Divesting himself of the garment it floated about until it was taken out. The Victorian Commissioner of Customs has discovered thot two of the officials of that department, drawing £300 per annum each, had for years devoted t heir time entirely to procuring information for a publication styledthe " Customs Bill of Entries." Both have received notice to go at the end of the year. The Melbourne Telegraph saya the contintied and summary dismissal of old public servants is creating, as may be supposed, great dread and uneasiness throughout all the departments. Tho uncertainty ns to whose turn it may be next is demoralising the officers individually, and destroying the morale of the service to an irreparable degree. A writer df small talk in an English exchange says : — Apropos of the shooting at Wimbledon, I have heard a rather amusing instance of American "tall talk," attributed to one of the American murksmen now encamped within the Association lines. An English volunteer was remarking on the wonderful good scores that h«d been made at this meeting, when the American replied, " Ob, I don't think so much of this kind of shootiug now. When I was in the Northern Army we used to practice a good deal, and had some pretty fair shots among us, but then we practised at a barrel, which we rolled down a bill, and any man- who put a bullet into it, except through the bung-hole, had 11 pretty rough time of it. There) were lots of us who could do this, and I have seen many a man put a dozen bullets through the bnn«hole.*' "Tall" shooting this with a vengeance. Hyde Park is full every afternoon— as it w,ould be were it the Desert of Sahara. Emerald turf and" luxuriant foliage have nothing to do, t am afraid, with the daily throng there. By the bye, speaking of the Park, reminds me of a rather curiotis scene enacted there the other day. Mrs. Langtry and the Earl of ShfewsburVy were observed in earnest conversation. She was seated in her stylish landau, on the door of which he leaned while he talked and smoked bis cigarette. Suddenly he was seen to take out his cheque-book, and with a pencil hastily fill out a cheque, which he tore out and handed to her, with an expression of face not the most pleading to look at. She, as hastily, put the cheque in her pocket, and, with that peculiar little nod of hers, drove awa} r . The scene wan witnessed by a mtmbor of intimate friends of both parties, find one, more observant than the others, states that the cheque was for £1000. When it is remembered— as is now but too well known — that the lady's husband at present finds it convenient to remain abroad on accouut of his wife's debts, the little episode is, perhaps, not so startling as it otherwise might be.— London correspondent of tbe S.F. News Letter. The Paris correspondent of the N.Z. Times writes ! — The fashionable criminal i 3 Menesclou, aged 19, the son of a clerk in the Wi r Office. He seems to be naturally depraved; he was sent to sea, as parents can do when sons are incorrigible, as they can also incarcerate them, or daughter*; in a reformatory, tic was dismissed after uudergoing 117 punishments — for him pleasurable excitements. Returning to Paris, he declined to work, frequented dramshops, but never drinkiup; associating with thieves, but never thieving; his weakness was for unnatural crimes. la the house where he resided with his parents, dwelt a family haviDg five children ; one oE (hese, Louise, he enticed lnst April, to his chamber, to receive a sprig of lilac ; ha violated, and then killed her, placing the body between two mattresses, be slept on it during the night, and next day, after hia parents had left for their employment, he heated the stove red hot, cut up tbe body into forty morsels, and commenced burning them. The odour and the hissing noise attracted the attention of the neighbours, and the mother, suspecting somethiug wrong, called in a police inspector. The door was burst open ; the murderer found at full, foul work. At the station house, when searched, the little hands of his victim were found in bis pocket. It was believed for a time he was mad ; indeed, sane people happily do not bo act, but, ai he took in his cell to writing poetry, tho alienists held be was responsible. Now, bhakespeare Bays, •' The lunatic and the poet are of imagination all compact." Ho will likely be condemned to the guillotine, especially as be requested the Judge to treat him as he did his victim, and so end the trial. The thermometer registers 102 deg. in the shade : this ma}' account for tbe rather increasing crop of murders, but strange to say, few suicides or sunstrokes. The sun may be the source of life, but it is not less so tbe cause of deaths.