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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XVI, Issue 16, 19 January 1881, Page 2

Two men took into a cellar of the Bold! Arms, Southport, a 32 pounder Armstrong shell, which they had found on the shore! opposite the batteries. One of the men applied a light to the shell, which had not been emptied of its charge. An explosion; followed, severely injuring one man, and; causing considerable damage to the premises. 1 The Americans are going to send over toj England for trial an engine whose easy normal Bpeed is sixty miles an hour, and which: on occasions, it 1b supposed, can beat an engine in England. It was built to run between, New York and Philadelphia, bu,t is first to be tried on one of the English lines,' in the hope that America may get a lion's; share in the locomotive business in that; country. The American travelling agent for DeeriDg's harvesters seems to be somewhat favor-: ably impressed with the stock in New Zealand.. He says—-" You can lick us in fat sheep, fat! bullocks —steers, as we call them —and in draught horses. We're just nowhere when that kind of stock is in question j but in light

harness horses, hacks, and hogs I guess we can walk right around you, and go clean right out of sight ahead of you in them. —Star. In the London Court of Bankruptcy Mr Taylor, of tbe firm of Morton aud Taylor, merchants, who was one of the directors of the City of Glasgow Bank at the time of its failure, has been allowed his discharge, there being no opposition The liabilities at the time of the failure wore £2,418,868, and the assets £34,421. , The Timaru Herald records that what appeared to be a very deliberate attempt to ctimrait suicide was made about four o clock on Thursday afternoon. A well-dressed man deliberately walked it;!? the sea opposite Hallam's baths, with all his clothes J"' ne swam out a considerable distance, and tnen evidently repenting of bis folly, turned towards the shore. By this time, however, he was well-nigh exhausted, and was being rolled over aud over by the waves. A young lad, whose name we could not ascertain, at this juncture rushed into the sea, and after a plucky struggle, succeeded in briw>iag the half-drowned man ashore/ No sooner, however, did tbe latter recover hid senses, than he again attempted to make for the Water, but tbe»lad stuck to him like a brick, and prevented him destroying himself. Had it not been for the heroic conduct of the lad there is little doubt but that the coroner's services would hate been called into requisition. It is reported, in gosaip amongst the few persons taking any interest at present in matt ere -political (says the N. Z. Times), that one of the chief evfiata of next session mil be the withdrawal of the tax on beef, and tae imposition of school fees, that is to soy. an attempt will be made to have these two things done, and if tlie Mnlstty #o not yield, arm work with those who lead the movement; then the Government will be opposed on those points. The interests connected with the beer tax are powerful, and they are prepav-d to play A strong hand next session. _ The whole beer interest, it is thought, will be secured for the proposal to re-impose school fees, seeing that the removal of the tax depends upon ii. There^will. be numerous and powerful auxiliaries in tiio shape of the Catholic party, who are against the System, the Bible-iu-schools party, and those who arc .opposed to the State paying for the education of the young. The following ingenious suggestion is made by a correspondent of the New York Herald: "You recently called attention to an evil which exists in connection with the racing tracts of both England and America— viz., the unfair riding of horses by faithless jockeys. There is unquestionably a deep-rooted feeling in the minds of by far the larger number of the ordinary visitors to a race track that it is customary to manage certain races in the interests of certain owners and bettiDg mnn. One simple remedy is to increase the surveillance over the jockeys while riding n race, and to that end I beg leave to submit the following suggestions. Erect one or more stands, to be used as points of observation during the progress of a race, and at each of these stands place Fome one who may be relied upon to direct and report any false riding or other suspicious action on tbe part of jockeys. The pulling of horses generally occurs on that part of the track furthest from the principal stands, aud where it is difficult to see what is going on; the location of these observation stations around the course would effectually obviate this, and tend to allay the suspicious of a great number of very respectable people, who will con tinue to take pleasure in seeing good horses run fair races." A valuable heifer belonging to a farmer near Northallerton recently broke its leg, and it had to be amputated. The animal has since been fitted with a wooden leg, ou which it moves about with the utmost ease, which proves the absurdity of hastily ordering the destruction of animals that meet with such accidents. — Truth. There was lost and won on the boat race between Haolan and Trickett a quarter of a million of money. During the recent continued commercial depression so much complained of in Wellington, it is a remarkable fact that an expenditure in intoxicating drinks has been going on at the rate of £100,000 per annum, or at the rate of about £6 per head in the entire city and suburban population. There were 60 publicans reaping this harvest, hay ing, on the average, 300 customers each, (■supposing all were drinkers) and bagging £1800 per annum. These great sculling matches have given a great fillip to boat construction. The last new scheme to make raciDg boats buoyant i? to fill them with hydrogen gas. The idea of this is to enable scullers to go faster and stay better than in the ordinary shells. Mr Marks, a Newcastle gentleman, has made many experiments and spent much money with this object. Ilia last invention is a boat in which bags filled with hydrogen gas have been fixed, both fore and aft, inside the craft underneath tbe ordinary canvas covering. The hydrogen is supplied through small pipes from the cockpit. This gas boat was tried by Elliott, one of the champion rowers whom Hanlan beat so easily last year. It is said of the new boat that although " she did not stand so prominently out of the water as had been expected, she seemed full of life, and leaped to each stroke in a surprising manner." This boat j when tried against another certainly gained a considerable advantage, but this may have been due to the oarsman. It is undoubted that it sat more firmly on the water, and that while its competitor "dipped a good deal at the catch," it never yielded in the slightest. The results of these trials go to prove that there is something in the employment of gas, but it must be carried further before it is very generally adopted, and will never probably equal the advantages of a good sliding seat thoroughly well used. Some one has make a curious calculation of what Mr. Vanderbilt could do with his money. William V. Vanderbilt's income from his investments of 5 1,000,000d015. in 4 per cent Government bonds is represented at 5,000d015. daily, which is 208.25d015. per hour, 3.47d015. per minute, or 5 cents per second. Assuming that be is paid by the second, he cannot possibly spend his money, as he could not select purchases and lay down pieces fast enough. He could not throw it away ; to pick up, cast, recover, pick up, cast again, would take up the seconds, and if he worked all through the twenty-four hours without rest he could only dispose, onehalf his income. By living economically, saving up for four years, he could, placing his five-cent pieces side by side, make a nickel belt around the earth, or by converting his savings into one cent-pieces and mounting them in a pile, he could in twenty years erect a road to the moon and have 500 dols. to invest when he got there. Should his amusement take a charitable twist, he could out of a year's receipts donate twenty-cents to every man, woman and child in the United States, and have money left over. Other vast possibilities occur to the glowing fancy of the calculator. In one day he could go to 8,000 different circuses, eat 10,000 pints of peanuts, drink 6,000 glasses of lemonade, and have money left to get his boots blacked. He can afford to have 500,000 skirts washed in one day, and on the day of his death his income will buy ten first-class funerals. — Ithaca Journal.