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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XVI, Issue 79, 2 April 1881, Page 2

Mr. Tolhurst, manager of the Bank of New Zealand, Welling tou, ia said to have had an offer of £1,000 a year to act as manager for Messrs W. and G. Turnbull and Co, of that city. A DunecHn paper says that since Captain Hume's ukase has been issued forbidding tbe gaolers to give information to the preßs, the papers in that district have been unable to get the usual returns showing the state of the gaols. [Perhaps the Captain's next firman will order the gaol officials to wear a disguise when they go out on leave. Those newspaper reporters might get hold of them and obtain information on the sly. We lira in terrible times, Captain. A curious application of protective principles was made recently in Melbourne. A deputation from the " Cabmen's Union, inter viewing tbe Premier, protested against the city tramways "on the broad principle of protection." Of course Mr Berry could not see the foroe of the argument. On the subject of Society Journals, the writer of "Passing Notes'* in the Otago Witness says :— The society journal aims at establishing a reign of terror. No one's private life is safe from offensive allusion, nobody can tell whether himself or bis wife and ! daughters may not figure in some impertinent paragraph, and so a fatal curiosity, t suppose^ impels every one to buy the pape*. Horse-Whips and libel actions naturally make a large figure in a society journalist's experiences. Tbe Sydney Bulletin has just been cast in damages of £ioqo, with thumping costs, for one of its pleasant little paragraphs. A few lessons of this kind, together, with an occasional, ducking in a horse-pond, will perhaps bring these literary-blackguards. to reason." This is going to be all aw fill year. There cannot be a doubt of it. And here is the lucid reason for it given by an individual with more ingenuity than sense, who devotes himself to the study of coincidences. Eighteen hundred and eighty-one is intimately connected with the cabalistic figure nine. The two first numerals, one and eight make, nine; the two last the same. By adding the four, j oue arrives at eighteen or twice nine. Again, eighteen plus eight-yone equals ninety-nine or eleven times nine ; and eighty-one minus eighteen equals sixty-three, which is seven Limes nine. Lastly, read backwards or forwards, from left to right or right to left or even upside down, 1881 returns the same results. Ifrom all which, it incoutrovertibly follows that this must be an awful, <( a very : awful year." — Auckland Star. Some of the Queensland rivers are so infeßted with alligators as to be dangerous to horses and cattle, and pre-eminently so to human being* who wish to indulge in what is a necessity of life in that climate--bath-ing, i The Cairns correspondent of the Brisj bane; Courier writes :— Alligators are oa the pathjon the Barron. The week before last they' made free with a Chinaman, leaving but his basket of fruit behind. This week two horses belonging to a packer were attacked, and one of them, although he go free,; will be useless for a long time." There was rather a good joke on the Dunedini railway platform the other morning. One| of the heads of the department was strolling up and down enjoying his meerschaum, The railway constable, " death on dutyL" approached him. "Sir," he said, there is a by-law against smoking on the platform, and you are setting a bad example to tj»e general public." Mr H put Mb pipeiinto his pocket without a syllable. - £100,000 is said to have been spent by the Barqness Burdett-Coutts in aiding fishermen throughout the United Kingdom who have been, proved to be in bad circumstances and .deserving of aid. Either an unusual way of treating a presentation was carried out in one of our surburban townships one day last week (Bays the Post). The head teacher was leaving the school — retiring from the teaching profession | altogether, we believe — and as is wont in such cases, the scholars subscribed for and bought a handsome desk for presentation to him. Witty a few suitable remarks, tbe eldest boy presented the desk, and was answered thus: — ! ' Jisfc keep it laddie; I'll nae doubt be able , to git on veraweelwlthootit." The feelings !of the scholars may be imagined. . j A ! distressing accident, resulting in the { death of a little child belonging to Mrs Roadhe, occurred at Greatford on Thursday last.! The child in question, a little girl aged; three years (says the Rangitikei paper) had 'been left together with some other children by its mother, who had gone out fora few minutes. While she was away one of tbje children came to tell her that her little sister had fallen asleep in the wattr barrel, and Mrs Roache, on going back, discovered that [the, child had fallen head downwards into the barrel, which contained abost a foot of water, and had been suffocated.: Assistance iwas speedily at hand, but every effort failed to restore animation. The bomb with which the Czar of Russia . was destroyed was probably one of those " infernal machines " now bo well-known in Europe. By some they ore called "Orsini bomb's," after the Italian who attempted the life of Nopoleon III; : There are several patterns, but the simplest and most effective is thus described :— The bomb is a very pretty little: globe, of brittle "iron, about as. large as an orange, or perhaps father larger, which fa filled for action with gunpowder, or some other explosive. It is bored all over with small screw-holes, and into each of these, is inserted an ordinary gun-nipple. When used,; each ' gun-nipple ia capped, and the bomb being filled is fit for use. It is thrown from the hand, and, in whatever way it falls, it drops with considerable force upon at least one cap, which explodes tbe bomb. That used by Orsini inflicted a hundred or more: wounds' end destroyed several lives. Many such bombs have been seized at times, and it is believed that they are usually made at Birmingham, and secretly transported to the Continent. The Wesleyan Church properlyin Viotoria at the end of the financial year consisted of 651 sites of land, upon which were erected 492 churches, 10 parsonages, 118 schools, 2 cottages, and 42:pther buildings . The debt on tbe Church property in Victoria amounted to more that 25 per cent of the estimated Value. '';.""-' ■'"; ; v "' ,'.' '..:••;' ' ! ••: • ' ./.•-. AtjPenßhurstr(Vic4 >ria) a man *aa sent $o<gaol for having no visible means if sup» port. | On being seaioied £181 !8i fa cash was found upon him.

A Mr D<md Chrystnl of Oberon, New Rin.h WaeF. hae bPtn fined 'd per 100 staeeu ncr mile on a distance of 200 milee, or. a S S o £205 16s Bd. for trilling 150,000 nhepp oh a fof-igiTfi .xppditioD .I» is -commoD P iu the above colony, *fen *«1 ?•«»<» nn fl'fitatioD for the owner to Bend his flocks. S *lSfl V m the;«iui*. of neighboring. Bettl6S one factory in PW^P hta MgSJ °l beef fat, 1500 quarts of milk, and 15001 b of Ctter are daily consumed in the manufacr f \ r •> of oleomargarine, or bogus butter. tut*. _i ' ' — — — — ~— — .