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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XVI, Issue 87, 12 April 1881, Page 2

The Sydney Bulletin says : Our sporting friends will be pleased to hear that tho final deposit for the foot-race between the Hon. John trticas and the Hon. George Thornton Wa. made tit the Assembly rooms last night. The race will be run on the lst of April} the distance being three times round Alderman Pitt's big straw hat, and the competitors will start at 6 a.m., iti ofder that one of them at least may pass the winning post before the timekeeper's ticket points to midnight. : Sir. John Robertson trains Mr Lucas at the Coffee Palace, whilst Dan O'Connor does the like office for George at Uhde's. Considerable excitement was caused this morning by the report that an attempt had been made to " get at" the former well-known ped, by placing anti-fat in his doup, and oyster-shells in his boots ; hut we believe there is not the slightest foundation for this rumour, and that it is merely a Ministerial trick to rig the betting. At a private trial, we hear, Mr Thornton ran 250 yards in 3h 59m., and only sat down twice to re-fill his bellows. A close contest is expected, and sleeping accommodation will be made on the ground for visitors. It is reported that Spofforth, Bonnor, and Murdoch intend to settle permanently in Melbourne when the Australian Eleven is disbanded. Thia will be a loss to New South Wales cricket. The Marquis of Normanby has directed the attention of the City Corporation of Melbourne to tbe intolerable stench from the Yarra, making Government House almost uninhabitable. 140,000 sacks of wheat are stored at Lyttelton waiting shipment. The stores are crowded out, and there are 7000 sacks stacked in the open. A witty old American judge, who had spent an evening with a young lawyer in tbe country, whose office was on the second storey, on. taking . his departure, stumbled on the stairs and fell to the bottom. The lawyer, hearing tho noise, rushed out, and seeing the judge lying on bis back at the bottom of the stairs, hastened down, and with great anxiety askecl,.' s 'i*your honor hurt?" "No," said the judge,, scrambling to his feet — " but my legs are. V Two 'gentlemen recently arrived in tbe coloqy,, have brought with them the necessary appliances for manufacturing starch, and havp. leased premises near Dunedin. In wheat, oats, and barley, the province of Otagojields the highest average in the colony, and in individual instances wheat gives 70, barley 80, and oats 100 bushels to the aore. At the Sydney International Exhibition there was shown a dwelling-house constructed exclusively of paper, and furnished throughout with articles manufactured of the same material. It may interest musical readers to know that since 1878 the publishers of "H.M.S. Pinafore" have sold over 200,000 copies. The " Pirates of Penzance" was published on November 11, and by December 81, 32,000 copies had been disposed of, and the cry is still for more. The World, speaking of a third new operetta, by Messrs. Gilbert and Sullivan, says it is growing, growing. The subject is the over-poetic, hyperbolic, {esthetic mania of society. No sarcasm against any individual, but any amount of happily humorous castigation of general manners. All the Turkish Government departments some time ago received orders not to pay any salaries or make aDy other payments whatever until the end of March, the whole revenues of the State being absorbed by the military preparations in progress. A shocking accident occurred at tbe Waipoua Mills, near Masterton, on Monday. An employe named Eogden was sending boards through a planing machine, when his shirt sle.Ve waß caught in a revolting disc, and the arm drawn into the machine. The elbow joint waß" completely crushed, and the limb otherwise severely injured. An «ccentrio Englishman, not long » resi-dent-of Paris, has just committed suicide, after 1 having having devoted twenty years to a l , strange mania. Every six months he had a coffin made for himself. Each was too long, too short, or uncomfortable in »om6 way, until the last proved perfect. Hrviog no further object in life, he killed himtel.. The Sydney agent of the London Mi.sionary, Society has received a telegram con firming the news of the massacres at Thurs day Island. It states that Halu and four teachers were killed, together with two pf their wives, four children, and two natives. The reason assigned is a desire for notoriety, and the fact tbat other massacres had been unpunished. Pour natives escaped by swimming. Teachers from other stations have been removed to Port Moresby. Of the 193 members of the House of Commons at present returned by Irish constiuencies, 51 voted in favor of Mr Parnell's amendment to the Address, 23 voted against it, and 29 Were absent from the division. In the Victorian Government Gazette it is stated that there are 10,700 landholders backward in coming forward With their payments ; and the question is asked— will these debts ever bo collected ? This beats the defaulters under the land on deferred payments system in this Coiony. .'•'.' A writer in the Australasian states that at a recent shire election one of . the candidates died before the election came off ; and, acting on the advice of counsel, the ?;° j *? P rocee ded with. Singular to say the dead man was elected— not at all complimentary to the Becond qandidßtc,

A Petaluma farmer has a potato digger with which a man with a span of horses can dig from 200 to 250 sacks a day, according to the yield and lay of the ground. It requires about eight men to pick up, sack, and stow away the potatoes. The Westinghouse brake was recently tried on the Brizil railway, the Emperor be ing a passenger. The engineer slopped the train in SCO feet, in front of a large pasteboard imitation rock, in 12 seconds. It was only the other day announced that the Sugar Company, whose head- quarters are in Melbourne, had entered upon investments iv Fiji to the extent of £100,000 or more. A report on the South Australian lunatic asylums shows an enormous increase in the number of insane people. South Australia has now a larger per centago than any other of the colonies. It is a curious feet that women are employed at the Penuent Hills stone quarries, near Parramatta, New South Wales. Tbey do precisely the s ime kind of work as the quarrymen, and are able to earn £2 10s a Week easily. Wives are won in ffliny wnys (writes the Narracoorte Herald, South Australia,) but it was left for Narracoorte to dispose of a wife by putting hef up to ai ction with atent and cooking utensila—all io on-i lot. This Was done a few days 030 about two uVM* ««"» Nrt racoorte. A man who had been wor__ry here for some time was going away, and not to be encumbered with any unnecessary hindrances, the most cumbersome of which was his wife, he offered his effects, consisting of tent, cooking things, and wife for auction. 'The highest bidder was a blacksmith, who paid £6, and took over the chattels a. a job lot, without any objections from the live stock. Af tei- the fits: feelicg of strangeness has worn off the only wonder at tbis transaction is that in the present depressed state of busines so much as £5 should bave been obtained at such a clearing-out sale. A quiet man travelling a short time ago by rail in England, was annoyed by the noise which two cr three men In the same carriage were' making. One of them had been telling tremendous stories about himself in a loud voice, and had tried once or twice to draw out the quiet man, bnt in vain. At last he j turned to hirii and said, rather offensively,! « I fear, Sir, that onr noise has rather inconvenienced you ?" " Not in the least," he replied. " I thought/ returned the noisy man, " that you did not seem interested by my stories." " Quite the reverse, my dear Rir,'- said the quiet one ; "I was ytry^much so— ln fact lam a bit of a liar myself." The plant which was ordefed from Home ; a considerable time ago for the purpose of working the quartz reef discovered by Messrs. Brandon and Co near the Wairarapa Lake, has, it appears, arrived, and it has already been forwarded to Featherston hy train. The road which has been in formation since tbe reef was found to be auriferous, is being pushed ahead with additional vigour, and there is a prospect of the crushing mill being in active operation before many months have passed. The samples which hare been tested yielded nearly an ounce to the ton, ancl as tbe reef is wide and well-defined, there seems a reasonable prospect of good dividends being obtained, A prospector in the neighborhood claims to have discovered a vein of native silver. N. Z. Times.