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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XVI, Issue 98, 26 April 1881, Page 2

Over 131,000 Backs of grain were received at Timaru station this season, and 60,000 came in by drays. A new tannery, owned by Dunedia and Melbourne men, ie to be erected near Dunedin at a cost of £-20,000. There is a continual growl (says tho Auckland Herald) both in the Press and elsewhere, at the enofmous sum spent annually by the colony for educational purposes. But when it conies to retrenchment in detail, a chorU3 of protests are raised against that particular item being dealt with. At the meeting of the Board of Education yesterday, a country school committee preferred a mild roquefit that the Board would furnish the teacher's rfeaidenoe with window-blinds, clothes-posts, Sec. It appears that the dwelling is supplied with water-tanks, but the committee desired that the Board would " lay the water on." With an exhausted school fund, and the constable overrun to boot, to the extent of a couple Of thousand pounds, the members of the Board gave a sickly smile, aud the letter was laid on the table. In the estimates for the comiDg year the Minister for Education is scarcely likely to make provision for " laying the water on" in teachers' dwellings, and furnishing window-blinds and clothes-posts. The Roman Catholic Vicar-General of South Australia, in expressing his disapproval of a proposed procession and demonstration on St. Patrick's Day, said it was unnecessary to state his religious objections, but ho repeated his social ones, namely, that " these processions or demonstrations will Booner or later call forth counter demonstrations, which may cause ill-feeling and hatred amongst the citizens of this hitherto pacific land, as they have caused them even in Ireland and in America." A Celestial named Ah Fat was charged before one of the Victorian Courts recently with maliciously wounding Ah Tung, a fellow countryman. It appeared that a letter had arrived addressed to Ah Pat, of [which complainant took possession, and, having opened, read the contents. On the defendant's return he, in consequence, became " exceeding wroth," it being the law in China, as alleged, that if one man opens another man's letters the wronged one is allowed to ttab the offender to the heart. Ah Fat proceeded to enforce the penalty on Ah Tung, but only succeeded in inflictiDg a nasty wound on complainant's forehead. The Wairarapa Standard says that a sum of £600 has been loat through the carelessness of the Stamp Department, and will have to be made good by the employees of that Department. Our contemporary makes the following statement by way of illustration : " There were placed on a deed fifteen one pound stamps. These fifteen stamps had been removed, and fifteen shilling atampß substituted in their stead. The question naturally arises, how could this happen ? In tbe simplest manner conceivable, as we shall show. The deeds of the district at least, and a great proportion of those in the Colony, are kept ia a safe in the old Provincial Buildings in Wellington. This safe, we are told, has not been kept locked for two years. If our information should prove incorrect, the erroneous statement shall find a frank apology following on its heels." Kauri gum has been fouud on Viti-Levu, the largest island of the Fiji group, ou which the new capital of the colony has been founded. The gum is found both on open land and in the bush. The extent of the deposit is believed to be large. The Post thinks it cannot be pleasant to the Ministry in power to be bo often rudely told that they are only tolerated through fear of a return to the Grey-Macandrew regime being brought about in case of a change of Ministry. Still less is it to the public advantage that there should be no wider choice, Yet we see no hope of a more healthy condition of politics until after the general election, while even that," so far as its influence for good or evil is concerned, will necessarily be affected materially by the issues which will be submitted to the electorates, and these can hardly fail to grow out of the coming session and its events. This brings us back again to very much the same ground as we started from, and it must be confessed that the outlook of politics at present does not appear very brilliant. The pretty playfulness with which little children charm away the cares of their parents was illustrated by a touching occurrence in Indiana. A boy of six years, after watching the laundry proceedings, and especially the way in which the wrinkles in the linen disappeared before the fiat iron, retired to meditate in the room where his father was taking his after dinner nap. There, gazing on the furrows which years of struggle bad made upon the marble brow of his parent, he was seized by a beautiful idea. In less than a minute that devoted little boy was smoothing out those marks of time and sorrow with a very hot flat iron. Life doesn't seem so happy to bis young heart now as it used to. We English (says Truth) have not yet fully realised what utter knaves the ruling Pashas in Turkey are. Wo solemnly read their despatches and their State papers as though they were not written with the deliberate intention to deceive, and we ask them to make pledges, aa though they would be bindiog on them. So long as wo regard these scamps as anything but a gang of shameless tricksters, ready to sell themselves and their country to the highest bidder, wo shall yaiuly eneavour to handle the Eastern Question. There aro but two arguments which they understand— money and the slick. If wo are unprepared either to buy them or to beat them, we should not waste lime in negotiations, but withdraw from all communication with them. The Crown Law Department of Victoria is taking steps to recover probate duty on £135,000 in one estate in which the doty was eyadod,

The-: Tston. Mail t!o=ovib<?.fi fc rove! method of hatching eg.'?. Jt appears that on Iho Momahaki 'block aDr Diekio net ft hcu on eggs in a hollow tree. Uiglnr up ?bo s>& jug treo a cat bud a nest of Irillena. Mr Diclde put a sitting of c/rgs at tho bottom of tho, cat's bed, put the killeua on them and waited. Cats and kittens kept the eggs warm and in dun timo all 1 lie cat's cbickons were ha.'clicvl without injuty. Tiicie chickens were then lii'ttd down amongst tho ben's own brood, and the whole clutch are nourishing like one family.