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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XVI, Issue 143, 17 June 1881, Page 2

The new Czar leads a very simple life. He rises early and breakfasts with his family, and then puts on his boiler-iron overcoat and takes a walk in tbe back yard. The Chinese in Auckland are Bald to be the real proprietors of some restaurants connected with certain city hotels, and they employ European waiters to render their mysterious diphes palatable. In auburban and country land there is at the present time in Sydney an enormous amount of speculation, and rapid fortune? are being made by the prompt and knowing ones. Auctioneers have their regular Saturday tales, with free railway and tramway passes, free luncheons and bands of music. A contemporary of the Press writes :— A gentlfman of the Upper House, who, I believe," is called the Hon. Tom, is a great ; jbkeater. He was travelling once on the railway with two companions, find found he bad forgotten his pass. His friends chaffed him .very considerably, and told him it would be i awful fun to see him part. "I'll bet you a ; crown apiece I don't part," said the Honorable. M It's a wager," they both cried in one breath. To the trio in due course of time entered tbe guard. When he came to the Honorable, the M.L.C. whispered something iio bis ear, the guard bowing low passed on with a covert glance at tbe two friends, who looked on with much astonishment. As he passed on his way back through the carriage, the guard again surveyed the two friends with great interest. When they got out, they paid the Honorable the two crowns, and requested some information as to his course of action. * Well," said the Honorable, " I whispered to the guard that I was a detective, and was watching you two, who were two well-known thieves." Tableau. The Hamilton correspondent of the Auckland Herald writes :— " An instance of how lightly peeple from England look upon what we in New Zealand have so much made of to us— our indebtedness and consequent taxation — was exemplified here at the bridge meeting on Thursday night., A vote of thanks to country gentlemen who had come so far on an inclement evening was accorded, and coupled with the name of Mr. Barugh, the new proprietor of the Wartle Estate, and one who emigrated by the advice of Messrs Grant and Foster. Mr Barugh, in returning thanks, referring to the matter before them — a request to the Government to vote £7000 to make the bridge free— expressed an opinion that the indebtedness of the colony, made so much of by some parties, was a mere fleabite, and not so much as the capital account of a railway at Home of which he was a shareholder ; that he was quite surprised at the lightness of taxation, which was a mere nothing to what he had had to bear at home, either general or local, and that in his opinion if the colony's debt were doubled, for reproductivee purposes', the taxpayer, here would still sit much easier than the taxpayer at home."

Sir Julius Vogel lms become an active director of the Telephone Company, which Was subscribed many times over in two days and a half. Professor Proctor, the astronomer, and Mrs Sallie Crowley. were married at St. Joseph, Missouri, and have left for Chicago. They sail for Europe on June Ist, n,nd next fall will start on a tour of the world. His wife went to Australia with her invalid husband, hoping the voyage would do him good. He died there, and the Professor and widow arranged matters on the voyage back again. It is reported that the German Emperor burst into a violent fit of sobbing on hearing the dreadful end of his nephew, the Czar, and it was some time before he recovered sufficiently to hear the end of the telegram read out to him. To make him Bleep that night the ' physicians had recourse to tnediecine, after which he rested a few hours ; tut during the latter part of the night he was again awake reflecting on the tragedy. His first proposal having been to start for St. Petersburg at once, the Crown Prince offered to go in his stead. In. the meantime the Crown Princess, who did not wish her husband to tarry longer than necessary in bo | dangerous an atmosphere as that of St. Peteraburgh, ascertained that the day of the funeral and of the coronation were still distant, and that the Russian Court were by no meats anxious to have a number of royal guests waiting unnecessarily in the capital. Thus the Crown Prince's departure waß put off for a few daya. A Munificent Bequest.— The trustees of the late E. R. Harris, late prothonotary of Lancashire, who have the disposal of a bequest of over £200,000 for certain charitable purposes generally indicated in the will, have just approved of a scheme submitted by a deputation from the Library Committee of the Preston Corporation for the erection and endowment of a new free library, subject to the sanction of the Master of the Rolls. £60,000 is granted to the building, £7500 for a reference library, the same sum for works of art, and £15,000 for endowment. An application has been made for a grant towards the endowment of the Preston and County of Lancaster Royal Infirmary. It is reported that the trustees are making grants of a sum of between £25,000 and £40, 000 towards the endowment of technical education in connection with tbe Institution for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, Preston. The London Tawes recently contained a very remarkable and conspicnous paragraph, headed " The Court," and describing Her Majesty's journey from Windsor to Osborne. It appears that precautions are now taken for the Queen's safety like those adopted in Russia, and that, contrary to all previous etiquette, the papers have been permitted to describe them. The Queen's train has always been preceded by a pilot engine, but on the occasion mentioned the railway along its whole length was watched by platelayers, provided with flags and fog-signals, so that an alarm might be sent instantly along the line. The departure announced for a Tuesday, was changed to "Wednesday, and on the Qusen's* arrival at Portsmouth, both the Alberta and the Admiralty yacht the Enchantress were found in waiting. The latter had been suddenly ordered up, tbe Queen ma^e her choice at the last moment, and the Echantress was chosen. All this, as the Sptctaior observes, must mean either that the Government have information that the Sovereign is threatened, which seems impossible, considering her relation to the Executive, or that the recent catastrophe in St. Petersburg has producod an impression in her Majesty's mind that all crowned heads are in danger. Neither solution is a pleasant one, more especially when it is remembered that the, Queen throughout her reign has displayed great personal courage, and has not the least reason to apprehend any loss of her popularity with her subjects. Even the Irish do not attribute the Coercion Bill to her, and the danger must either come from abroad, or be wholly imaginary. The startling results of the Victorian and the New South Wales census are thus commented on by the Federal Australian : — " The population of the New South Wales is likely to be 100,000 beyond what has been estimated. The census of Victoria has fallen short of what was anticipated by 70,000 souls. This anticipation was not mere conjecture. It was the result of a mathematical calculation. The accuracy of this could only be affected by some social phenomenon, which could not possibly obtain iu the history of a nation's progress, and therefore is pe "mliar to the history of a nation's decline. lit s, then, Victoria reached the second and final part of a nation's htory — that is, isthe commencement of a nation's decay ? Has the senility and dotage of old age come upon the colony even before it has reached the first blush of youth ? Or is there some social or political worm .eating at its core, and superinducing disease which the census by its diagnosis has brought to light ? What does this blight upon the population mean ? Has it to continue, or must it be got rid of ? What is- it ? Is it protection or its results ? Or is it that harpies are preying upon and consuming the entrails of that which belongs of right to the population of a country and to nothing else ? As the moving straw shows the wind's direction, so have social and political straws for some time guided us in judging the art from which and the destination to which the miasmatic breeze of our colonial policy for the last few years has been wafting the population that should now be'ours." Cairo has recently been plunged into profound consternation by the discovery of an appalling crime — or rather series of crimesperpetrated in that city by a religious recluse, Shiekh (Hamuda Burda, hitherto enjoying a high reputation for sanctity, and even popularly credited with supernatural powers of extraordinary efficaciousness in the way of curing female patients by holy spells, imparted to him by the prophet. Women- were wont to make pilgrimages f ron all parts of lower Egypt to the house of this supposed saint, in order to solicit his intercession with Allah on their behalf. A few weeks ago the wife of an Egyptian officer betook herself to the Shiekh's residence for this purpose. When, however, several hours had elapsed, without anything having been seen or heard of her since she entered Hamuda's doors her husband applied to the Cairo police for assistance to discover her whereabouts, and a rigid search was forthwith instituted in the holy man's domicile. To the horror of the unfortunate officer, hi*3 wife's body was found, with several other female corpses, thrust into a huge cistern standing in the Shiekh's garden. This cistern, in fact, was brimful of murdered women. Haniuda Burda, arrested on the spot and conveyed to prison, subsequently confessed to the Cadi that it had been his practice for some time past, whenever consulted by a female possessed of rich jewels or other portable property of value, to invite his visitor to take a turn with him in his garden, where he womld then proceed to strangle her, despoil her remains and fling .them into the cistern. Egyptian justice has probably by. this time made an example of this saintly personage by hanging him up in front of his own house door. — London Telegraph.