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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XVI, Issue 191, 12 August 1881, Page 2

In an article on the expenditure upon intoxicating drinks the London Time* says : — With regard to the main question, the national drink bill, «nd the prevalence of excessive and extravagant drinking, unnecessary, if not worse, every Englishman must feel sore and anxious about it. Drinking baffles us, confounds us, shames us, and mocks ns at every point. It outwits alike the teacher, the man of business, the patriot, and the legislator. Every other institution flounders in hopelesp difficulties ; the publichouse holds its triumphant course. The administrators of public and private charity are told that alms and oblations go with rates, doles, and pensions, to the all-absorbing bar of the public house. But the worst remains. Not a year passes in either town or village without some unexpected or hideous scandal, the outcome of habitual indulgence, often small and innocent in its origin. Some poor creature, long and deservedly high in the respect, perhaps reverence, of the neighborhood, makes a sudden shipwreck of character. Under the accumulatiog influence of alcohol, aggravated perhaps by other still more powerful, still more treacherous agencies, the honest man turns knavo, the respectable man suddenly loses principle and self-respect, the wise man is utterly foolish, the rigidly moral man forgets his mask and his code, and takes a plunge into libertinism. It then turns out, what possibly some have suspected, that drink is at the bottom of it, and that some poor wife or other friend has long been doing the best that could be done t o check, to cure, and, at all events, to hide, till the truth would be out. Of course, on such occasions rivals and competitors in the race of life are cot to be denied their paltry triumph. It would be much more to the purpose to take the warning, and do something towards staying the huge mischief, which, in one vay or another, confounds us all, acd may, for we cannot ba sure, crush any one of us. Seventy-one million and a half acres of land are at present under cultivation in the United Kingdom. After thirty years' absence Robert Thorn, of Haverhill, Mass., came home recently, and i his first business was to kick over a tombstone that had been erected to his memory i many years before. A Boston paper states that a Chicago grocer sells soap, every tenth cake of which contains in its centre a gold dollar, and that the citizens of Chicago are in consequence getting to look tolerably clean. Absentee owners of Wairoa (Hawkes Bay) property, are now, many of them, anxious to sell. They are tired of holding "on spec." The yearly county rates have been well nibbed into them, and produced the desired effect. A correspondent of a French paper, commenting on the number of " mysterious disappearances " constantly occurring, not only in Frauce, but in England, starts a curious theory, quite worthy of an American paper. He maintains that death occasionally is actual dissolution. Persons attacked by this form of disease suffer no previous illness, have no warning of their approaching end, but suddenly cease to exist, and as immediately fade from sight. He asserts that some years ago he actually witnessed this phenomenon. He was out %Yalking with a friend, with whom he was engaged in an interesting question of the day, when instantaneously his companion vanished, and from that hour to the present has never re-appeared He has little doubt many of the missing persons so anxiously searched for by their friends and by the police have in like man- , ncr "melted into the air." At the moment of his friend's disappearence a strong sulphurous odour pervaded the atmosphere around ; but beyond this nothing remarkable was to be observed. The question is, he thinks, worthy of medical investigation. On the other hand, it is just possible that in the instance mentioned the missing man may j have become so thoroughly bored by the political discussion that he silent'y slipped away, and never again disclosed himself for fear of its renewal. On the Burdekin, North Queensland, Mr. M'Millan intends to have 1600 acres under augar-cane in 1883. At present he has a steam plough at work, besides 40 teams, all engaged preparing the land for planting. At a late meeting in Canterbury on the sparrow nuisance, a farmer exhibited 560 birds which he considered was about one third of the number he had x destroyed in three days with poisoned wheat. A remarkable marriage took place lately in Gawler (says the Bunyip). The bridegroom is a great grandfather, and is nearly eighty year 3of age, and the bride a blooming widow, some forty years his junior. The bridegroom's grand-daughter was married the week before. The following notice of motion is to be discussed by the Christchurch City Council : — '" The poles already erected being very unsightly, the Government be requested to have the new telephone and telegraph poles hereafter erected in the city wrought iron and painted, or the wires, where practicable, carried on the roofs." A correspondent of the Sydney Mail, writes : I extract the following figures from the Navy List for 1879 :- Salaries : Admiral of the Fleet, £2190 ; Admiral, £1835 ; ViceAdmiral £1460 ; Kear-Admiral, £1095 ; Captain of the Fleet, £1095 ; Commanders, ■£365 ; Lieutenant, £182 ; Sab-Lieutenant. £91 5s ; Midshipman, £31 18s 9d : Naval C*det, £18 ss. The fortunate inventor of " Zoedone," the new aerated effervescing drink, which is already becoming a favorite in these colonies, has just sold his patent to a company for £12,000, reserving to himself the right of manufacture. It is probable that this enterprising Welshman will clear at least £20 000 by his invention, no bad return for one' of the^simplest things ever devised,.

J. Pettibone, Baltimore, has sued the American Eapid Telegraph Company for i2OOO, claimed as damages for the non-de-livery of a telegram in Washington. It is said that the message was given to a hoy in Washington to deliver, hut the boy got into a fight on the way and lost it. According to the Melbourne Punch one of the membeia of the Victorian Assembly says that be eats with his knife because he likes it, and it annoys other people to see bim doing it. He adds that he isn't going to sacrifice one single badge of Liberalism to please anybody. When the Lusitania arrived in the London clocks (writes the Age correspondent) I took the opportunity of going down to the vessel, and I was informed on all Bides, by officers and passengers alike, how well satisfied everybody was with the success of the refrigerating experiment. The Bell-Coleman apparatus seems to have worked splendidly. Even in the Eed Sea, with the sun glaring directly upon the ice-chamber, the temperature was with ease kept eight or nine degrees below freezing point, and the result was that the meat kept perfectly sweet np to the last. When the Lnsitania reached Gravesend Bhe met the Orient as she was departing outward, and the meat which the former had remaining on board was transferred from one vessel to the other, so that the outward passengers commenced eating Australian beef and mutton from the start, A Queensland gentlemen, writing to a scientific friend in Sydney, says that at the mouth of the Noosa Eiver, a little south of Maryborough, eight human skeletons have been found in a cave, with a quantity of mathematical and astronomical instruments and documents. Persons were being burned at the stake in England 370 years ago for having in their possession copies of the Bible. In this city recently the only danger in buying the revised New Testament was in the elbows of the crowding customers.— New York Sun. Still another story comes from the jnry-room. The Auckland correspondent of the Otago Daily Times writes that in the recent libel case Rees v. Wickham, one of the jurymen is alleged to have suggested "that a verdict should be given for Reea, on the ground that he was a warm sup porter of Sir George Grey, while Wickbam was continually assailing that gentleman ; and concluded by requesting the foreman to ' put his motion in that behalf to the meeting.' The ' meeting ' could not see the logic of the proposition, and the juryman collapsed.' M. Moet, the famous [composer of the " brewed enchantment " which bears his name, has recently died at his chateau in Champagne. No higher praise can be given to the famous brand than the robust health which M. Moet enjoyed up to the termination of hia honorable and useful career. He was a daily consumer of the delicious beverage, and quaffed it until the last day of his life. He died at the age of 82, an encouragement to the lovers of this exhilarating diink to be faithful to the brand. " You want nothing, do you ?" said Pat. "Bedad, and if it's nothing ye want, ye'il find it in the jug where the whiskey was." [For Continuation of News see First, Third, and Fourth Pages']

The New York Times is responsible for the statement that it is becoming fashionable to put wigs npon children, and that if a particularly fine head of hair is seen on a child now-a-days, the presumption tbat it is false will be very strong. The follies of fashion are no doubt inexhaustible and the very last thing exhibited by fashion is taste. It does not require to be said that to make children wear wigs is disgusting and revolting, as weil as ineffably silly, but denunciation never yet suppressed an imbecility of this character. When gentlemen attend fancy dress balls in " borrowed plumage" (remarks a Spdney contemporary) it would be advisable for them to see that some satisfactory arrangements are made for admitting them to their respective hemes when they return in the " wee sma' hours." The other morning at three, an ambitious personator of Julius Cajsar knocked at his lodging 1 after being the admired of the festive throng at a recent ball. Forty times did he knock, and forty times was he repulsed with the usual slaughter. The Court costume of ancient Rome not being adapted, however, to the nipping frosts of our southern skies, the haughty Roman was at last forced to swarm over the hack fence, and take refuge wben and where he could. And it came to pass that ss the prudent landlady came down to search for eggs the next morn, she was filled with a " soorprise which bcrdured upon consturnashin " on beholding Julias Cajiar fast asleep in the fowl-house with his head in au old nest, and some dczen " chookies " gazing down on his prostrate form in silent awe. Tbey had to soak Julius in boiling water before they could slacken his spine to bend him. Writing on the new Lottery Bill, " Paddy Murphy " says : — People is wondhrin up here how the dickings Docthor Wallis lamed the game o' Fan Tan, but begorra, I know all about it, so I do. About a fortnight ago I happened to dhrop into Jack M'Ginnity's to have a hand of forty-fives wid Jack, when who the jooce should I find in the little back parlour beyant the bar but the Docthor sittin' taty-tate (Frinch) wid a Chineyinan who grows cabbages out at the Hutt, be tbe name of Chung Chow. ""What in the name av' all that's lucky are ye doing here, at all, at all, sittin' op-possit a common Chineyroan, Docthor, asthore ? " ses I. " Whisht. Paddy," ses the Docthor, " I'm just gettin' an insight into the game o' Fan Tan, for the Lottheryßill debate" ses he. "D'ye tell me so," ses I. An' sure enough, there was John instbructin' the Docthor in tbe mystheries o' the game. Tbis is how the Docthor larned all about Fan Tan. Me pertikular f rind, the mimber for Wback-a-white, Geordie McLean, is goin' to inthrojocce a Bill to compel all grown-up people in .the colony to attind Sunday- schools, an' wair long faces onced a week. Ther'e a claws imposin' a heavy pinalty for laughin', an' if any blackguard iq caught amokin' tobackey, or dhrinkin' whiskey when ther's sarsy-parilla to be had, he is liable to get three months on the new thread-mill that Captain Hume is iniportin' from Home. Be the hokey, things is coming to a purty pass, so they are. In Victoria, the first church dignitary to speak out upon the subject cf the revised New Testament was the Bishop of Melbourne, and hi3 criticism very naturally belonged to the Broad Church school of theology, which he favors. In a lecture on the doctrinal tendency or drift of the new version (says the Otago Times), the learned prelate spoke very highly of the translation, though he thought it exhibited a somewhat timid conservatism. It had, he thought, a decided drift in the direction of obliterating some of the sterner features of the old translations. It contained a fuller statement of the spirituality of our faith, of the universality of tie love of God, and of the long-suffering grace which will condemn no one until his moral probation is fairly completed. There was besides, he gathered, a clearer exhibition of the symbolic character of those passages which describe the nature of future punishment, and the uncertainty of many of the expressions which describe its duration. It was, he thought, an augury of the brightest, hope that the drift of the translation was in the same dirction as the drift of al! healthy change in modern thought. There must certainly be great depression among al! classes iu Lancashire, as a nurseryman on Berwick-on-Tweed sold an orchid last week to a resident in that county for only 200 guineas. The Wellington correspondent of the Christchurch Press writes : — Wellington tells us, " That except a battle lost nothing could he a more melancholy sight than a battle won. But with regard to tbe battle that was won and lost last Wednesday week, I think the losers bave reason to be heartily jubilant. What Mr Ormond would have done if he had won no cne seems to know, aud what "The great Liberal party" would have done with the old man of the sea, who hangs on to their necks and will not he shaken of. is more than any of their friends or enemies can imagine. Less than balf of them would have dared to trust s other Grey Government with the purse strings of the colony ; and yet, as soon as they had decided upon puttiDg anyone else at tbe bead, Sir George and bis faithful few would have proved too many for them The victory would have proved to themselves and to the colony thatlhey could not take the reins that were thrown to them, and after a few weeks' exhibition of weaknees the Hall Government would have been back again, with a lease of power greatly extended by their defeat. As it is, the "Opposition are likely to profit hy the lessons the battle has placed before them— the need of discipline it has shown them, and the necessity they must now see to come to an understanding to set aside the men who are determined to lead, but whom any consistent Liberals in the House are determined not to follow. A Hokitika telegram of Tuesday laat says:— On Saturday two men named King and Carmin, surveying for a water race in the bush near Italian Gully, Waimea, found the remains of a man. There was no flesh on tbe bones. The man is supposed to have expired while lying on bis face. The tops of his boots were etuek in the ground, with the heels np. In one of his boots was found one of the ebin bones. Tbere was no clothing except a small piece of a woollen jacket. Nine shillings were found near the spot. The boots bave been identified by a Bhoemaker at Waimea &9 a pair made for one Moses Monpica. Monpina was about Bixty years old, an Italian by birth, and was reported by the police as missing in April, 1880, and was never heard of since.