GLEANINGS.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XVI, Issue 211, 5 September 1881, Page 4

GLEANINGS.

Mrs Mackay has just purchased a dinner-service which cost 3500 dollars. "What a lively time the servants \jrill have in looking after those plates ajnd dishes, and fancy the agony over a broken one ! The same lady is abqut purchasing a diamond for His Holiness the Pope, the value of which is said |to be fabulous. They say this swfcet little mistress of millions is coming ito , live in New York, but, although a magnificent mansion has been pi rchased for her, she does not arrive. The heavy taxation has driven a"w ay many of the wealthiest of our citize is, and now New York is the centre ito which fashionable Californians resort ; and, by the way, there is quite a straijge rule among hotelkeepers East. If you; register from San Francisco, you jay double a3 much as if you register fonv any Eastern city. " Why so ?" I asl ed a friend. " Well, you see," he answer id, " out East they know that Califomiiins are enormously wealthy, and pay vor.y high for their living ; so they charge accordingly, lest the San Francisco swell should think he was not getting the best of everything. But they ca l't play that little game on the Easte rn folks ; not much, they are too well jup to the figures." I thus advise no cine who goes hence to New York to proudly give it away that he hails from ijhe Golden City. : Forepaugh, the c'rcus man, who paid j a prize of 10,000 dollars to the most beautiful woman in the States, has now got his prize beauty lying at the point of death with inflammation of the bowels. We also have a prize beaujty at the Beija Union Theatre, who took 500 dollars on her shape, and consequently brings an extended custom jto the theatre, where she displays hersjelf every night. They don't go so mujch on beauty here as " form." j Several dreadful cases of sons killing their parents have cropped up recent; y . T n one ease father and son had a drur ken row — the father was 70, the son 40. The son literally shot his father to deai h, shot after shot. In Honolulu, or, rather the Fadjac* nt island, one of the group, there is a co nplete system of serfdom going on. A Swede has lately come over and explained the whole system, It appei.rs that some owners of plantations hajve j decoyed a whole host of Scandinavains over on pretence of giving them la ad and houses, but, in fact, they are now dwelling, bound by three years' ccntract, in complete and utter slavery, from whence they have no redress by ldw. Brought over from their own cold clinic, enticed by the vision of ever-Woomrag flowers, and a land flowing with milk and honey generally, the poor creatures found on arrival thpt they were simply bondsmen and women, let out by their taskmasters to the planters, and treated as badly as ever were negro slaves.