CORRESPONDENCE.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XVI, Issue 280, 24 November 1881, Page 3

CORRESPONDENCE.

To THE EDITOB OS 1 THB " EvBKWG MAIL."

Sik — From Mr Shepherd's speech in yesterday's Mail it appears that Mr Shephard, feeling himself to be in a sinking ship, is prepared not merely to throw one Jonah overboard, bnt the whole crew— all his old friends, Sir George Grey, MacaDdrew, and Sheehanl Electors will estimate at its true value such political trimming.

I am, See, ConSISTENCT.

November 24, 1881

Berlia enjoys an electric railway but the trains hare been very unpunctual ef late. Not a day passed but some stoppage occurred in the middle of the transmit. The public were beginning to shrug their shsulders at electricity as a mode of motion, whea it was discovered that the cause of the hitches was very simple. Some clever urchins, who had evidently paid great attention to their lessons in physics at school had been in the habit of breaking off pieces of wire from a neighbouring fence, and connecting the rails therewith, thus closing the electric circuit, ani, of course bringing the train to a standstill. The little demons will be thwarted soon, howeyer, for the current will be conducted through wires overhead.

Austria intends formally to annex io the Austro- Hungarian Empire the Turkish Province of Bosnia, which it has occupied and administered sices July, 1878, andsr the 23rd article of tha Tiestv of Berlin.

A wail comes from Virginia with regard to the English sparrows. They are proclaimed strict Tegetarians. Their increase ia at the rate of twelve per annum for each pair. They cannot be drives off. One writer dislodged a pair and destroyed their nest two days in succession, finding the nest renewed and one egg ready for bim in the morning. In wild despair the writer says that on y shooting and poisoning will remove them, 'with their incessant, insufferable, arrogant clatter.'