A FISH STORY.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 20, 10 June 1871, Page 5

A FISH STORY.

The last fish story comes from New Jersey. Lately, in the interior of that State, a mild looking countryman entered a railway car, bearing a bundle tied up in a handkerchief, which he placed under the seat at the end of the car. After travelling along for about half an hour, a lady sitting in front of the countryman was observed to move uneasily in her seat, and to cast savage glances at a seemingly respectable man sitting by her side. In a few minutes afterwards, another lady, still further to the front, “ became uneasy,” and at last, rising in her seat, requested some gentleman in the car would protect her from an elderly looking gentleman by her side, and. whom she stated had insulted her. A dozen persons offered their assistance, and before the accused could speak in his own defence, his hat was jammed over his eyes, and he was dragged to the rear of the car. While there, and carrying on with the avengers a war of words as to what the indignity meant, still another lady rose, also seated further up the car, and accused a gentleman sitting behind her with improper conduct. A rush was made for the insulter number two, but that gentleman vigorously defended himself with a large walking-stick he happened to have (and which, by the by, was one cause of the last troubles, his accuser stating that he had indecorously been rapping her ankles under the seat with the same), and while the struggle to get at him was still in progress, somebody in the front of the car shouted “ There’s a snake on the floor!” A scene then ensued. The ladies in the car clambered up on the seats, and many got up on the arms and back of the same. One elderly maiden managed to stand on the backs of two seats in the best circus manner possible under the circumstance, while a young mother threw her baby into a parcel rack, and then hung convulsively to a ventilator. The confusion awoke the countryman, who, on being told of the snake, first felt his bundle, and then exclaimed, “ I’m blamed if that old eel ain’t got loose;” started for the front, and soon returned grasping firmly an immense eel, which he had first caught whilst out fishing, but which, when brought into the car, had managed to get out of the bundle, and had wended its way to the front, lovingly caressing the different variety of ladies’ garters which he encountered on the way. Apologies given and received straightened everything in the car but the hat that was jammed down, and the countryman leaving at the next station, no blood was drawn.—“ European Mail.”

A Seam oe Coad, says an Otago contemporary, lias been struck on the Eden Creek Station, sufficiently near to Mount Ida to render it easily available for consumption there. The prospectors, Messrs Howard & Co, have applied to the Waste Land Board for a lease of the seam, and a petition with over a hundred signatures has been forwarded to the Provincial Secretary, asking him to take the matter into favorable consideration. Mount Cook Glaciees. —The “Timaru Herald” says : Last Sunday week a man named M. Reddoff started on an exploring expedition up the glaciers of Mount Cook, and reached a part of the mountain never before, we believe, trodden by man. Reddoff (more commonly known by the name of ‘ Big Mike,’) holds a small run under the mountain, and has his homestead about six miles from the foot of the glaciers. He undertook his expedition for the purpose of looking for some sheep, which had been driven off by dogs, and were supposed to have gone on to the heights of the mountain. He tracked the sheep from glacier to glacier by their foot-tracks in the snow, and crossed the celebrated Tasman glacier, about three miles from which he came to a place called by the explorers “ the gully,” a vast ice chasm, which few men, if indeed any, have succeeded in crossing. The gully crossed, Mike went still onwards, his dogs being his only companions, and went boldly up one of the spurs of Mount Cook. On the highest point possible for sheep to reach he found his missing lot, eleven in number, but in returning four were lost by falling over precipices. For two nights Mike camped out upon the ice, one of which he was lying as it were under the shadow of Mount Cook’s highest peak, which ascended upwards as a high wall of Bolid ice, unbroken save here and there by huge points of rock. The travelling in many places was so bad and risky, that Reddoff had to take off his boots and trust to to his stockinged feet for a foothold. He returned home the following Thursday, hut his boots, which were almost new at starting were literally cut to pieces by the rough usage they had received on the journey.