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New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4384, 8 April 1875, Page 2

No business, civil or criminal, was transacted at the City Police Court yesterday, Wednesday being- tho Hutt Court day. It will not bo forgotten by the lovers of music that tho third concert .of the Wellington Choral Society takes place this evening. Wo 'observe that H.M.S. Blanche is now in Queensland waters, being anchored off the pilot station of Brisbane. To-day Mr. (1. Thomas will offer for sale tho Belvidere saw and flour mills in tho Wairarapa, as well as the freehold of about 1200 acres of fine totara bush. Such an opportunity for investment in timber, we may remark, is not likely to recur soon, as tho totara, of good quality, like kauri, is fast disappearing from off the face of the land.

A sharp trick, says a Wanganui contemporary, is said to have been played on a publican at the Waitara, lately. A man offered a pig, which he had killed, to the landlord, to pay for an old score. The offer was accepted ; the pig delivered ; and a fresh score run up. The pig turned out to he the landlord’s own property. Matters do not seem to be progressing well in North-western Australia. A late telegram from Palmerston, received in Adelaide, states that, at a meeting of the residents, it was decided to allow the Council to die a natural death. The arrangements for carrying on the government were breaking down for want of capital. We understand that the “St. Vincent’s Gem Concert Company” were passengers by the s.s. Otago' to Hokitika, and after playing a short season on the West Coast they propose to visit Wellington, prior to their departure for Sydney. The company consists of the following artists : —Mr. Arthur St. Vincent, comic vocalist; Mdlle. Montebello, male impersonator; Frank Verten, song and dance man ; Leslie Charles, baritone and national vocalist ; Mr. and Mrs. St. Vincent, duetists, and Herr Julius, musical director.

We have another good story from JEgles, of the Australasian, this week. He says ; “ Our cousins on the Pacific Slope don’t do things by halves. They go for big things. They have had a mining excitement, and now they have .a reaction. But just see what an excitement in San Francisco meant. The two great stocks most favorably affected by the discovery of the “ bonanza” —the gigantic silver lode—were California and Consolidated Virginia. In each of these companies there were 108,000 shares, and, at the average prices of the first fortnight of January, these two stocks represented a market value of 284 millions—not dollars, but pounds sterling ! To talk of amounts of that kind must raise a man in his own estimation. Ordinary finance must appear to him a mere matter of detail. But an American is not afraid of large figures. Daniel Webster once said in an oration (after dinner), “ Gentlemen, there’s the national debt—it should be paid—yes, gentlemen, it should be paid—l’ll pay it myself. How much is it ?”

Mr. H. K. Ilusden, the Clerk of the Parliament of Victoria, is rather a clever fellow in his way, and we daresay there are many who will agree with him in the opinion that a week should only consist of five days—with the pay, of course, of seven. We find the following on the subject in, the Melbourne Jjailg Telegraph: —“The ingenious essay read by Mr. H. IC Ilusden on ‘ The Week,’ has been re-published in pamphlet form. On astronomical grounds, Mr. Ilusden comes to the conclusion that our week should be one of fire days. This arrangement, the author adds, ‘ would leave no odd day over in an ordinary year, and we believe it would better proportion hard labor, to rest. If any man works his best for four full days continuously, I think that he will be quite ready, and that it will be good for him, to rest on the fifth. This is all that would really be necessary, except the rigorous preservation of the fifth day as a day of rest from labor, and of intellectual cultivation, for which one day in five would be little enough, though infinitely better thou any evening after a hard day’s work.’ ” Mr. Ilusden deserves success, says our contemporary, and if he obtains it, statues to his memory will he erected in every quarter of a grateful world. We have no doubt of it !

We take the following from the Melbourne Argus :—“A rather unusual action has been brought in the County Court, in which Alexander Garrick sued Ilia wife Ann Garrick for £2OO. The case, as stated, was that some time ago, when plaiutiif came here from New Zealand, he had £2OO in the custody of a bank, which he took out in the form of two £IOO notes. He put the notes in his house, and his wife got hold of them and lodged them in another bank, giving her name as Kerr. Plaintiff and his wife are now separated, and he sued her for the money, alleging that it was his property, and she had no right to retain it. His Honor Judge Cope said that if the money was plaintiff’s property he could go to the hank and claim it, and then if it were refused, he could sue the bank for it. He returned a verdict for the defendant, with £l2 12s. costs.”

Amongst the West-end usurers, each of whom that outspoken journal, the World, is of opinion should be “treated like a dog” by every respectable member of the community, I observe (says “ riEgles ” in the Australasian) the name of Mr. Robert Jacob Jordan, trading under the style of Gurney and Co., army agents and accountants. Is this, or is it not, Mr. Jordan of Bourke-street notoriety ? He is described as having been a member of the College of Surgeons and Physicians in Bdinbnrgh. He started an anatomical museum in London of the Dr. Kahn type, and offered his services to those who, having inspected the museum, imagined that they were suffering from some of the diseases which afflict humanity, and the results of which were simulated in wax. Edinburgh didn't like the scheme, and struck him off its collegiate rolls. As he continued to claim his Alma Mater in his advertisements, his mother benignly introduced him to a police magistrate, who twice fined him 1140. He next came before the same magistrate for extorting money from a patient. Then he became a printer, a cork merchant—under the style of the Catalonian Cork Company—a salt dealer—as the European Sea Salt, Company. He is now a full-fledged moneylender, and flaunts it bravely.