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Oamaru Mail, Volume IV, Issue 1174, 21 January 1880, Page 2

To-night the public meeting called by his Worship the Mayor, in response to a requisition which may be viewed as unanimous, will be held in the Volunteer Hall. It will be unnecessary for us to request the public to attend en masse, their sympathy for suffering humanity will act as their mentor on such an occasion as the present. It will te just as unnecessary to point out what their course should be when assembled to do battle to the best of their ability with the dread scourge from which so many of their fellow-creatures are suffering and dying. We are sure that they will all deliberate wisely, and give to the best of their ability. They will not be influenced to button up their pockets by reports of what Great Britain is doing for starving strangers. They will feel that what Great Britain is doing for others she will do for Ireland—a portion of her empire so near and dear to her. We should not wait to philosophise where there is so little necessity—where, indeed, it would be nothing short of cruelty—to do so. The wealthiest of Ireland's middle classes are less fortunate than the poorest of our colonists. It maybe their own faults, or it may not. Neither the Colonies, nor America, nor Great Britain, will wait to discuss this question now, but will render assistance ungrudgingly out of their abundance. " Inquirer,"—We shall always be glad to receive from you communications on matters of general interest to our readers for publication. But your last letter points plainly to an individual in your small community. More than that ;,', it charges, by innuendo, that indivinual with having been guilty of a serious criminal offence. Compliance with your request would hj; to commit libel, and be committed ourselves. The special meeting of the 1.0. G.T. Lodge, Ngapara, which was to have taken place on Friday evening last, but which was postponed in' consequence of the inclement weather, will be held (weather permittiug) on Friday evening next, at the usual time and place. All ipembgrs ape requested: to attend. The usual weekly meeting of the Municipal Council will be held to-morrow evening. We have been requested to draw attention | to the fact that the term of the lease of the Education Reserve, to be sold by Mr. A. H. Maude on Saturday next, lias been extended to twenty-one years, instead of fourteen years, as previously announced. The Dunedin papers contain the announcement that Mr. M. A. Jones, of Oamaru, has filed a declaration in the Supreme Court that he is unable to meet his engagements with his creditors. Mr. H. S. Fish, who was lately disqualified to hold the position of Mayor of Dunedin, which he obtained by the vote of a large majority of the ratepayers, although opposed by Mr. H. J. Walters, has forwarded the Resident Magistrate's decision to Melbourne, with a view of securing the opinion of the cleverest lawyer of that city thereon. He, at the presentation to him of a purse containing 230 sovereigns, on Monday night, stated that he had done this, and signified his intention of publishing the opinion, whether in his favor or not, when it arrives. At the same meeting a motion was carried expressive of an opinion that Mr. Fish was unaware that he was acting wrongly in taking a contract under the Council whilst a member thereof, and that he had not therefore forfeited the confidence pf the ratepayers. Messrs, Davitt, Daly, and Killen, who were recently arrested by the Government on a charge of using seditious language at a land meeting at Garton, Ireland, have been committed for trial by the magistrates of i

Sligo, who accepted bail for their appearance at the trial. Numerous and largely-attended meetings have been held throughout the country protesting against the action of the Government in arresting them—a large gathering, estimated at 50,000, being held in Hyde Park. Mr. Parnell, M.P., also addressed a .meeting at Birkenhead, when a resolution was passed 'declaring that, theirarrest;: was an arbitrary and immoral' one, contrary to the-spirit of the English, Constitution, and that the Government; that squanders this blooid and treasure of. the people in unjust wars abroad, while there were misery and famine at home, stood condemned in the eyes of all thoughtful men. " JE'Jlia" tells the following in the Australasian The new maid of all work arrived all right at the Shepherds' Arms,' at the cross roads* a place celebrated throughout the country-side - for the potency of- its beverages. The-girl was energetic, and by daylight next morning she wa§ polishing the parlor .furniture. The -landlord's daughter looked on with an. approving eye, but at length a dreadful suspicion arose. ' Where did you get the bottle of furniture-polish ?' 'I got it,' replied Bridget, 'on the master's mantelpiece.' 'My goodness!' said Miss Vitriol, "why, that's what papa puts in the shearers' grog.' Need it be added that by sundown there was no veneer, left on that parlor furniture." What about the veneer on the shearers' stomachs 1 Owing to the low price to which grass seed has fallen, the natives refuse to sell. Last year the seed from the Waimate Plains alone realised between LSOOO and L6OOO, most of which is said to be still in the possession of Te Whiti.

Father Walter M'Donald, at the Catholic Church Services lately held in Auckland, announced the opening of the following Catholic schools-The Sisters of Mercy, Wyndham-street;' St. Mary's, Ponsonby ; and the Parnell* schools ; St. Patrick's, St. Peter's school for boys, and also the Newton school.- The! High School for boys, Welling-ton-street, he said,' would ; be opened on Monday, the 19th inst.—principal or. headmaster, Very Rev. Father Downey, 0.5.8., who would be assisted by other competent teachers. In this school, . Latin, Greek, French, Italian, and the sciences would be taught, and a first-class English education imported. Sydney Smith once remarked of an inordinately stout lady whose dimensions were being somewhat humorously commented upon in his presence, that " were she to rise in revolt against the constituted authorities, it would be necessary to read the Riot Act and disperse her I" We wonder to what extravagances of comical speculation the witty Canon would have been stimulated had he lived to take cognisance of a young person of Russian birth, who is about to visit Central and Western Europe for the purpose of. turning her extraordinary corpulence to profitable account, and whose fatty fame has gone before her, preparing the public mind for a surprise upon a scale of unprecedented magnitude. At present this adipose phenomenon resides at the lowly village of Bolscliin-Grodni, in the Government of Tula. She is but ten years old, and she turns the scale at four hundred and eighteen pounds. A damsel who, within a decade, has attained a weight of nearly 30 stone is indeed a marvel hitherto unrecorded in the annuls of physiology. When she shall set forth upon her travels, which she is about to do under the guardianship of an eminent showman, she will be compelled to take her place in the luggage-van, for no entrance to any railway carriage at present in existence is wide enough to admit of her passage through it. A subtle provision of her ponderous peculiarities would seem to have inspired her godfathers and godmothers at her baptism, when they gave her the singularly apt name under whi h she will make her appearance before admiring throngs. Slie was christened Fatinitza.