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Oamaru Mail, Volume IV, Issue 1319, 7 September 1880, Page 2

After the names of the jury had been called over at the District Court to-day, the Crown Prosecutor, Mr. White, asked that Mr. Boxby should be excused, stating that that gentleman was Town Clerk, that there was a meeting of the Council to-day, and that It coald not be held without the presence of the Town Clerk. His Honor thereupon excused Mr, frojn remaining in attendance.

That the female domestics of Oamaru fully appreciate the benefits conferred upon them by the Servants' Home established by the Eenevolent Society is fully proved by the fact that a very large number of them view the proposal to close the Home with regret. At the meeting of the Committee of the Society last evening, a petition; from 42 maid-servants, praying the Home be- kept open as a Servants' Home, was read, and referred to a Sub-Committee consisting of the President, Treasurer, and Secretary, who will draw up the report for the year ending 30th September instant. When the list of the jurymen summoned to serve at the District Court was called over to-day, it was found that Messrs. John Bruce, John Church, Levi Gale, and Hugh Ross were absent. His Honor inflicted fines of L2 in each case, unless cause was shown. Some time afterwards, the absent jurors attended, and his Honor called upon them to explain the cause of their late attendance. Mr. Bruce was unable to give any satisfactory reason for his absence. So far as we could understand, the only thing he could say why his fine should be reduced was that he bad stopped on the rpad with " Wee Sandy." On his Honor asking who "Wee Sandy" might be, the defaulting juror smiled gently, but whether this was occasioned by his Honor's ignorance of the identity of Sandy of diminutive proportions, or sopie particularly diverting circumstance connected with the loitering on the road was not made clear. His Hpripr, however, said that he had no doubt about the loitering on the road, and hinted that it had been attended by other circumstances which justified the maintenance of the fine at the original amount. Mr. Gale explained that he was unaware of an alteration in the time of tJie arrival of the fc'outh train at Oamaru, and that pp the arrival of the train he had lost no time iij atf.ei)fling at the Court. His Honor accepted the excuse and | remitted the fine. Mr. Hugh Ross ex- | plained that the pony upon which he intended riding into town had been kicked and rendered unfit for use, that he had been forced to ride into town on a cart horse, and that it had taken him threp Ijours to do the journey of 16 miles. His lienor said he could not accept the excuse as a reason for the complete remission of the fine, for the juror should have looked to his means of locomotion in time to enable him to attend punctually, but he. would reduce the fine to ss. Air. Church could only explain tjiftt be had mistaken the day of the sitting of the Cpjii'b, being under the impression that it sat on the l£)fcb. Hp Jjad been very busy in the morning, and had not had time to look at his memoranda. His Honor lowered the fine to 20s, saying he could not receive the excuse offered as good enough to warrant the total remission of the penalty. We l.earn that the shed and contents, the property of Mr. Morrison, which were destroyed on Sunday night, were uninsured. An insurance on the cottage for L 75 had been effected with the South British Insurance Company some three months since. A correspondent writes the that late Mr. Alfred Victor Jolins with the Prussian army at the battle of and there received from an Austrian soldier a heavy pound on the chest over the heart from the butt pnd of a mjisket, which felled him. Weakness of t]ie chest proceeded from this cause. Mr. Johns was ipyTjficJed, and afterwards emigrated. Our correspondent gays that he received these facts from Mr. Johns sflme time ago. Those who have pianoforte's requiring tuning sh.ould aygiil themselves of the opportunity for having the work performed satisfactorily by Mr. Oakden, tuner to Messrs. A. R. Kelsey and Co,, of Dunedin, yyho is now in Oamaru.. The annual meeting of Oamaru Trades Cricket Club will be held in the Imperial Hotel this evening, at 8 o'clock. The monthly meeting of the North Otago Horticultural Society's Committee will be held at Mr. Anstead's residence to-morrow evening, at 7 o'clock. We remind all members of the North Otago Benevolent Society that unless their annual subscriptions are paid by the date of the annual general meeting they will be prohibited from voting thereat. We would remind our readers that Batchekler's American Pantascope will open at the Volunteer Hall to-morrow evening. From our exchanges we learn that the enter* tainment is welt worth a visit, and that Chalet, the ventriloquist, must be heard to be appreciated. As an extra inducement it is announced that prizes on a magnificent scale will be distributed.

L A correspondent at Maheno writes : - On night, whilst Frank Henry, hors.e dealer', was returning from Oajnaru pn 5 horseback, his horse bolted, throwing him ; - and kicking or tramping on him, injured him j seriously inwardly. Mr. Henry was re- > moved to tjie MaJieno Hotel, and Dr. Borrje, Otepopp, palled to attend him. L The pigeon jnatclj hel4 at Kajjanui on I Saturday proved highly successful, 100 pigeons being brought under the shot pf . several marksmen. The shooting was not good, pogsibly owing to want of practice. 1 The first content WAS a match between i Messrs. Wise and Thomson, which was won > by the former. Then followed a sweepstake between Messrs. Wise, Thomson, Bird, Morton, and Mitchell. This 1 was won by Mr. Bird. The same marks- • men then competed in a second sweepstake, • Mr. Mitchell proving the winner. In the , third sweepstake, *rlr. Thpmggij. wag the winner, the other competitors being Mpssrs. Morton, Mitchell, and Wise. After £lijs some ehotrfor-shot practice was indulged in. A big match will shortly tfike place at the same place,-and of this due notice will be given. A Milwaukie clergyman who, while preaching a sermon on a recent Sunday evening, perceived a man and woman under the gallery in the act of kissing each other behind a hymn book, did not lose his temper, No, he remained calm. He beamed mildly at the offenders over his spectacles : and when tjie young maij Jiissed her the fifteenth time, he merely broke his serjnon sjiqrt off in the middle of *' thirdly," and offered a fervent prayer on behalf of the "young man in the pink necktie, and the jnaiden in the blue bonnet and grey shawl, who were profaning the sanctuary by kissing one another in pew 75." And the congregation said " Ajn@B>" Then the woman pulled her veil •down, 3pd the young man does not go to church now as mjich ag he did, There is a scheme .on fpot for the purchase of Palestine. TheEothschilds, theiaolflsfiiids, the Montefiores, besides the Levis, tjie Moseses, Aarons, and other commonalty of the exiled people, seriously contemplate raising five or six millions and buying the Holy Land. Its present condition is miserable. No more need be said on this point than that it is a province of the Turkish Empire. In spite of the terrible extortion of some Turkish tax-gatherers, the four pashaliks return less than L 200,000 a year to the Ottoman Exchequer. This revenue capitalized would amount to four millions sterling, but, as there is a religious sentiment in the way, and inasmuch also as the Turk will fix his price according to the anxiety of tjje biiyer, a margin of millions is allowed. Six ipiiuppa pa|4 flyer to the Snltan's Treasury for a province wl)ich is almost "eating its head off," since jt hardly pays for its keep when the host of rapaoious officials have had their toll of the revenues, would be more than a windfall just now to the bankrupt Commander of the Faithful. But the Hebrew capitalists who are working the speculation are not at all inspired by the feeling which moved the children of Sion wheij they sat and wept by the waters of Babylon. The Israelite idea is to buy up the country, put it under competent administration, develop its resources, an.4 thereby draw a handsome dividend on the capital invested, the European Government guaranteeing the securities of the company. The idea has the advai)t!)ge of removing all grounds for the international jealousies which renders impossible the delivery o£ thg Holy place and the resuscitation ofJiidea by any pjdjyidual State.

Now til at Parliament is oyer (says tlie Times) one may find time and space to attend to otjier mattery; one just ! presented to our notice is the production of a monster egg by a common hen belonging to Mr. D. Phillips, East road. Tlie ltisus ' naturae, now lying in our desk in the com* pany of an ordinary egg, measures 7J by 6$ inches, and weighs exactly a quarter of a pound. Anyone curious in the matter may ascertain the excess of size by mathematical process at their convenience. Meantime, if Mr. Phillips finds it burdensome to carry such eggs to market he had better dismiss that hen, and we know a roost on which £hsre is room for just one more.