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Poverty Bay Standard, Volume 1, Issue 11, 14 December 1872, Page 1 (Supplement)

However great may be the success of the ballot in this country, it does not seem to be giving much satisfaction in the United States at the present time. There has been no election of late, says New York Herald, in which, from all appearances, there have been such gross irregularities and tampering with the ballot-box as in the recent election of a governor in North Carolina. The politicians there are not a whit Jess unscrupulous and bold in their dishonest manipulation of the ballots than those of New York have been. Indeed, the Herald is inclined to think they beat the old Tammany politicians. They know how to keep the ballots locked up and uncounted in certain localities, carrying the boxes home with them till they learn what number of votes is required to accomplish their object. In several counties, claimed to be “ Administration Republican,” the vote cast exceded the voting population. In Dunton county the voting population is put down at 2,959 ; the number of votes actually reported is 3,485. In other counties the same suspicious irregularities are noticed. The mass of illegal and fraudulent votes polled apparently is in the counties throughout the State where the negroes are most numerous. It seems evident that the Administration Republicans have been playing a desperate game. “ Under such a state of things, adds the Herald “ the ballot-box is a farce.” This may be so in the United States, but with us in England the ballot-box at present is a religion ; and the Herald little knows how painful it y to us, who are Americanizing our institutions as fast as we can, to hear America speaking thus profanely of her own social and political arrangements.— Pall Alall Budget. The Hawke's Bay Herald says :—A circumstance well worth taking a note of by our runholders came to our knowledge a few days ago. A sheepfarmer resident in this province, the quality of whose wool was well known to the London buyers, had occasion, owing to alterations in his business arrangements, to change his brand ; the familiar mark being no longer recognised, the wool fell 4d per pound in consequence. The Journal of Chemistry gives the following prescription for preventing horses being teased by flies“ Take two or three small handfuls of walnut leaves, upon which pour two or three quarts of cold water ; let it infuse one night, and pour the whole next morning into a kettle, and let it boil for a quarter of an hour. When cold it will be fit for use. No more is required than to moisten a sponge, and before the hon e goes out of the stable, let those parts which are the most irritable be smeared over with the liquor, viz., between and upon the ears, the neck, the flank, &e.”

Fashion and Prayers. — JEytes of Melbourne, writes: — How a fashionably-dressed woman could conscientiously join in last Sunday morning's service, and thank the Almighty for haying “fashioned” her “before and behind,” as in the Psalms of the day, I can’t understand. For from the depth of her eternal consciousness it must have been evolved how much more she was indebted to her milliner than her Maker for her outward and visible form.

“Old Colonial ” writing under Farm Gossip in the Weekly News says : — We have agitated until we have succeeded to a very large extent for the earth-closet system to be introduced into Auckland. Wherever tried it is a great success. Nothing offensive, no smell, the principle easily carried out, and no cost being necessary unless persons think proper to incur it. Now what has answered so admirably in our cities I should like to see adopted in our rural districts. While farmers enjoy especial advantages for the preservation of their own health and the health of their families, it is nevertheless very true that in one very important essential they are careless and inattentive. I allude to that necessary appendage to a household — the closet, with which is generally connected a cesspool. This cesspool receives for a number of years the aggregate waste of a family which is absorbed hy the ground and soon saturates all the soil contiguous to it. The well often receives the drainage ■which finds its way through the soil, and the water becoming contaminated conveys as it is consumed by the family a deadly poison. Now the earth-closet system at once does away with this unpleasant and serious evil. Hear what an authority says on this subject: —“ Dry earth is an absorbent and a disinfectant, and it needs only to become generally known, and that there is a satisfactory means of applying it, to have it introduced into use in every country household. The Goux earthcloset is one of the simplest and most convenient of several modes of using dry earth. The tub or vessel used is not contaminated, being lined with a thick layer of earth, which is made compact by being compressed or beaten in a round a mould. This lining forms a receptacle which receives or absorbs all solid or liquid matter, and a scoopful of dry earth thrown in completes the method. When the tub is filled it may be removed and emptied upon a heap, under cover, where it may be preserved in a perfectly inodorous condition until needed as a fertiliser. In this shape it will be found equal to guano, and spread on meadows, or on fodder and other crops, it will represent a considerable money value, which is now’ utterly wasted, and worse than wasted—rendered injurious. In place of dry earth, sifted coal-ashes may be used.’’

This is what Pere Hyacinthe says on the subject of marriage : —Marriage has in it less of beauty but more of safety than the single life; it hath not more ease, but less danger ; it is more merry bnd more sad ; it is fuller of sorrows and fuller of joys ; it lies under more burdens, but is supported by all the strengths of love and charity ; and those burdens are delightful. Marriage is the mother of the world, and preserves kingdoms, and fills cities an churches, and Heaven itself. Celibacy, like the fly in the heart of an apple, dwells In perpetual sweetness, but sits alone, and is confined and dies in Singularity ; but marriage, like the useful bee, builds a house, and gathers sweetness from every flower, and labors, and unites into societies and republics, and sends out colonies and feeds the world with delicacies, and obeys their king, and keeps order, and exercises many virtues, and promotes the interest of mankind, and is that state of good to which God hath designed the present constitution of the world.

Spoiling Horses’ Feet. —It is almost impossible to get a horse shod without having the frog cut away. All veterinary surgeons, all horsemen, all leading blacksmiths agree that the frog should not be pared one particle—not even trimmed. No matter how plastic the frog is. cut it away smooth on all sides, and in two days it will be dry and hard as a chip. You might as well cut off all the leaves of trees, and expect them to flourish, as to pare away the frog and have a healthy foot. The rough, spongy part of the foot is what the leaves are to the trees—the lungs. Never have a red hot shoe put upon the foot to bum the level. If you can find a blacksmith that is mechanic enough to level the feet without red hot iron, employ him. The burning process deadens the foot, and tends to contract it.

Belgravia decrees the banishment of Dolly Varden. “No lady,” says the Queen, the ladies’ newspaper, “ will hereafter disfigure herself by wearing one of these now vulgar costumes.