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Poverty Bay Standard, Volume III, Issue 210, 3 October 1874, Page 2

An instructive story was told us the other day by the Captain of one of the Melbourne steamers. While at anchor at Lyttelton and on the point of sailing, a gentleman of reverend and clerical aspect came on board and announced himself as the Rev. Mr. So-and-so, of Christchurch. He then produced a large bag evidently full of money, and asked Captain if he would kindly give him gold in exchange for the same amount in threepenny pieces. Captain expressed his readiness to grant this singular request, but entertaining grave doubts as to the mens Sana of his visitor, prepared for a precipitate “ bolt ” the instant any further sign of mental aberration appeared. On producing the. sovereigns, he ventured to hint the very natural question —why did he not go to one of the banks for the gold, especially as small change was very scarce, and such an amount would be received with joy. The minister groaned. “My Christian friend,” said he, “it is for that very reason I come to you. I verily believe this bag contains all the threepenny bits in Canterbury, and I wish to send them all out of the country in order to prevent my congregation being able any longer to disgrace themselves by giving such a shamefully small coinat the Church collections. This glorious work I have now achieved. O Jet us be jojful, joyful ; O, let us be joyful I” So saying he departed. Captain conveyed the money to Melbourne, but was by no means so joyful as his late guest, when the bank teller insisted on his remaining while the threepenny pieces were counted, and operation which (Captain says,) occupied nearly 24 hours. And this is why small change is so scarce in Christchurch.— Evening Post. A laughable story comes from one of the Courts of Common Pleas (says a Lrndon letter.) Two costermongers claimed individually the ownership of a donkey, and as the case was one calling for friendly arbitration rather than judicial interference, the presiding judge recommended the suitors to go out into the yard and settle the matter between them. His lordship’s kindly meaning seems to be misunderstood, for in the course of half-an-hour or so the “ costers ” returned into Court, one of them with his eyes blackened and his face cut aud bleeding, and the other in a state of excitement betokening the authorship of his friend’s injuries, The Judge learnt, when it was too late, that his advice had been accepted in its Whitechapel sense, and that the two men had belabored each other until one of them resigned the donkey to save his own person.