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Poverty Bay Standard, Volume IX, Issue 1001, 19 November 1881, Page 4

t It is stated by the Western Star that a fund, amounting to £3OOO, lias been raised by the Chinese for the purpose of exhuming the bodies or bones of deceased Chinamen in New Zealand and conveying them to China. A ship is to be chartered for the purpose. The Canterbury Standard says : —-A sad fulfilment of a jocular remark happened to Mr. A. F. B. Kyngdon, who was accidentally drowned by being swept from his horse in the Waitara river on Monday week last. Deceased, who was an old Taranaki settler, being warned of the danger of crossing the river when it was high, said, “ he might at some time come to grief in crossing the river and on another occasion told a friend that “ he had seen Dr. Gibbes and asked him if he was busy, as be would have to hold an inquest on him some day.” That day came within a week. This is the way the A- Times puts it: — An idea appears prevalent that it is illegal to exhibit bills, addresses, or notices relating to the elections. This is wrong, as a moment’s consideration of the clause in the Corrupt Practices Act relating thereto will show. In the schedule of the Act defining legal expense is included “ expenses of printing, and the expenses of advertising in newspapers.” Clause 13 defines, among illegal expenditure, any payment “Jor exhibiting bills addresses, or notice, or for the use of any house, building, erection place, board, or thing for the purpose of any such exhibition. but it does not prohibit the exhibition of such printed matter, provided gratuitous permission is given for use of the places of exhibition. Similarly there is no prohibition of conveyance of electors in vehicles, the use of bands, torches, flags, banners, cockades, ribbons, or other marks of distinction. The illegality consists only in payment, or contract for payment, or for sueh services as a means of promoting the election of a candidate.

The “ New Shipping and Commercial Gazente ” is evidently in a fog with regard to the Ferret case, as will be seen from the following extract referring to an attempt to steal a vessel in American waters:—“This is the second ease of stealing ships that has occurred within a year. The first was the purchase and loading by means of false cheques of the steamer Formosa, in Liverpool, which had a prosperous barter voyage around the world, her name and identity having been cleverly disguised ; and she was only recovered after being abandoned by the adventurous thieves in a port in the Eastern seas, while they escaped, and are probably living sumptuously on the very considerable profits of the speculation. The case of the Western Sea, if equally ingenious and bold, was not equally smart, unless the captain expected to be able to trade ships at sea with some dull-witted Briton, as was once alleged to have been done by a Yankee skipper. But both crimes would have been pronounced altogether too improbable if they had been invented by any writer of fiction, and yet they are actual facts.” We were certainly under the impression that the fate of thq thieves referred to was known all over the civilised world. But perhaps the humorous Yankee looks upon Australian prison fare as “ living sumptuously on the very considerable profits of the speculation.”