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Poverty Bay Standard, Volume X, Issue 1071, 9 May 1882, Page 2

Mr Russell, Government Astronomer, at Sydney, has taken a photograph of the sun. On it are a group of six little spots in a straight line ; they are almost touching each other, and measured 40,000 miles long, and 4,000 broad.

It is probable that the police will lay an information against Captain Orr, of the English barque Peru, which sailed for London from Wellington recently, charging him with having taken a prisoner from the custody of a detective, and it will be served on him should he again visit the Colony. The authorities intend to bring the matter under the notice ef the owners.

Alluding to the custom so prevalent throughout the colonies of friends “ keeping their friendship wetted with strong drink ” and “ shouting ” for each other on all conceiveable occasions, the Rev. J. T. Hinton narrated an incident at a Wellington meeting which, says the Post, certainly cannot be said to lack the feature of downright impudence. A carpenter and a plumber, Mr Hinton said, visited bis residence that morning, having been sent by the landlord to effect certain repairs. No sooner had the job been concluded than one of the men, turning to Mrs Hinton, adressed her in these words—“ It was a nasty, dirty job, m’am; we should like to drink your health !” Of course, Mr Hinton said, that the men were at liberty to drink the lady’* health at their own expense, or iu aqua pura if they chose, but ho for one was not in favor of encouraging practices of this kind. The San Francisco correspondent of the N.Z. Herald says : —“ It is the fashion for women to marry very young in some parts of thia over-free country. I know many ladies who were wed at fourteen, and even thirteen years, which I consider a very disgusting state of affairs. But so it is. However, they generally tie themselves to old men, or, at least, men many years their senior. Several exceptions to this general rule have cropped up lately. A boy of fifteen has recently married a girl of thirteen. They took another boy and his father into their plana, when a clergyman was sent for, who made them one flesh for the small sum of a dollar and a half, which the groom had in his jacket pocket. Now, can you imagine anything more reprehensible than an ordained clergyman committing an act that is almost a sin for so small a sum as the above ? How dare he do it, any way—marry two little children, and he a man with a family ? Well, there is another caso in point, where a girl of fourteen has two husbands. She was married at eleven, and divorced from the first man to marry her stepfather. The march of intellect goes on with rapid strides, truly, and there is no accounting for tastes.” The London Truth Bayn: “Women say terribly hard things of women, and Miss Phillis Browne, in her book just published, entitled What Girls Can Do; a Dock for Mothers and Daughters, is no exception to the rule. Bho says: ‘lf we come to look into the working of an institution which is governed on broad principles, which works smoothly, and grows stronger as it advances, we may be sure that there is a man at the head of it; if we find one where the wheels creak and groan as they roll, and the hearts of the members are filled with heartburnings and jealousies; moreover, which believes itself to be indispensable when it is only a makeshift, there a woman rules.’ There is no doubt that girls are, as a rule, ornamental. Let them therefore, by all means, be useful too • but the usefulness must not obliterate the beauty. The strongminded woman, who cuts her hair ns close as a convict’s, and clumps about the world in a pair of shoes several sizes too large for her, who is indifferent to the shape of her dress, may be possessed of every cardinal virtue, but by disregarding the quality of womanliness she brings those virtues into disrepute. Men fly from her and are so filled with dread by such a one that they rush into the other extreme, and marry a pretty creature who thinks of nothing beyond her bonnet and gowns. Ornament must not be sacrificed to utility. Both are compatible, even in a girl, and she who can cultivate head and heart without neglecting the gentle gracesand softprettinesses of girlhood, is, as Wendell Holmes hath it, “ a harp of a thousand strings.”