South Canterbury Times, TUESDAY, APRIL 13, 1880. NEWS OF THE DAY.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2205, 13 April 1880, Page 2

South Canterbury Times, TUESDAY, APRIL 13, 1880. NEWS OF THE DAY .

For exquisite absurdity commend us to the following, delivered by Elder Sorenson, at the Mormon service in the Temperance Hall, last evening. The elder, speaking of an angel, said ; “ A great majority are mistaken about the form of an angel, and arc much in error on the subject. An angel is a resurrected spirit without blood, but with flesh and bones, and be has no veins. The air not being sufficiently buoyant to allow a figure of flesh and.blood to fly through it.” This certainly shows a lamentable ignorance of anatomy and aerostatics on the elder’s part.—Auckland “ Star.”

The civil cases set down for hearing at the R.M. Court to-day were postponed until Friday in consequence of the continued sitting of the District Court. Owing to the spread of pleuro-pheumonia in the North, Cambridge has been declared an infected district.

A Mormon elder is trying to convert the discontented wives of Napier at present, but his labor of love has so far proved unsuccessful. What arc the husband’s about that these elders are so meekly tolerated ?

A private telegram from New South Wales, stales that the Newcastle miners have consented to the reduction in the getting price, proposed by owners, and that a reduction of 4s per ton will bo made in the price of coal at the pit’s mouth. At Greymouth, yesterday, a man named Walter llobert Cook was committed for trial to-day on two charges of forging the name of Charles Mesant at Charleston, to two cheques on the Bank of New Zealand, for £5 each.

The man who was killed by a railway accident at Eakaia, on Saturday night, has been identified as Walter Clark, a staff sergeant and taylor of the 75th llcgiment. Ho was 38 years of age, and single. At the inquest yesterday a verdict of accidental death was returned, with a rider stating there was not sufficient protection for passengers on the platforms, and that there should be a lower bar.

A remarkable cure has just been performed by the hot springs at Lake llotorua. W. Boyd of the Wellington Trust and Loan Investment Company, was so thoroughly prostrated with illness that he could only be induced with difficulty to give the springs a trial. He took the steamer to Tauranga, six weeks ago, accompanied by his wife, firmly believing he would never return alive. Mr Boyd is now in Wellington as hale and hearty as ever he was in his life.

Preservation Inlet coal has been tried for railway purposes and is found to answer well, although it is not equal to Newcastle. It is stated that the seam can easily be worked. The mouth of the drive is within 16 chains of the shore, and a wharf of about CO feet in length is all that is required to allow vessels to load.

An attempt was made last week (says the Post) to raise the s.s. Taupo, which lies wrecked at Tauranga. Although unsuccessful, the attempt was such as to warrant the belief that she will be alloat this week, or at the next trial. Canvas was got under her bottom, covering the majority of the holes, and her stem was moved four and a-half feet. The mode of raising her, we believe, is to fill the forecabin with water and use screws, but it is said that there was hardly sufficient water in her to put the vessel down by the stem.

We (Wanganui Chronicle) hear that a certain special correspondent whom the “ Lyttelton Times” maintains on the Waimatc Plains, and a certain Mr Amos Burr, formerly the landlord of a public-house at Pox ton, have been playing the part of statesmen, and visiting Te Whiti at Parihaka. proposing to him that he should go to Wellington to see the Governor Deport adds that they offered to raise £SOO to pay his expenses. This liberal offer reminds one of an elderly spinster in the Highlands of Scotland who, during the Napoleon wars, was asked to subscribe to a fund for raising men to fight the French in case of invasion. “Indeed,” she replied, “ I’ll do nothing of the sort. I;ve been trying to raise a man for myscT the last forty years, and hac no done it, and I’m no going to fash mysel’ tae do for the King what I couldna’ do for mysel’.” We recommend the special correspondent and Mr Amos Burr to try and raise £SOO for “thcrascl’s.” When they have succeeded it will be quite time enough for them to offer to raise this amount for King Te Whiti. We hear the Maoris were immensely amused. . fhnall-pox is reported to have broken out in Dunedin.

Mr George Townsend of this town has applied for a patentjfor “Cement Concrete” The practice of passengers stepping off the trains while in motion just as they would from the step of an omnibus is becoming disagreeably common. On Saturday night the train from Christchurch to Dunedin was delayed for nearly an hour at Blueskin while the guard and a constable were seeking for a passenger who had quietly left his carriage. The ’Frisco mail is expected in Timaru per express train to-morrow.

William Jones, a respectably dressed young man from Timaru, paid a visit to Dunedin last week and got into a serious scrape. Between eleven and twelve o’clock on Friday night he was making his way from the city to one of the suburbs, “ three sheets in the wind,” when he had the misfortune to look for a bed in the garden of a namesake. The wife, of the Dunedin William Jones, seeing a stranger crouch behind a fruit tree, and being accustomed to the use of firearms, wished to fire a pistol at him, but was prevented by her husband, who sent for the police. Jones was sentenced to twenty-four hours im-

prisonment. The Timaru branch of the British and Foreign Bible Society will hold its annual public meeting in the Oddfellows’ Hall tomorrow evening. The Mayor of Timaru will preside, and various speakers will address the assemblage.

Furious riding in the streets of Timaru is becoming alarmingly prevalent. To-day when the town was at its busiest, several youths indulged in a gallop against time through the Main South Iload. Perhaps the authorities will take notice of the way in which the streets arc being utilised as a racecourse before an alarming accident occurs. A young woman named Isabella Hamlyn was arrested the other day at Porter’s farm, Tokomairiro, on a charge of infanticide. It appears that on Sunday, April 4, the body of an infant was found in a water-closet at the Stirling hotel. The closet was a wooden box, 18 inches deep and 2 feet long. At the inquest the medical evidence showed that the lower jaw was fractured, and the umbilical cord had been torn. Mrs Houlison, landlady of the Stirling hotel, deposed that on Saturday, March 6, about 4.30 p.m. a respectably dressed woman came to the hotel and stated that she was looking for a situation. She asked her how much she would have to pay if she remained for a few days, and was informed that under the circutn stances her board and lodgings would be moderate. She was directed to a room upstairs, and she did not appear at tea. At a late hour the same night, a light foot, as of a woman was beard going up the stairs and along the passage. The woman remained till Tuesday when she left for Dunedin by the train. She had her meals regularly, hut abstained from meat, and in explanation she stated that she suffered from neuralgia. A paper parcel that she carried was smaller when she left than on her arrival.

This is how the Dunedin Star comments on the behaviour of the Christchurch Eesident Magistrate in connection with the recent libel prosecution:—“Mr Hellish, E.M., appears to have exhibited on the occasion a minimum of common sense with a maximum of official vanity. His bosom evidently swelled with indignant rage because the six defendants did not forthwith fly to his presence on receipt of his august signature to a summons. He took special exception to the very polite letter of Mr James Smith, with regard to which he is reported to have said that it ‘ could only be characterised as a gross piece of I picsumc he has not been accustomed to much courtesy, and therefore docs not know how to write a courteous letter. I do no wish to speak very strongly of it, nor to treat it as contempt of Court. I can only say that it is gross piece of bad taste in a person in his position. I understand he is in a tolerably good position, and I am only surprised that he should have been guilty of so gross a piece of bad taste.’ Mr Mellish must indeed be either very slow of comprehension, or child-like in his ignorance of the world, to take such a view of Mr Smith's letter, which was not only exceedingly courteous in manner, but in most polite terras conveyed authoritative information, which, coming from a gentleman notoriously holding a high position at the New Zealand liar, it might have been thought would have received at least consideration at the hands of a Eesident Magistrate. The tone of Mr Mellish’s remarks with regard to Mr Smith, a portion of which we have quoted cannot be too severely reprehended. The whole case of Stead v. the “ Times ” and “ Witness” Company, indeed, somewhat reminds us of the immortal Mr Nupkins in Pickwick, in, whose terrible presence Sam Weller remarked “This is a very impartial country for justice ; There aint a magistrate going as don’t commit himself as often as he commits other people.”