NEWS OF THE DAY.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2339, 15 September 1880, Page 2

NEWS OF THE DAY.

To-day being the Day of Atonement, was observed as a close holiday by the members of the Jewish persuasion.

Batcbclder's i’antascopc entertainment opens to-morrow night at the Theatre Royal for a short season. Chalet, whose ventriloquial and elocutionary abilities are very highly spoken of, accompanies the panorama as lecturer. A gift distribution will take place every evening.

At the Chamber of Commerce meeting yesterday, letters were read from Mr Turnbull, M.H.R., and from the Post-master General, intimating that the Government could not afford to supply a clock for the new Post Office. Mr Roberts moved resolutions to the effect that the Government be asked to reconsider the matter as being one of public importance, and as, moreover, the sum of £3OO which had boon laid aside for the purchase of the clock had not been expended.

A “ poor victim ” of the graduated scale writes to the Christchurch “ Echo ” and puts these pertinent inquiries : —“ I want to know how I am to live on and pay my way out of (is a day ? I have a wife and and four children to support, and my cost of living is : rent, 10s per week ; firing, 3s . butcher, 7s; baker, 3s (id; grocer, 10s; vegetables, 2s (id; leaving for clothing, tobacco, and beer nil. As to recreation, I don’t want any; and, as to sickness, take its course. I must get into debt (and that I mean to do), for that is my only means of preventing semi-starvation ; but then, sir, being a Civil servant, I cannot claim the protection of the bankruptcy laws under pain of ’dismissal. So I ask a generous public what am I to do ?”

The will of the Dowager Lady Rashloigh, who died in South Devon last year at the age of ninety-eight, has been the subject of inquiry in the English Probate Court. The old lady, having an aversion to lawyers, had disposed of a fortune of about 1.30,000 upon a sheet of notepaper, which after her death, was found to have been split in two and stitched together. The question was whether the first piece, by which her nephew (since deceased, and now appearing by his widow) was appointed residuary legatee, was written at the time the will was signed and attested. The jury found for the will in its entirety. The Customs’ department were busily employed to-day in moving into their now quarters in the Government Buildings,where in future the Customs’ business will he conducted.

Yesterday morning a shoal of herrings paid the Harbor a visit and were to be seen in thousands disporting themselves about the Breakwater. This morning numbers were seen again, but, strange to say, there were no anglers about, or they would have been pretty 'certain to have secured a good haul by means of a small net. Tasmania with her small population is one of the most prosperous Colonies iu the Australasian group. Her population numbers 112,000: last year her imports only represcu ted £126,000, while her exports amounted to £1,300,000.

Concerning the enterprise shown by the Ne w York and Dublin papers over the American v. Irish I'iflc Match, the “ Tablet’s” Dublin correspondent writes:— “ News, like mackerel and champagne, is thought to lose its flavour if it is not devoured in the superlative condition of freshness, kicking or fizzing as the case may be. But even in this go-ahead age of ours it is startling to think of men discoursing about a rifle match through thousands of miles of ocean, and of idlers reading the result in the streets of New York, aye, and seeing each bullet mark on an accurately-drawn diagram full three hours by the clock before the last shot was fired on the sandy plain of Dollymount. Nor were the Irish papers behind in enterprise. As each shot was fired a carrier pigeon was loosed on the grounds, and fled like light into the city, three miles away, and the echo of the last report on the grounds had scarcely died away in Dollymount when an edition of the paper, with an exact diagram of the result, was issued from the office of the “ Evening Telegraph ’ in Dublin.”