South Canterbury Times, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 1880. NEWS OF THE DAY.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2342, 18 September 1880, Page 2

South Canterbury Times, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 1880. NEWS OF THE DAY.

• The shoddy merchant, who lately visited Timaru, has reached Dunedin. The following caution appears in a Dunedin paper: —“ Wanted known —The hawker selling shoddy for "West England broadcloth has returned to town again.” The latest novelty in Dunedin is the “ Man Eater from South Africa.” The advent of this gentleman is announced in the advertising columns of the “ Star,” which supplies us with the interesting intelligence that this terrible South African is “to be seen alive!” This is as well to know before paying one’s money, as the spectacle of a dead “ man eater ” would be comparatively uninteresting. The second performance of Bachelder’s Pantascopeentertainment was well attended. The usual distribution of prizes followed, when a youth of tender years was made the happy possessor of a silver watch. The entertainment will be repeatedthis evening.

It is currently rumored that many of the railway employees who have been coerced into accepting a reduced scale of wages on pain of dismissal, arc awaiting the arrival of harvest to scamper olf to other fields and pastures.

Although water is scarce, milk in Timaru is plentiful at present. The retailers of milk have decided to reduce the price to 5d per quart from this date. A German military paper prints a very instructive statement of the actual strength of the German army. On April 1, 1881, when the organisation of the several corps lately ordered to be formed will be completed, the German field army will comprise 771,719 officers and men of all ranks and arms of the service ; the reserve troops will number 311,180 of all ranks ; the Landwehr forces 293,020; and the garrison troops 125,831. Altogether, therefore in the event of a general mobilisation Germany would have over a million and a-half of soldiers at once available. This number, however, large as it is, docs not represent the total extent of the resources of the Empire, because the men of the Ersatz reserve consists of 310,000 men of whom 190,000 belong to the first and 150,000 to the second class ; and all of these would be available ou the outbreak of war either for the formation of additional field battalions or for the augmentation of the Landwehr battalions.

Mr Wickham, editor of the “Erec Lance” an Auckland paper, being taxed by the editor of “ The Muse,” an expatriated Frenchman, with failing to publish sarcastic critiques on the Church Choirs, retorts as follows:—“If our “ rnewsical ” contemporary “mews” again at us about non reports, he will wish himself again back in Paris, ladling out petroleum.”

To-morrow evening (Sunday) M, Chalet, of the Pantascope, announces that he will deliver Colonel Ingersoll’s famous lecture on the “Mistakes of Moses,” at the Theatre Eoyal. M. Chalet recently gave the lecture at the Queen’s Theatre, Dunedin, with great success.