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South Canterbury Times, Issue 2405, 1 December 1880, Page 3

showers of rain and hail

A runaway electrified the pedestrians between the railway station and Beswick street this forenoon. A dray drawn by three horses was being discharged of a load of grain opposite the N. M. and A. Company’s store when a passing train alarmed the horse flesh and the animals bolted up the main street. Of course the streets were speedily cleared of their passengers, but the horses fortunately had their gallop brought to a termination in Beswick street without doing any damage.

The members of the South Canterbary Education Board have on several occasions been brought face to face with an application from their under-secretary for an increase of salary, but instead of dealing .with it they invariably contrive to dodge it. To-day the matter was brought, prominently under their attention, tut the “ artful dodgers ” evaded the question by referring it to that convenient pigeon-hole the Financial Committee. A little of the Quaker element which compels people to say yea! or nay ! is badly wanted by this Board. Shuffling out of difficulties and shirking their responsibilities is a failing for which they have long been notorious, but trifling with the bread and butter of an underpaid officer is mean and contemptible in the extreme. In the Native Lands Court at Napie r the Chief Judge took the opportunity of telling the old chief Renata that the old style of war was even preferable to going to law about their lands. “ Yes,” said the chief, “ the lawyer is the gun that costs the money.

Joseph McCaghley, of Auckland, the pot-valiant husband who lately endeavored to reduce his family to bonedust, was sentenced on Thursday last (Nov. 25) to one month’s imprisonment for nearly killing his wife, and three months for breaking his son’s wrist. A large number of human remains have been found in clearing the fern beeween Alexandra and Te Rore, some of which were evidenty the bones of warriors whoj had been killed and cooked in the early days. The “South Australian Register,” relates a remarkable case, illustrating the danger of allowing infants to play about in places where spear-grass is plentiful, which recently occurred at Bowden: —“A child, eighteen months old, son of Mr M. Cain, some seventeen days ago swallowed a spear-grass, and became very ill afterwards. On Wednesday last Dr Rees was sent for, and found a small hole between the fifth and sixth ribs, from which pus was exuding. He prolonged the opening, and passed the probe about two inches into the substance of the lung, when it came against some foreign matter. He then inserted the forceps, and brought out part of a head of spear-grass about an inch and a half long. The child got rapidly better after the operation, and is now comparatively well.”

Another : example of geographical ignorance prevailing in England. A newspaper has turned up in Auckland addressed thus: “The Superintendent of the Eire Brigade, Solomon Islands, New Zealand.” There’s nothing like a good character —and plenty of it. A guard on the North-western who had been a “ conlidential servant” of the company for twenty years, lies been convicted ox stealing travellers’ luggage, throughout that period, to the value of upwards or £IOOO. There is said now to be a communication by means of a subterranean gallery, between the Czar’s bedroom in the Winter Palace and the fortress of St. Peter and Paul, so that in case of need he may reach the fortress in a few moments. At the Warwick Assizes, in England, Thomas Penn, gamekeeper and land agent to Lord Clifford, claimed from Mrs Ann Walker damages for an assault. Mrs Walker* a powerful woman, six' feet high, threw Penn into a ditch, the mud in which was four feet deep, and after he had scrambled out, she got his head in “ Chancery,” and pummelled him till she blackened both his eyes. He was given a verdict of £6O.

Someone writing from London to the “ Boston Herald” thns compliments the Princess of Wales, whom he saw at a fashionable gathering : —“ Her sweet face, still fresh, and almost girlish, despite her wifehood and maternity, made all other ‘ beauties’ seem either pale or common beside her, for it is truth and not flattery to say that the Princess remains the prettiest woman in England.” Bathers at the Pelichet Bay baths, says the Dunedin “ Star,” had better keep a sharp look-out, for we are informed by-several regular visitors there that for the- last three or four days an octopus has taken up his quarters inside the bathing space. It can be seen occasionally swimming about near the surface, and on one occasion a man attacked it with a boat-hook, but did succeed in killing it. When its limbs are extended the octopus measures some 4ft or sft across. There are rumors that a day or two ago it got hold of a bather for a few moments, hut this we cannot vouch for.

An official of the Paris Octroi, whilst walking in the Rue de Rivoli, met a very thin gentleman whose face seemed familiar to him, but which he had always associated with a body of unusual obesity. The official was somewhat puzzled, but thought nothing more of the circurastunce until next morning, when on duty at one of the gates of Paris, ho saw the identical gentleman approaching in the direction of the town but this time endowed in a mostredundand figure. The wary officer stopped the phenomenal gentleman, and requesting him to step into the office, asked for an explanation of the extraordinary alteration in his proportions. The individual thus brought to tasktried to run away, but was arrested and relieved of a large indiaruhber stomach containing about twenty quarts of alcohol, which he was endeavouring to smuggle into Paris free of Octroi duty. Thus reduced to his natural meagre state, the individual was conducted to the Dolicc station and locked up.