Page 3 Advertisements Column 2

Southland Times, Issue 707, 9 August 1867, Page 3

ORIGINAL POETRY. A PROVINCIAL ELECTION RHYME. At the sign of the Clock, in a principal street, Toiling far into the night on his seat, Cheating old Time, iv his workshop so neat, Sat Lummy ! Pride and ambition, while passing that way, Seeking a victim on whom they might prey ; Walked into the shop, and straight led astray, Poor Lummy ! They very soon gained for him great notoriety ; ... For crochets and schemes of unbounded variety^ And many queer glans for the good ! of society,' " Went in Lummy ! For bad lighting, drainage and gratings iniquitous, Four post umbrellas, and markets ridiculous — For Canals, and such follies, who was conspicuous ? - ! Why Lummy ! When the Town Board collapsed, and its glory had flown, When debt and disgrace o'er the Province were thrown, What good man came forth for the Town, all • alone ? Our Lummy ! In the Council behold him !— -he raised not a hand 'Gainst paying for contracts — cash wanting — with land j 'Gainst leasing the Railway, who ma^e such a stand As Lummy ? If we want information, oh ! where shall we seek For the reason we're losing a hundred a week By the costly Bluff Railway's officials so sleek ? Ask Lummy. Who did those gi'im demons, pride and ambition Reduce unto such a low mental condition, That Cuthy cajoled him with hopes of position? Soft Lummy ! They led him away, far beyond reclamation, 'Stead of Railways he vowed he'd support immigration, And thus bring poor people to want and starvation. Oh, Lummy ! When those who were offered a chance of progression 1 Proposed to construct Vnes of Railway, last session, Who pro red a traitor, vile, beyond all expression? 'Twas Lummy ! But now he finds cunning CuHi (ook him iv, And Menzies entrapped him, t their own ends to wiu, Who sa J 3 > °U a l° n g> lie thought Railways the thing ? Pliant Lummy ! For the squatters alone, he would have us believe His amendment was passed, and was meant to deceive ; And thus, his lost character tried to retrieve, Did Lummy ! Should he now vainly hope, Southland's Council to sit in, As a member for town, though the place doesn't fit him ; it's distressing to know that we'll never permit him. Lost Lummy ! But at last, when restored to the Sign of the Clock ; When he's no longer troubled with thoughts of Blacklock; Whatman more content 'mid his tic-a-tic stock Than Lummy ? Time only will surely bring peace to his soul ; Time-pieces, just now, go beyond all control j Who'll set them right? Wlxy, the last on the Poll, Namely, Lummy ! A Feaeftjl Death. — The following extrao r . dinary catastrophe is narrated by the " New York Herald" of the x7th April : — After the bombardment of Valparaiso, an! while the Spanish fleet was at Callao, a German residing in Valparaiso constructed a sub-marine boat for the purpose of applying torpedoes to the bottoms of the Spanish frigates. The boat was about forty feet long and wss propelled by a screw worked by the hand. So confident was her builder in her efficiency that at the first experiment in the bay he took with him into the boat his son and eight friends. After sailing about a few moments on the surface, the boat was made to sink without the precaution of having cables attached for the use in case of accident, or even a buoy to mark the spot where she went down. Several hours elapsed and the boat failing to .reappear, the spectators crowded on the mole, began to fear that all was not right, and as the day passed away, the conviction became general that the adventm'ous party had gone, to the bottom. Late in the afternoon the mail steamer from Panama came in and fired a gun near the spot where the boat had disappeared. As the small boats were passing to and from the steamer with passengers, &c, bubbles were discovered rising upon the surface of the water where the submarine boat was last seen ; and as these came up at regular intervals in small numbers, it was supposed that the party was still alive, and hearing the steamer's gun, and knowing that a great many boats would be going to and fro, was signalling for help by ejecting air. A diver belonging to one of the English men-of-war was at once sent down, and after half an hour's anxious waiting, he returned with the intelligence that the boat was on the bottom, in thirty-three fathoms of water. Chains and cables were immediately attached to the boat, and repeated efforts were made to raise her, but without avail, j her bottom seeming to have been sucked into the I oozy bed of the sea and become firmly fastened. All night and the next day until afternoon the bubbles; kept coming up like signals, sometimes not appearing for half an hour at a time, and then suddenly rushing up for a few seconds with great force. The feeling of the populace assembled to rescue the party from their terrible fate may be imagined ; but what must have been the reflections of the men during those awful hours at the bottom of the bay, knowing, as they did, what little hope theie was ior them. They could have heard the divers working on the sides of their boat attaching the chains, and perhaps felt the strain as the cables drew taut ; but as time sped away without their being raised, despair worse than death must have taken possession of them. Doubtless they tried to signal through the sides of their boat to the diver hammering outside, but he in bis diving dress could hear nothing. The aperture to the interior was so small that but one person could pass through it at a time, and that very slowley, so that if an attempt were made to escape by that means, all would inevitably be drowned. After many hours of laborious efforts to raise the boat the hoisting machinery broke, and the attempt was necessarily abandoned. About the middle of the afternoon of the second day the bubbles commenced growing fainter and more rare, and before sundown, entirely ceased. I'he boat still lies where it- went down, and passengers arriving by the steamer are told by the boatmen, as they row towards the shore, the painful story of those ten men's fate, and of the families who still mourn in Valparaiso for their fathers and brothers in the iron coffin at the bottom of the sea. The Sabbath .Alliance of Scotland reports that, " notwithstanding all the efforts of their own and of kindred institutions, Sabbath profanation has rather increased than diminished." They state that the Glasgow and S juth- western Railway has been recently opened for Sunday traffic, and that the North British Railway is getting worse in that i respect.