MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS.

Southland Times, Issue 1105, 10 February 1869, Page 3

MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS.

The ' Court Journal' says a curious fashion has crept into the House of Commons. The idea was evidently got by an inventive M.P. upon visiting ii nursery and eeeing young Six Months going through his perforai ance. The fashion we allude to is that of havins a bottfe'in the breast coat pocket. The bottle is filled with someliqaid — say, to be on good terms wirh the teetotallers, barley water — and that liquid is imbibed by the M. P. through a tube. It is perhaps more convenient to the speaker than to carry about a glass of water till his turn comes to speak, and which, if lie places by his side, is sure to be seized and consumed by a thirsty neighbor. Mrs Williams, a butcher's wife at Brunswick, New South Wales, was alone, sick and in bed, in her house on Mon lay evening,' December 28. Her husband and assistant had gone to Northcote, at eight o'clock, with a number of pigs. Two men entered the house at nine, bound Mrs Williams down to her bed with cords, and then j stole £3l>o in notes and gold, getting clear off. A valuable clog, a great snake-killer, got con- - quered at last himself, at Avenel station, Duck Ponds, New South Wales. He missed his catch i of a large snake by the head, and in an instant j was bitten himself, and died in an hour. The snake took refuge in the crevices of a stono wall, and part of the wall had to be taken down before lie could be got out and killed. While our Colonial Legislature think3 it a wise and statesmanlike thing to attempt to cramp the liberty of the press and to curtail the spread of information, we find Mr Blight, in his speech to the electors at Birmingham, speaking as follows : — " I consider that we have done scarcely any greater thing in my lifetime than the abolition of the taxes upon the newspaper press. My friend, my Old friend, now the member for Ashton, Mr Milner Gibson (cheers), he, of all the men in Parliament, deserves the honour and credit of that grea 1 ! change, and I say that it can scarcely be reckoned second to any of the changes which Lam now describing or speaking of." (Cheers.) After alluding to past taxation on newspapers Mr Bright goes on to say, " The result was that a newspaperfin those days was only very small and very poor, and it was sold at 7di (laughter and cheers) ; very few were sold, and a very few were read, and that prodigious school of instruction for the people which we Opened when we ! abolished the taxes ou newspapers was abolished 1 by the Act of Parliament, which had utterly disregarded the true interests of the nation for wnich it was called upon to legislate." (Cheers). The Araluen correspondent of the ' Braidwood Despatch' reports the doings of an amiable married lady named Margaret Noonan, who, having imbibed too much bottled ale, first ' pitched into' her husband his mother, bx*other, and sister, and, having scattered them, she proceeded to make a bonfire of all their clothing, around which she danced ' like a red Indian,' pelting with stones any one who attempted to rescue anything from the fire. She was eventually taken into custody by the police. Those people who are in the habit of grumbling about trifling errors in books and newspapers may read the following with some profit . — ' A writer in the June number of the ' Galaxy' gives some interesting instances of typographical errors. He mentions one edition of the Bible which contained 6,000 mistakes. He gives the following example of the difficulties in the way of getting out a perfect book. Some professors of the university at Edinburgh resolved to publish a book which should be a model of typographical accuracy. Six proof-readers were employed, and, after it was thought to be perfect, the sheets were pasted up in the hall of the university, and a reward of 250 dollars was offered for every mistake that should be discovered. When the book was printed it was found that it contained several errors, one being in the title-page and another in the tirat hue in the first chapter. The only book that ares believed to be entirely free from errors are an Oxiord edition of the Bible, a London and Leipsic Horace, and an American reprint of Dante." A conference of German ladies has been held at Stuttgart, at which a motion was agreed to declaring the necessity of modifying women's toilettes, with a view to check the extravagance, the bad taste, and incessant changes of their vestments. The conference then directed the Association for the Education and Amelioration of the Condition of Women to organise a commission composed of painters, doctors, tailors, and modistes, for the purpose of suggesting new toilettes. The ' G-azette des Femines' will publish the recommendations of the commission. The ' Argus' argues vigorously against a proposal made by two of the Melbourne banks to their shareholders, to change their banking rules of conduct so far as to advance money on mortgages of laud and houses, &c. The 'Argus' says that this would be legitimate business for a laud bank, avowedly so started ; but that in ordinary banking money is never advanced on inconvertible securities of long date, which property is. it quotes the authority of Mr Gilbart in proof, and also the express worda of the Incorporating Act of the .National Bank of Victoria. In point of fact, the ' Argus' states, some of the banks do itretch a point now in this direction at times, and advance money on a bill to be supplemented a quarter of an hour after by a deposit of deeds of laaU. But this casual course, full of danger, would become the habitual rule if the proposal now made were accepted by the shareholders, and then made legal by an alteration of the Incorporating Acts of the two banks. The following amusing extract from ' Lloyd's Weekly' shows the straits to which hairdressers are reduced by the enormous consumption of the capillary substance in the shape of chignons : — "At the Marylebone Police Coart, a lady, apparently about thirty years cf age, entered the wit-ness-box, and informed Mr Mansfield she wished to make an application. — Mr Mansfield told her to proceed. — Applicant : I have come to aßk you to grant me a summons against a hairdresser in the neighborhood of Camden-town for cutting off my hair. I went to his shop last week to have my hair dressed, and on my return home my servant discovered that a portion of the hair on the right side had been cut off. On Wednesday I went to the shop again had mv hair dressed by the assistant. j Yesterday, when my servant went in to do my hair, she found a piece had been cut off the other side. Mr Mansfield said: It is the most extraordinary application I ever heard. If you think you have sustained any injury or loss, you had better go to the county court. — Applicant : No ; it is stealing. You see, "sir, these hairdressers take a piece of hair off one lady's head, and a piece off another, and these they make up into curls and sell them. (Laughter.) — Mr Mansfield : Might not your servant have cut it ? — Applicant : Oh dear no. lam certain it was not my servant. — Mr Mansfield : I will tell you what to do. Go to the county court, and take out a plaint against either the master or assistant, laying your damages at say £10. — Applicant thanked the magistrate and retired."