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Southland Times, Issue 1178, 18 June 1869, Page 2

The Bey. Newman Hall told the following storj in the course of a lecture in Sheffield, on his recent visit to America. An illiterate negro preacher said to his congregation : — " My bredren, when de fust man Adam was made, he was made ob wet clay, and set up agin de pailings to dry." " D*» you say," said one of the congregation, ' J at Adam was made ob wet clay, and set c\> agin de pailings to dry ?" " Yes, sar, I do." " Who made Ide pailings?" " Sit down ear," said the 1 preacher sternly, " such questions as dat would|upset any system of theology." j

CURIOSITIES OF LONDON LIFE. The 'Morning Herald' refers to the case which has just been dealt with by the presiding judge of the Central Criminal Court. Two foreigners, nafted Streimer and Kunacke, have been tried and convicted of forging and uttering a multitude of fictitious bills of exchange, and have very properly been sentenced to long periods of penal servitude, within a stone's throw of the Bank of England they carried out their nefarious and perilous trade of forgery by wholesale, and from a small office, situated almost under the shadow of that great establishment, they sent forth a multitude of ostensibly genuine commercial instruments, of which every part was false, except the stamps they bore and the paper on which they were written. The firm of forgers must have had considerable knowledge of mercantile business, or they would never have ventured upon so extensive a scheme. They had bills which purported to hare been d/ awn on firms in every quarter of the world, and in every part of the kingdom. The amounts too generally included some odd shillings and pence, just by the way of keeping up appearances, and all the ordinary indications of good bills were carefully imitated, so that some of our most resepctable banks were actually induced to advance money upon them. But when at length the police got on the rogues track, the drawers, acceptors and endorsers on Messrs Streimer and Itunacke's paper turned out to be purely tnythical personages, with neither form nor substance} local habitation} nor name. $he wonder was how they contrived to keep up their game so long, and to put so much stuff into circulation. But perhaps this wonder was surpassed by the tact that, as far as could he ascertained, they had made very little by it. We are afraid the natural inference is that vre haye only got at the underlings, and that the principal offenders are yet undiscovered, as is believed to be the case with the Russian and other foreign note forgeries. If so, the police have an opportunity of distinguishing themselves by running the greater delinquents to earth, and so ridding us of pests whose life must be passed in incessant endeavours to destroy that confidence without which trade cannot be carried on, careless of the loss they inflict upon men unfortunate enough to be deceived by their evil and fraudulent devices.