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Thames Star, Volume X, Issue 3108, 3 February 1879, Page 2

" An amusing narrative," the Riverine Herald says, "has reached us of the adventures of one of the tickets of admission to the recent embassy banquet. A few days before the demonstration a commercial gentleman residing in Melbourne was in Echuca, and knowing that his railway fare would be 265, the thought suggested itself to him that it would be advantageous to provide himself with a ticket for the banquet rather than with the ordinary passport. Ho did so, and thereby effected a saving of 15#6d. He had no intention of going to the banquet, and upon his arrival was quite satisfied with the" transaction so far as it had then gone, and thought nothing of utilising the ticket further. But on his way from the station he fell in with an acquaintance who had made up his mind to do honour to the ambassador! at the Town-hall, and who was not yet provided with the necessary card of admission, and to him therefore he offered his ticket at the reduced price of 7s 6d, an offer which was readily accepted, so that the cost of his journey from Echuca was now reduced to 3s. The ticket was duly presented in the evening, and the railway pass attached to it was snipped in the proper manner, and returned to its new owner, by whom it was placed in his pocket as valueless. But the next morning he was accosted by a friend who had occasion to travel to Sandhurst, and the result of a very short conversation was that the railway pass again changed hands at a cost of 7s 6d. Thus, as the means of securing the attendance of one man to do honour to the two ambassadors, the first individual was brought from Echuca to Melbourne at a loss to the revenue of 265, the second was conveyed from Melbourne to Sandhurst at a loss of 17s. and the third had the gratification of eating, drinking, and listening to liberal oratory all night for nothing."* People of Settled Convictions.—Prisoners.