THE Evening Star. PUBLISHED DAILY AT FOUR O'CLOCK P.M. Resurrexi. MONDAY, DECEMBER 29, 1879.

Thames Star, Volume X, Issue 3436, 29 December 1879, Page 2

THE Evening Star. PUBLISHED DAILY AT FOUR O'CLOCK P.M. Resurrexi. MONDAY, DECEMBER 29, 1879.

It is stated that instructions have been given to discontinue pumping operations until such time as the contributions due from all the mines benefited are received.

In our advertising columns will be found tht; announcement of the intended sale of the Caledonian, Tookey, Golden Crown and Imperial Grown mines and crushing planb. The sale is advertised to take place on or about the 27th proximo.

The Academy was well attended on Saturday night, and the performance of the Fun and Frolic Company went oft very satisfactorily. The programme was a lengthy one, each member of the company having a good opportunity of displaying his and her powers in their respective lines. The loud and frequent, applause'of the audience testified to their satisfaction with the entertainment. This evening this clever troupe will again appear in an entire change of programme. The farce will be quite new, introducing new songs. The character songs will also be new, and the Leonard Brothers will exhibit their wonderful dexterity in the high school of gymna.

The purchasing of the gates at the late racing meeting must have been a very remunerative speculation, aa the total amount taken for the two days was £162 8s 3d. The price paid for the gates was £83.

The editor of the Lance in reply to a question about some .Alburnia telegram •ays:—We cannot positively say what was the object which prompted Tommy Macffarlane (Director of the Alburoia Goldmining Company) to erase the latter portion of a telegram addressed to the office on Friday last. People devoid of charity might say that the eliminated portion was of such a nature as to interfere with Tommy's placing a few shares in the market. Anyhow, we cordially agree with his. action. What is the good of being a director unless you can manipulate telegrams or do any other blessed thing? What in thunder hare share* holders to do with these matters ?

We have received from Messrs Gr. R. West and Co. a copy of No. 2 of their New Zealand Musical Magazine, juit issued by them. It contains 12 of the most popular drawing - room pieces, waltzes, scholtischei, and songs. The first piece is a charming valse dt salon by Turner, entitled " The Fairy Wedding," brilliant but not difficult. Next follows the well-known schottiscke " The Mountain Belle," by Einkel; after comes Strauss' world-renowned "Bine Danube," by the charming strains of which every votary of Terpsichore has been delighted. F*xt follows the two well-known songs, "Still thine own," by Thomas, and Bishop's " When.j the. green leaves come again." We have also Lunge's beautiful melody " Blumenlied," with its characteristic modulations; Mallard's " Waiting," and fiva othtr wellknown Christy ballads—making altogether one of the cheapest shilling's-worth, we suppose ever published. The work reflects credit on all engaged in its production. ,

Two blacklegs, one from Auckland and the other from Wanganui, sat down to play " Yankee grab " in an hotel in a town this side of Cooks Strait. They played heavily, and about a couple of hours after they commenced one was completely cleaned out, having lost over £100. The winner, as he got up, said " I say B you used one false die!" "Indeed I didn't," was the reply. " Oh! yea you did exclaimed the winner, "I soon spotted your little game, so I got out three, and of course skinned. You're a big rogue B- , but I'm a much bigger one. Here's a couple of pounds to get you back to town ! Ta, ta, B !" and the scoundrel was off. The facts of the case are in tho main correct.

11A strange rumour" says Grace Greenwood, the London Correspondent of the New York Times, " has been for some time afloat in London and no'v I find it given with considerable circumstantiality, if not substantiation in the Paris Figaro. It is no less than the statement that the late Prince Imperial left a wife—a beautiful young English girl, whom he had privately married, and had installed with her baby and nurse in a retired furnished house in Bath. It is stated that when about to depart for Africa he placed his wife and child under the special care of a Catholic priest, to whom he was only known as an officer in the English Artillery, and to whom he said that grave family reasons hindered him from applying to any other friend, and even from revealing his real name. This priest frequently visited his charge, and happened to be present when the poor young woman received the news of the death of tho Prince Imperial, at which she fainted. From this, and her great distress afterwards, he was led to divine her secret, and his suspicions were confirmed by hearing that the lady actually went to Chiselhurst at once, and made desperate but vain efforls to obtain an interview with the Empress. Should this^romantic story prove true—and what romance need surprise where a Bonaparte is concerned? —there .is another lease of shadowy life for the Empire, of shadowy regency for the Empress; and it would bring surcease to the agony of indecision from which Prince Jerome is suffering."

De Gbellet, of Vichy, states that he has never failed in immediately relieving hiccough, i.e., not dependent upon any appreciable morbid condition, by administering a lump of sugar soaked in vinegar, —Revue Medicale.

A bojiewhat curious application made by Mr Mount at the Bankruptcy sitting of the Supremo Court, Dunediu. The learned council applied that a bankrupt who received his discharge in 1870, and paid a dividend of 3s 4din the pound, should ho summoned, under Bankruptcy legislation of 1867, to submit to an examination to show whether or not ho was able now to pay 10s in the pound. The learned council with great candour confessed ho did not care for making the application, and that he believed the continued operation of the 1867 Act in this respect was an oversight. The decision of His Honor, which is to bo given on Monday next, will be watched with interest, as it old wounds are to be re-opened in this way not a few residents throughout the Colony would be placed in a very uncomfortable position.

The preamble of the Bill legalising the use of the totalisator in South Australia is worth reproducing. It is as follows :—- ---" Whereas great evils hare resulted from rash and indiscriminate betting at races, and young men and others are often tempted by the reason of the uncertainty of losing and the chance of winning to make bets which, if lost, are wholly beyond their means to pay, and in order to pay the same resort to criminal means of obtaining money: And whereas the use of the totalisator would tend to diminish betting by giving young men aud others a pecuniury interest in the races without the evils incident to indiscriminate betting."

Db Charles M. Cresson, of Philadelphia, has invented a megascope, or instrument for detecting forgeries. The genuine and spurious signatures are put in ths instrument aad the two thrown on a screen before the jury, and the story is told at once. The peculiar arrangement of the light and screen enables the examiner to discover the surface of the paper through the ink, so that patching or shading or painting of letters becomes evident the instant it is brought under the focus of the megascope.

In accordance with ancient customs, a quaint legal ceremony between the Crown and the Corporation of London waa observed some days ago. It was held for the first time in the new Law Courts. The Secondary, the City Solicitor, and the late Under-Sherifi", (Mr Baxter) attended before Sir Frederick Pollock, the Queen's Remembrancer, to render services due from the terms :—" Tenants and occupiers of a' piece of waste land called the Moors, in the county of Salop, come forth and do your service." The City Solicitor (Mr Kelson) then stepped forward and cut one faggot with a hatchet and another with a billhood. A turther proclamation was then made as follows : —"Tenants and occupiers of a certain tenement called the Forge, in the parish of St Clament Danes, in the county of Middlesex, come forth and do your services." The City Solicitor then counted six horse-shoes and 61 nails, the Queen's Remembrancer saying, "Good naniber." With that the ceremony ended.

An English paper of a late date has the following:—" We spend £140,000,000 annually upon drink, and it had been calculated that the indirect cost vrai £130,000,000 more, or a total annual expenditure, direct and indirect, of £270,000.000—that is, an average of £9 a head for every man, women, and child in the United Kingdom. We complain of bad times; one great secret of bad times was this enormous expenditure. If this money were spent in legitimate trade, at the shops of the draper, the butcher, the tailor, it would give such an impulse to trade that we should be startled At our our own prosperity.