PROVINCIAL AND GENERAL.

Tuapeka Times, Volume III, Issue 168, 27 April 1871, Page 3

PROVINCIAL AND GENERAL.

In the Supreme Court, Wellington, on the calling of the plaintiff in the case Palmer v. Field, a stalwart, robust young man walked into the box, and on his Honour asking the witness what his age was, he replied, " Nineteen." " Just nineteen years old," and quite 6 feet 2 inches. However ludicrous it might appear, his Honour, says the " Independent," had no alternative but to proclaim him "an infant," and that he had no locus standi. The other day at Nelson, his Honour Mr. Justice Richmond, on the subject of oaths, remarked that he hoped he should see the time when such oaths as were used in a court of justice, would be done away with. He considered they were nothing more than a superstition, and their use was like assuming that the Supreme Being would be bette? with a man's adherence to truth because he went through a certain formula, than if he used none. Perhaps, said his Honour, he was not called upon to make such a statement as an English Judge, but he was quite entitled to say so as an English gentleman. A contemporary says : — " The number of sheep in the Australian Colonies is about thirty-five niillions, and the number in Great Britain is the same. At one period the returnsfor Great Britain showed over forty millions; but of late years the number seems to have diminished, owing, itissaid, to the large tracts of country in Scotland devoted exclusively to game, The number of cattle in Great Britain is very much in excess of the number in the Australian Colonies." Opposum skins are being largely exported from South Australia to England, to be manufactured into gloves. A reporter on the staff of the "Wallyall Chronicle," Gipps Land has been apprehended on a charge of bushranging. Mr. Pyke was rather facetious on "Wednesday last, when presiding in the Resident Magistrate's and Warden's Courts. There Avas a large amount of business to be disposed of, and the Courts were not closed until late in the afternoon. One witness addressed Mr. Pyke as "My Lord."— "Not yet," quietly remarked the E.M., " though I don't know what I may be." Witness apologised, and said he was unused to the proper terms used in Courts. He tried again: "Tour Honour!" — "No," said the imperturbable Pyke ; " make it alittleloweryet!" Witness scratched his head, and with a gleam of satisfaction exclaimed, "Your Worship!" — "Now you've got it: that's it," said Magistrate, evidently enjoying the little joke. In the hearing of a case in which the plaintiff was very deaf, much confusion was occasioned, and the E.M. offered up an ejaculatory prayer that certain parties might also be rendered dumb for a brief period ! Mr. Brough ventured to remark that the 31st of March was " a day prolific in assaults." Mr. Pyke quaintly said that it would have been more appropriate if the assailants bad waited a day, and selected the Ist of April (All Fools' Day.) — " Cromwell Argus." It is said that Mr. Scudamorehas at the London Post-office, a new telegraphic instrument, by which he reckons that he sends messages at the rate of of 60 words per minute. This instrument is to be tried at the House of Parliament at the opening of the

session, in transmitting the summary of the proceedings in both Houses to the provincial papers.

A Hokitika paper states that the census returns indicate that there are at the present time no less than three hundred and thirty-five licensed public houses in the County of Westland. If all these houses were held under the thirty pounds license, the amount of revenue derived directly from this source alone, would be L 9960, but as there are a considerable number of "Conditional" and "Bush" licenses included in the return, the figures will not quite come ud to that amount. In tbe Totara Electoral district, there are fifty-nine public-houses, in the Hokitika district one hundred and seventy one, and in that portion of the Grey Valley district which is included in the County there are no les3 than one hundred and two.

Two whales were espied, well in shore, spouting in Waikouaiti Bay on Saturday last, when Mr. Bradshaw and his party at once launched a couple of boats and gave chase. The crew succeeded in coming within harpooning distance, and cleverly implanted the instrument in the side of each. The one whale was a fin-back and the other a bump-back. The former was eventually captured and brought ashore ; not so the latter, however, which fought fiercely, and got away — the crewnothavingsufficientgearintheboat with the harpoon and tow-line. "We have not heai*d the dimensions of the captured whale, but believe it was a young one. — " Waikouaiti Herald."

A singular instance, writes the " Geelong Advertiser," has been mentioned to us of the changes of fortune which sometimes occur in this Colony. A few years ago there was an industrious woman on a diggings not a hundred miles from Ararat, who made her living by washing for the diggers. Sometimes they paid in money and sometimes in scrip, and sometimes accepting a good hint from her clients, she invested in shares from time to time, and these ventures have turned out; so successfully that she drives her carriage, and with a pair of prancing horses drives through the pleasant streets of the pretty township in which she has made her fortune.

The fierce thunderstorm winch broke over the Thames on Friday night did not pass without accident. A house on the Karaka Road was struck by the electric fluid, which passed between the skilling of the house and the main apartment, and caught Mrs. Emerson, the inmate, and so much shocked her whole system as to drive her into fits. Dr. Lethbridge was sent for, and applied the neccessary remedies, and we are glad to learn that the lady is doing well. The lightning appears to have travelled along the wall before striking Mrs. Emerson, who was sitting in the kitchen. — " Advertiser."

The London " Gazette" of the 17th of January, notifies that in future sovereigns and half-sovereigns made at the Sydney Mint, which have been for some time past legal currency in the United Kingdom, shall t>e so hereafter in all the British Colonies, India excepted.

A South African paper, called the " Diamond Field," of the 27th of October says: — " A capital story has just been brought in. A sweet-looking Koranna girl went out on the Pfield side, dipping up from the claim of a party in a bucket, and going down to the river and washing it for her own advantage.

There was only one white man in charge of the party, and he a smart young Englishman. He was too gallant to drive away a girl although she did not belong to his own fair race. He allowed the girl to go on taking up ground from the surface and washing it. At last she laughed and threw her hands about, and laughed heartily. Our friend the Englishman rushed over to see what the matter was, when lie found that she had picked up a diamond, and a beauty too. The gentleman did the proper thing, he made her an offer on the spot. He is of first-rate family, and vows that he will introduce his wife to his family as an African Princess of great distinction.

A sweetheart's letter was found in the hands of a German prisoner who died of his wounds. We quote an extract :—": — " I hope and sigh for a happy and a gay return, Joseph; you, the one I have learned to love, my betrothed." There breathes an ardent affection in every word. The poor soldier's last act in life was to kiss the wellthumbed letter, moistened with his tears ! and now he lies in a nameless corner of some Paris cemetery. Ah, what weary waiting there will be for that " happy and gay return" below in Oberdingen ! God pity the poor little fluttering heart of Anna when the news is broken to her that the " one whom she had learned to love " is no more — died in pain among strangers, was buried by strange hands in the distant city, in a grave over which she had not the consolation to shed one friendly tear or rear a solitary flower. May she be strengthened to bear her cross, as did that noble mother, of the Faubourg St. Germain, to whom word was brought, as she was descending to dinner, that her son, an ofncDr of the Zouaves, had been killed in the Malmaison ! The stately lady fell back motionless, as if dead. The butler wrung his hands at the sight of this new grief, and, hardly knowing how to console his mistress, he replied, " Madame, madame, if he were a coward, we would have him here still." The colour rushed back to the lady's cheeks, her eyes lit with a proud light, and she rose, offering her arm to one of her gueste, and telling the butler, in a clear low voice, to dress the table with flowers till the end of the war. — English Paper.