CHARLES DICKENS ADVICE TO HIS SON.

Tuapeka Times, Volume VII, Issue 361, 3 June 1874, Page 4

CHARLES DICKENS ADVICE TO HIS SON.

Never take a mean advantage of -any one in any transaction, and never be hard upon people who are in your power. Try to do to others as you would have them do to you, and do not be discouraged if they fail sometimes. It is much better for you that they should fail in obeying the greatest rule laid down by our Saviour than that you should. I put a New Testament among your books for the very same reasons, and with the very same hopes that made me.wiite an easy account of it for you when you were a little child : because it is the best book that ever was -or ever will be known in the world, and because it teaches you the beßt lessons by which any human creature, who tries to be truthful and faithful to duty, can possibly be guided. As your brothers have gone away, one by one, 1 have written to each such words as I am now writing to you, and have entreated them all to guide themselves by this book, putting aside the interpretations and inventions of man. You will remember that you have never at home been harassed about religious observances or mere formalities. I have always been anxious not to weary my children with such things before they are old enough to form opiuions respecting them. You will therefore understand the better that I now most solemnly impress upon, you the troth and beauty of the Christian religion, as it came' from Christ himself, and the impossibility of your going far wrong if you humbly but heartily respect it. Only one thing more on this head. The more we are in earnest as to feeling it, the less -we are disposed to hold forth about it. Never abandon the wholesome practice of saying your own private prayers, night and morning. I have never abandoned it myself, and known the comfort of it. I hope ypu will always be able to say in after life that you had a kind father. Yon cannot show you affection for him so well, or make him so happy, as by doing your duty.

A man giving his name as " Lord Hastings " was brought up at the Paramata Police Court lately charged with drunkenness and making use of obscene language, and was fined 40s. Hastings is known in Paramata (says the " Times")' from the fact that he gees about among the storekeepers collecting kerosene tins and other rubbish of that sort, and has hardly a shoe to his feet ; yet when taken into custody there was found sown up in old rags, a parcel which he carried inside his vest, the sum of £253, and also £39 2* 6d which he corrud lose in his pocket. Victorian Uailwayr — Returns of traffic for the week ending 20th March, 1874:— Passengers, 1874, 20,592; 1873, 90,938. Passengers, hones, carriages, dogs and mails, 1874, £5,411 4s tld ; 1873 £4,403 .3s 7d. Merchandise^ minerals, tfnd cattle, 1874, £10,314 12s 3d; 1873, £7,913 7s 0(1. Total for the week, 1874, £15,625 17s 2d ; 1873, £12,316 10s 7d. Aggregate to this date, from Ist July, 1873, £648,111 8s Id ; 1872, £522,005 Is Gd. Weekly average (39 weeks),* 1874, £15,018 in 9d ; 1873, £13,384 14s 6d,