EXTRAORDINARY TELEGRAPH FEAT.

Tuapeka Times, Volume VII, Issue 391, 16 September 1874, Page 6

EXTRAORDINARY TELEGRAPH FEAT.

The ' Times ' reprints the following tale from the 'Whitehall Times.' Whitehall is a town in Washington country, State of New York :—": — " Our readers will remember, when General Kilpatrick returned from O'nlll three years since, his having a remarkable operation performed upon him by a physician in New York, who removed a fleshy formation from the general's neck by filling it full of needles, and then attaohing a galvanic battery to it. Ten minutes after the current of electrioity was let on, the bunch had entirely disappeared. A remarkable operation was performed by a Whitehall physician a few days ago. A gentleman who had been suffering from a superabundance of adipose tissue consulted the physician, asking for relief from its burden. The doctor told him he could relieve Mm if he would consent to a painful operation. The gentleman consented, and with the medical practitioner entered the teleerraph office at this place. The fat man was requested to remove his coat and vest, after which the physician surrounded him with wires, attaching the ends to a powerful battery. At a .signal from the doctor, Manager Eddy let on the current. The patient writhed and twisted when he felt the current passing around him ; still he stood it like a martyr. Presently he began to shrink ; he grew smaller and smaller; his clothes hung in bags about his fast diminishing form ; the doctor felt much' pleased at the resuit of the experiment, while the formerly fat man's joy was very great, although he seemed to be suffering acute pain. All of a sudden there was heard a loud clicking at the instrument, as if Pandemonium's great hall had been let loose. The operator sprang quickly to answer the call. He ascertained it was from the New York office. He quickly asked ' What's up V An answer came back as if .some infuriated demon was at the other end of the wire. ' What in thunder are you about 1 Cut off your wires quick — you are filling the New York office with soap and grease.' "

The Greymouth • Evening Star ' finds fault with Fox as follows :—": — " Speaking against the new Licensing Bill oa the 2'itli ot last mouth, Mr Fox stated that the bellman on the West Coasb announced : • T<m new barmaids just arrived by the Alhambra ! Roll up, gentlemen — roll up and see them !' We sincerely wish the honorable advocate of totul abstinence would be a little more explicit. From the way ha mentioned the subject;, his bearers were led to believe that the announcements of the arrival of barmaids was st, common practice with us, and we really mu3t protest against this wholesale vilification of a community because on one oocas'on, in years gone by? some enterprising publican chose to make his business arrangement public by means of a bellman. " Our '.experience q£ West Coast affairs is large, but it docs nob embrace the circumstance alluded to. Ten young ladies teem rather a wholesale importation at any time, and the bar for which they were intended must have been capacious. Ten barmaids in one bar, in this age of crinoline and dress improvers ! The idea is preposterous, and the great Pox has proved himself a still greater goose by giving «H>dc!icr. to such au improbable story."