MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS.

Waikato Argus, Volume V, Issue 321, 30 July 1898, Page 2 (Supplement)

MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS.

Whilst dusting about the Gisborne Post Office the other morning one of the letter-carriers fouud three letters, which had evidently been posted by some person iu 1805, who had mistaken a ventilator in the wall for the'opening to a letter-box. The other ventilators were then examined, and in oue of them one letter and two letter cards weie found. They had also, apparently, been posted by one person, but a year later than the previous lot. The Wairarapa Times complains that at the Masterton railway station the other (lay, a youth, who appeared in exceedingly high spirits, was receiving a good " send-off" from a number of boy friends who appeared to regard him as a hero, possiblybecause ho hail been sentenced that day to three months' imprisonment for larceny. If the law has no tenors for juveniles in the way of imprisonment (the Times suggests) it might possibly have some if tiie " birch " Were resorted to. At tho Supreme Court at Blenheim, Mr Justice Denniston touched lightly on what he called the " ethics of the auction room." He had no hesitation in saying (reports a local paper) that if a person ran up a property merely with the intention of inflaming the bidding and without any intention of buying at the figures he quoted, the successful bidder, if he discovered the ruse, would be quite justified in crying off ami repudiating his offer. The phonograph is now used to teach foreign languages. With each phonog' - uph the pupil receives a textbook and twenty loaded cylinders. Each lesson in the book is arranged in the form of questions and answers. The pupil, ready to begin, puts the cylinders of the first lesson in the machine, the tubes in his ears, and starts the phonograph. Keeping his eye on the book, ho hoars tho words and phrases repeated, with their proper accent, just as if the professor stood at bis side. There is the additional advantage that the lesson can be repeated tweutv or a hundred times if necessary until every sound is familiar to the pupil. A vessel which was recently taking a number of sawmillers round the Tasmanian coast in search of a suitable timber area was driven by stress of weather to take shelter in a broad river, navigable for miles. This river anil the country surrounding it were entirely unknown, which leads to the. speculation that if a small island like Tasmania, one of the earliest colonised portions of Auutralas'a, has its unexplored aud undiscovered areas of considerable extent, what may not the possibilities be for tiie explorer of the unknown portions of the continent. Marcus Clarke's description iu " His Natural Life " of the escape of convicts over Tasmania from Port Macquarrio, gives the idea of vastuess and inaccessibility to the country through which they passed, but it could scarcely be thought that within the small portion of unknown country now left in the island of Tasmania, there was a broad navigable river and a great extent of good country, never before visited by Europeans. One is reminded id' the romantic discovery of the Mackenzie Country by this episode. " While travelling up country in Victoria lately," writes a correspondent of the Argus, " I was obliged to spend a night in a boarding house, which had formerly been an hotel. All the hotels in the district had been closed, so that the sale of liquor was prohibited within an area of several miles. Towards night a considerable company assembled in our establishment, and we had a merry time. Liquor was as plentiful as 1 have ever seen it, and first-class liquor it was too. I never saw sly groa selling carried on with mure effrontery, Among the company was every Government servant of note for miles around. There was the schoolmaster, the staticiuimster, the postmaster and the telegraph operator, and all the rest of them. Every man drank, and every man paid for what he drank. ' How is it the police never bother about this establishment V, I asked. 'They're not smart enough', said my informant; ' old Pete's very sly and knows a thing or two.' 'But I might be a policeman for all Pete knows,' I suggested. ' Not, you,' naively answered the other ; ' I know as you're no policeman, for 1 happen to be the local constable myself.'"