A HEARING, MAY IT PLEASE YOU!

West Coast Times, Issue 360, 17 November 1866, Page 3

A HEARING, MAY IT PLEASE YOU !

(to tiie editor of the west coast times.) Sir — I would liko to ask you if it is customary for Municipal Councils to keep deputations of rate-payers waiting during the whole silting, before allowing them to bo introduced, as huppened to the deputation from Beach street last night ? Yours obediently, Courtesy. November 16, 1866. Captain T. J. Thackeray, writing from Paris, sends the following : — " I have just learned that a most extraordinary invention lias been made, which, if all be true that is said of it, but of which I mny en passant, observe that I have very serious doubts, must revolutionize the whole system of small firearms. It is no less than a rifle that is fired by means of electricity, containing within itself the means of generating the electric fluid, and so certain as not to require any manipulation by the soldier, or any inspection iov months nt a time of the generating means. The mechanism of the lock is, if not entirely got rid of, so much simplified as to occasion no risk of fracture or derangement by the roughest usage. There is no cock or trigger, and therefore no chance of the soldier causing a deviation of the sight by pulling the trigger. In short, its merits are vaunted to me as the ne plus ultra of small firearms. This invention is, I understandj jointly attributable to M. Ernest Bazain, the celebrated electrician, and *M. Gnstinno Eenette, the no less celebrated gunmaker. I give you this information for so much as it may be worth, without taking upon myself to warrant the truth of all that is said of the invention." — " United Service Gazette." The mayor of a country town was questioning the boys at the ragged school, and he asked them what were the pomps and vanities of this wicked world. He asked them one by one, but they could not tell him. At last, a little boy near the bottom said, " I know, sir. The mayor and coi'poration going to church, sir." What day in the year is a command to move on ? — March 4th.