GENERAL NEWS.

Westport Times, Volume VI, Issue 940, 9 March 1872, Page 2

GENERAL NEWS.

A" serious accident occurred oa March sth, to a young man named Wakefield, while shooting on the hills near Hope, Nelson. Being asked to load a guu for a lad who was with him, he rested his own on the ground butt downwards, the barrels leaning against his chest, when by some unexplained means one of them exploded, wounding him in the chest and the upper

part of the left arm, and rendering him insensible, the lad who accompanied him started off for assistance, brought Mr Waring, who found that the charge had fortunately struck his watch, out of which it had comtDletely driven the works, the case of it turning the shot on one side, so that only a few of them entered the body. The sufferer is doing well after his miraculous escape. At special meeting of the Nelson City Rifles, Ensign M'Cabe was elected Lieutenant vice Lieutenant Garrard, resigned, and Corporal A. Barnett, Ensign, vice Ensiyn M'Cabe promoted. The election for captaincy rendered vacant by the resignation of Captain Maclean, was adjourned. Ensign Barnett was elected Secretary to the Company. Some 200 children, at the annual pic-nic in connection with the Presbyterian Sunday School at Nelson, assembled, with a number of their parents, and were entertained during the day with games of varied character. The piper, attired in Highland cos tume, was also present. Elizabeth Witten, a patient in the Auckland Lunatic Asylum, stabbed herself in seven places with a pair of scissors. The wounds terminated fatally.

A sad accident occurred in the river Sehvyn, on Sunday, March 3. A young : man named Charles 'Cochrane, in the employ of Messrs Bruce ani'Co, went frith a ft iend to bdthe in the river, but after diving in was not seen to rise to the surface, and on the river being dragged his body was found close to Where he entered the Water.

Mr Charles Poole, comedian, who was the ; first of the Melbourne Theatre Boyal, was buried at Boston, America, on December 3rd,

with Masonic ceremonies In the rifle match between the Thames Scottish, and Captain Wales's Dunedin Company, the total score of the Thames Company was 389. A sa\vmiH(said to be the largest in the Colony) has been started at Kaipara, Auckland. At Picton, a building used by Mr Peck as a fish-curing establishment, has been destroyed by'fire. Mr Peck is a great loser by the fire.

The office of revising officer for Nelson, held'for several years 'by the late T. Ctinnell, Esq, has been conferred on Edward Eee, Esq., of Canterbury.

two 'informers have been put to utter shame by the hostessof a Sandhurst shanty. As the "Advertiser" tells the tale, " two informers who had suspected 'that the lady in question supplied drinks not for love, but for commensurate remuneration, visited her domicile, and asked for a glass of bfier. They were politely informed that beer was not 'in the way ' of the landlady, but Tmeh a thing as gin might, by an exertion, be had. Well, they would have gin just medicinally. The landlady returned to the back room, and emptying a kerosene jar into a square gin bottle, returned, and placed the bottle before her guests, who anxious to have their reward, poured out the liquid, and gulped a little ere they discovered their sad mistake. The last that was seen of

them, so said our informant, was their legs, and five or six tumblers flying [after tbsto, hurled by the enraged [owner of the dwelling."