PARLIAMENT. [BY TELEGRAPH.—PRESS ASSOCIATION.]

Waikato Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2199, 12 August 1886, Page 2

PARLIAMENT. [BY TELEGRAPH.—PRESS ASSOCIATION.]

Success follows prestige. The Duke of Westminster is perhaps the riche->t man in England, and he enjoys every luxury of earth. And now twice he has won the Derby, ;md once the Two Thousand Guineas. Some men .seem to want the earth and the solar system. A cask of some importance to newspaper subscribers has been recently tried in C^ueanbeyan. Mr dale, proprietor of the " Age," sued a subscriber, as :t test case, under the following conditions : — The party in question ordeied his paper to be stopped, but did not pay up. The paper was continued, and the tull amount sued for. The } defendant mged that on notice of dNcou | tinuance an account ought to have been rendered to the end of the current quarter, but hi.-. Honour ruled that it was the sub- j scnber'B duty to pay up at the time of the countermand to relieve himself of liability, and gave a \ erdict for the amount claimed. Tiik Tkaxscaspivx Railway. — A correspondent writing from Askabad to the liusjjki Viedomo&t (Russia Gazatte) say*. :—": — " Tlio construction of the Trans- I Caspian Railway is progressing rapidly towards completion. The embankment is neatly all the way to Merv, and the rails are already laid down to Kaakhee, a | point about thirty vcrsts distant from the future station of Dooshock, so that everything is ready for opening 560 versts of line. The carriage of material and the j means for its transport are both on an extensive scale, and it is hoped that circulation will be possible up to Merv from June 1. At the present moment great activity is being shown in the construction of the bridge over the river Tendghen, which work has been partially delayed through the peculiarly unfavourable nature of the ground forming the bed of the river, in consequence of which it has been necessary to sink into it five rows of cast- iron piles, each pile being 63ft in length. At Askabad itself, the future centre of the Transcaspian railway system, the buildings in connection with the railway are rapidly rising. They arc all very elegant structures, and the station its»lt will be after a design by the Academician Urlaub, and not unworthy of any i%\n in European Russsa. Doubt has been thrown upon the fidelity of the old Roman sentry who stood at his post till he was buried with Pompeii and Herculaneum, and whose remains echoed, "Still upon guard am I," till the cities were Huuartbeii. It has been suggested that he was really too drunk to run away. This is sluuneiul, but it is a fact — not that be was drunk, bat that the suggestion has been made. A sentry at the Oamaru encampment last Easter showed more sense. The following is the story, as told by the "Evening News" :— Colonel Sir G. Whitmore rode into the camp, and on meeting the sentry of the guard told him to turn out the guard. " I'm the guard!" said the sentry. " You are not tin* gnat d," said Sir George ; " Turn out the guard." "I am the guard," repeated the sentry. "You are not," repeated Sir George, "You are only tho sentry of the guard. Turn out the guard." " Well," said the sentry (confidontially), "if you must know, the guard ha\o all cleared, and I don't see what the *s the use of my walking up and down here alone, bo I'll sling my hook. Good night." Sir George laughed, but didn't give the " guard " a cigar, as he ought to have done,