Untitled

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume 12, Issue 976, 8 September 1868, Page 3

A very ugly and penurious man works in his own fields in the Summer months to save the service of a scarecrow. On the occasion of an eclipse in Virginia a coloured individual became greatly, elated. > " Bress de Lord," said he, " nigger's time hab come at last, and now we's gwine to hab a black sun." A G-reenhoen sat a long time very attentively musing upon a cane-bottomed chair. • At length he said, " I wonder what fellow took the trouble to find allthem 'ere holes, and put straws around 'em." A Connaught Farmer who had been brought to an election dinner in his county town was puzzled with the silver fork which lay before him with his soup; what he most needed had been forgotten. The farmer reminded the waiter by saying, " Waither ; will ye bring me a spoon widdut a slit in it ?" Eowland Hill rode a great deal, and by exercise preserved vigorous health. On one occasion, when asked by a medical friend what physician and apothecary he employed, to be always so well, he replied, " My physician has been a horse, and my apothecary an ass." A Sea Captain, trading regularly to the African coast, was invited to meet a committee of a society for the evangelization of Africa. Among numerous questions touching the habits and religion of the African races, he was asked, " Do the subjects of King Dahomey keep Sunday ?" — "Keep Sunday?" he replied; "yes, and every other darned thing they can lay their hands on." Departure of Old Identities. — The Dunedin Evening Mail says : — " We understand that several gentlemen, long connected with this Province, are about to take their flight to and try their fortune in New Caledonia, attracted thither by the favourable accounts of that country recently received from another gentleman, an old settler in Otago, but who has been for some time past a resident in New Caledonia. Of the gentlemen alluded to, one is a well-known farmer at the Clutha, formerly a draper in this city ; two are sons of farmers, also well known in the Clutha district ; and the fourth a son of an early Dunedin merchant. We wish them ' God speed,' and an ample realisation of their best hopes and expectations." Financial Condition of Queensland. — Notwithstanding its goldfields, Queensland, once looked upon as one of the most promising of the Australian colonies, seems to have fallen into a most lamentable condition (similar to New Zealand), financially, and otherwise. The following article lately appeared in the Northern i Argus: — " Money does not multiply and increase in our hands ; we can hardly manage to keep a nest egg. Our country remains undeveloped ; our merchants do nothing but draw water with sieves ; our tradesmen are compelled to give long credits, and to sell without any certainty of payment ; our artificers are half unemployed ; and our laborers wander about the land seeking work ; and, like the Isralitish spies, return with ' an evil report.' A debt which will, no doubt, yet be made heavier, hangs like a millstone round the neck of the country, and ad valorem,, our curse and our blight, eats into the core of our prosperity, and keeps us ' beggars all.' Our squatters are in a state of insolvency ; stock of every description commands , ruinous prices only ; our railways are running at a serious annual loss, while freightage and bad water carriage add to a catalogue which shows, to a partial extent, the sum total of our present; difficulties."