COLONIAL AND GENERAL.

Lake County Press, Issue 42, 22 March 1872, Page 3

COLONIAL AND GENERAL.

A panorama of the Pranco-Prussian War is being exhibited at Auckland. Visitors to the Caledonian mine, Thames, are searched before leaving. At a bazaar in Glasgow lately, the chair in which the Princess Louise sat during the day was sold for £l6. The Hawhes Bay Herald says :—We have been informed on good authority that at one of Mr Lyndons’ auction sales, a short time ago, an oil painting was knocked down for Bs, which was afterwards sold for 12s, and then taken to Auckland, and again changed bands for £SO! Among the rich revelations against the Tammany Ring, the fact appears that two negro minislrels were paid 100 dollars a month each, for making jokes at their public performances against the Republican party and its prominent leaders. After all it appears that the French Government are about to carry out their originally expressed intentions, and that we are soon to receive strong additions to our neighbours in New Caledonia, in the shape of a consignment of Communists. The Paris cot respondent of the Illustrated Hews says the Jura. Government transport, was to sail for New Caledonia with prisoners, amongst whom would be Urbain, Ropues (sometime Mayor of Puteuax), and Trinquet (for a long period Delegate for War). The printer of the Central Australasian, a journal published at Bourke, on the Upper Darling, apologises pitifully in his second number for the errors in his first. He writes :—“ As printer of this journal I feel it incumbent upon me to give an explanation for the many stupid blunders and typographical errors which occurred in our last number. The facts are these : My partner was out of town, the reader was suffering severely from sore eyes, being almost blind from sandy blight, the principal compositor got drunk on publication day, and the others having their ‘lady loves’ to attend to, would not mar the New Year’s holidays by working. I was thus left to bring the paper out myself. Such is the life of a journalist in the North-West. I extremely regret that such errors should have occurred ; and as the * comps’ have got ofi the ’ beer,’ I think such will not be the case again.” According to the Chief Rabbi, Ireland is the only country in which the Jews have never been persecuted. According to the census returns, the total population of the Dominion of Canada, exclusive of British Columbia acd Manitoba, is 3,484.924—an inincrease of 12.79 per cent, within ten years.

Here is a snake story, for the truth of which an informant of the Hampden Guardia?i vouches. A man named J. M'Caughan lived in a but on his laud in the suburbs of Camperdown, aud with him lived a Chinaman. On a shelf near his bed M'Caughan kept his sup ply of milk, which latterly had diminished in quantity to such an extent that his suspicions were aroused,and he taxed the Chinaman with absorbing more than his fair share of the lacteal fluid. “ John” indignantly denied the charge and protested his innocence, but still th& cream disappeared, aud no one could tell where it went to. About the same time M'Caughan was dimly conscious of often feeling something pass across him during the night whilst he lay in bed, but thinking it was either fancy or mice, he paid no attention to that nor to a not unfrequent movement of something or other—he knew not what—under his head. One morning, however M'Caughan thought it would not be a bad idea if he were to make his bed—by way of a change, as it were—and, on throwing the bag of chaff that he used as a pillow out side door, for a little airing, he noticed his cat begin to spit and hiss, and generally make itself very demonstrative at something that was moving about in the bag. This proved to be a black snake of considerable dimensions, which had taken up its abode in M‘Caughan’s pillow and passed its time in sleeping through the day and drinking up his milk at night. Frightened by the cat, the snake got away into the garden for a short time, and was not seen again until M'Caughan, who was pulling some weeds, put his hand within an inch or two of its body. The snake made no attempt to bite the man—-perhaps it knew him-r-but merely raised itsheada few inches, and looked at him without showing any signs either of anger or fear. M'Caughan. as a matter of course, killed the reptile, but he expressed himself as fully convinced that it never would have bitten him so long as he had not trodden on or otherwise hurt it. The fright to him however was so great, that he has deserted his house, and now sleeps every night in a little tent which he has put up outside. Ever since the death of the. snake, the daily stock of milk has remained intact, and the moral of this story, therefore, is that—** Snake are partial to cream.”