CURRENT TOPICS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXXIX, Issue 9988, 17 March 1893, Page 5

CURRENT TOPICS.

An astonishing instance of the extensive interest taken in the finding of the severed limbs at Hawthorn was made manifest lately, when Detective Cawsey received the following letter from Liverpool:— “ Dear Sir, —Eeferring to the finding of the arms and limbs at Hawthorn, near Melbourne, ascertain if a man named —, living in Gertrude street, Fitzroy, is still there. If not, I think you will find that the arms and legs belong to him. He is a gouty old man, and was formerly a blacksmith. I will watch for the result in the Liverpool Echo” The letter bears no signature, but there is a postscript, which runs as follows:—“He had formerly threatened to commit suicide, and speaking of death he said that hia idea of death was dismemberment of bis body.” As it turns out, the friend whom the anonymous writer in Liverpool feared had been dismembered is still alive and well.

The city of San Salvador (Central America) is reported to have had two or three earthquakes recently. San Salvador is a curious and unsettled city. It has been destroyed three times, and once it was visited by eighty earthquakes in sixty minutes. On that occasion a monument which stands in the principal square was shifted thirty yards and left standing. The ground on which San Salvador stands is hollow—it is planted on the thin roof of a series of stupendous caverns, and if the roof ever goes the city wall never stop falling until it reaches Tophefc. About a year ago a man was digging a well there, and ha went through the thin crust and vanished. He has never been heard of since. Whether he fell IOOOfb or 1000 miles is a matter of conjecture. Yet a careless, joyous race lives and dances and makes love and takes its beat girl out ab night on the sheet of tissue paper which hangs over the great vacancy; and no one seems to worry the least about the void below.

To make a contract profitable there is often tact required as well as real bard work. A labourer not one hundred miles from the Eangitikei river contracted the other week to sink a wall on a property. His arrangement with the owner was a certain sum to strike water. The labourer worked bard for over a fortnight, and went down a good depth until he reached a very hard stratum. The lower he went the dryer was the ground, and as he worked on the'plan no water no pay he thought he had made a bad bargain. At once a brilliant idea flashed across his mind; He got some clay and puddled the bottom of the well, and during several dark nights he carried water in buckets some two hundred yards from a neighbouring creek, and filled the well to a depth of four or five feet. Last Saturday, says a northern contemporary, be took tho owner to see the result of hia labour. The owner was delighted to see such a fine well of water and cheerfully paid the labourer hia well-earned cheque. The ingenious well-sinker has departed for another part of the Colony.

Two little scenes, says an English paper, which took place outside the dark wall of Rugby workhouse the other night may be commended to the attention of those who are fortunate enough in the bitter weather to sleep under comfortable roofs. A policeman in going his rounds, moved to pity by the sight of a poor destitute woman, humanely took her to the institution referred to. The gates, when they arrived, were closed, but he rang the clanging iron bell, upon which the master of the workhouse opened a little window overhead, and inquired hia business, which the policeman explained. “ Can't take her in,” was the answer. “ What am I to do P” inquired the constable. “Why don’t you lock her up?” shouted the master. The reply was that the officer “ had nothing to lock her up for;” but still the master was obdurate. Thereupon the constable went with his shivering companion to the house of the Believing Officer, where he obtained an order for her admission. But again the master refused shelter, and finally the policeman left the Woman at the gates. Here, at last, it appears that the surly master after “ carrying on” at her, let her come inside. Such at least is the story told by the kind-hearted Rugby policeman before the Magistrates. The companion scene is described by two Birmingham men who had walked from Northampton—a distance of twenty miles—and got into the town that night between eight and nine “quite destitute.” Their interview with the Rugby Bumble was not more encouraging. He would neither give them shelter nor assign any reason for refusing. Called before the Eugby Guardians the master’s explanation was that he “ thought the woman was drunk,” and that as to the two men, he considered they “ were able to walk on to the next workhouse,” which, it seems, is at Coventry. With regard to the woman, however, the excuse, as the Earl of Denbigh pointed out, was inconsistent with the policeman’s statement that “he had nothing to lock her up for,” while, as regards the two wretched men, it was not clear how they were to got to Coventry that night. Ultimately the Board, by a majority of twelve to four, determined to call upon the master to resign.