OUR MAIL BAG.

Mataura Ensign, Issue 828, 13 December 1900, Page 6

OUR MAIL BAG.

j '-'_-, QUITE .A PRIVILEGE. .- Y, ln China strangulation is preserved for offenders- of high rank, it being considered a privilege "to pass out of life with a whole body. When leave to die r ih this way has been granted to a criminal, a silken cord is sent to him in prison. No explanatory message is considered necessary, and he is left to, accomplish his own doom. A LUCKY BRIDE. Among the wedding presents received by the daughter of a Philadelphia politician the other day were three complete suites of drawing room furniture, 17 plate-glass mirrors, 148 oil paintings and etchings, IS valuable and 98 ordinary clooks, 11 writing desks, 16 fanoy tables, 17 pie knives, 11 fish sets, 13 china tea sets, and 9 music boxes, .to say nothing of 323 pieces of bric-a-brac, 102' salt and pepper boxes, and 450 other pieces of silver. There were 3000 guests. A SINGULAR ACCIDENT. Colonel Yorke has submitted to the Board of Trade his, report upon a singular accident on the Glasgow and South-western Railway. A light engine was turned off tho main line into the Garvel dock line, and continued at a high rate of speed for a mile and a half until it reached the end of the branch line, where it dashed over tbe end of the emkankment. Not one of the four men on the locomotive survived to tell the tale, but, says Colonel Yorke, " from the end of the rails on the top of the bank to the tender of the engine, as it stood embedded in the mud, a distance of eighty feet, thero was not a wheel mark of any soit on the slope of the embankment, showing that the speed was so great that the engine, after scattering the sleepers which were piled up to form a sort of wheel-stop, had literally leapt over the end of the embankment." SHARP PRACTICE. An uncontested return in the Old Country costs, of course, practically nothing except the returning officer's fee, which must be paid in advance at the time of nomination. This led to a neat trick, by which a seat was won in Ireland recently. A candidate had been nominated, unopposed, paid tho fee, and walked away. The returning officer waited the statutory hour to see if anyone wished to contest the seat, and on the Btroke of time a second candidate was (without his knowledge, by the way) nominated, and the fee for a contested election paid on his behalf. There was then no time for the first candidate to fetch the additional sum foi' a contested election, and his nomination became invalid ; so that the result was the second candidate was returned unopposed. TWO ELECTION STORIES. An old freeholder in Kent got in a good hit at the recent general election at Home. He was a staunch Tory, and on the eve of the election painted • his little old-fashioned barouche a deep blue color. Some Liberal wags spotted him at this occupation, and in the night entered his stable and painted his donkey a light blue, the color Haunted by their own side. Next day to'their surprise, the old man drove up to the polling booth with the painted animal. • He was asked " Who are you voting for ?" and replied, " Tory of course." " Aud the donkey?" " Oh, him ? He's voting for the Rads— same as the other asses." Another good election yarn. A Radical canvasser went to a local milkman to solicit his vole. "Ye needn't trouble to tell me your man's viitues," said the milkman, " for I've made up my mind to vote for the Unionist candidate." " Ah, well," said the canvasser, " I don't know that I can blame you, seeing that he's in the same line as yourself." " Same line as me? What dyer mean ?" asked the milkman. " Well," said the canvasser, sidling to the door, " you see a Tory's a Tory, a Radical a Radical, but a Liberal-Unionist is a sort of milk-and-water man. Good-bye."