Dotes and Events.

Manawatu Herald, Volume III, Issue III, 31 December 1891, Page 3

Dotes and Events.

** Our Bishops are getting very com- 1

"municative. On giving a boy a handsomely -bound copy of Boswell's , "Johnson," dming the Reading ( School prize distribution, the Bishop . ' of London -confessed that it had always been a favourite book of his own to read through. One of his . friends was so attracted to his copy that he stole it ; but some years later, when he was on a visit to his friend, on seeing the identical copy in the library he stole it back. The Attorney-General, speaking at Ryde, said the Liberal-Unionists bad , done a work during the lost six years for "which the country ought to be fou tver grateful. That party were determined to uphold the Conservatives in maintaining the integrity of the British empire. Referring to Egypt,* he said that if the policy now being recommended with regard to that country was to be taken as the test of the foreign policy of a Glad'stonian Government, we should have war with all its terrors. Mr Frederick Smith is, in a double sense, the youngest member of the House of Commons. He is only 28 years of age. The next youngest member is Lord Walter Gordon Lennox (Chichester), who is 26. Then comes Mr Cornwallis (Maidstone), 27 ; and Mr George Wyndham (Mr Balfour's private secretary), . 2«. , A valuable tree. The Persian walnut is about a third, or a half, larger than the English walnut ; of : an elongated shape, with very rich kernel, and the shell as thin as paper. ( It is not an unusual thing for a tree, eight to twelve years old, to bear 80,000 nuts, or 15,0001 b. From Jersey « ifcy, \in erica, a mao named Henry Davies, alias Stoddard has broke the record in forgery. lie is the only man who ever' h ivmg been sent to prison for forgery, forged his Avay out again. Davis was arrested in Memphis, Tennessee, on several charges 'f forgery, the cheques which he had written and passed having been honoured by a number of banks and mercantile houses. His trial was made sen* sational through a number of letters from respectable people, some of them Avell known, when be offered or exhibited in his own behalf, all of the-ji ultimately turning out to be forgeries. The' result of his trial v/a.s a sentence of ten years in the State penitentiary. The prisoner •was sent to Tracey. While he was there, and in the spring of the present year, Governor Buohanan " received a petition for Davis's pardon . The petition set forth that " in the humble belief of the petitioners Davis was an innocent man, and -that he had been the victim of a conspiracy among parties who, for good reasons, wished to ruin him and get him out of the way." It was subscribed to by all the' officials of the court in which Davis was tried, the entire jury who found him guilty, and a largenumber of citizens of Tenneasee, among them being many influential men who were intimate friends of Governor Buchanan. It was so ingenious and sympathetic that the governor, who very rarely grants a pardon without consultation with some of the signers, believed, in this case, such a course to be uncalled for and unnecessary. On March 16th lie therefore issued a pardon, and Davis then dissappeared. Two weeks afterwards the governor met Mr Baptist, Davis's attorney, and congratulated him on the success of his efforts Baptist was amazed, and could not understand what he meant. His excellency then spoke of the pardon, and found that Baptist knew nothing about it. The two then examined the petition and discovered that every name attached to it and every letter accompanying it were barefaced forgeries, and that the entire document had been written by Davis himself while in prison. The matter was kept quiet, the governor's ohagrin being deep. The matter only became public when the man ■was arrested for further forgeries elsewhere. I