MISCELLANEOUS.

Marlborough Press, Volume XVII, Issue 1011, 13 May 1876, Page 4

MISCELLANEOUS.

Nuptuated (for married) is the last addition to the American dictionaries.

. “ Did you notice bow splendidly I went through the last reel at the ball last night,'Tom ?” “ Yes, and I also noticed that you kept it up all the way home.”

Scene at a Sacramento wedding breakfast : Company all seated about the table. A pause in the general conversation. Happy bridegroom to his wife’s seven-year-old sister at the other end of the room, “ Well, Julie, you have a new brother now.” Julie, " Yes, but mother said to papa the other day that she was afraid you would neysr amount to much, but that it seemed to be Sarah’s last chance.” Intense silence for a moment, followed by a rapid play of knives and forks.

A lady of high rank, who had been living in much quiet and retirement for some time, was called upon to entertain a large party at dinner. She consulted with Nichol, her faithful servant, and all the arrangements were made for the great event. As the company were arriving, the lady saw Nichol running about in great agitation, and in his shirt sleeves. She remonstrated, and said that as the guests were coming in, he must put on his coat. “ Indeed, my lady,” was his excited reply, “ indeed, there’s sae muckle rinning here and rinning there, that I’m just distrackit. I hae cast’n my coat and waistcoat, and faith I dinna ken how long I can bear my breaks.” The Scotsman of the 12th February says : 4‘ Mr Hereules Ross, son of Captain Horatio Ross, and the champion shot of India, has just carried off a Cup offered by the Viceroy of India with the remarkable score of 141, made with ten shots at 800, 900, and 1000 yards. Including the two sighting shots at each distance, the score was made up of thirty bull’s eyes, three centres, two inners, and an outer. At 900 yards, five was registered for each of the twelve shots fired. Mr Ross, who is to be Home this year on leave, intends to compete for a place in the Scottish Eight for the Elcho Shield.” An exciting chase on a railway is narrated by a Home paper as follows :—“ On February 7 a bullock, while being unloaded from a truck at Dover Priory, escaped and ran up the line. Mr George, one of the railway officials, gave chase on a pilot engine as far as Kearnsey, where, upon coming up with the animal and seeing a man by the side of the line, he sent him for a gun. Having obtained a rifle, Mr George got down from the engine, when the animal charged him. He was compelled to dodge behind a signal post, and after firing three shots brought down the bullock. The chase occupied three hours.”

Some members of the numerous family of Smiths will reap substantial benefit from the death of a relative in London, as will be seen from the following letter which was received by Mr Alexander Smith of the Thad®s (says the Thames Advertiser). We may add that the gentleman to whom the letter was addressed does not entertain the most remote hope of being able to prove any claim to a share in this handsome fortune :—“ 54, Queen-street, Melbourne, 29th Feb., 1876. Sir : I have received instructions to enquire after the family and next of kin of Edward Smith, of Ludgate-hill, London, who, by his last will and testament, devised all his real and personal estate to be divided amongst his next of kin. The amount of real and personal estate amounts to the sum of ,£400,000, which will be divided amongst his next of kin, if they can be found. This is a matter worth your looking after, and you will have to make out your family pedigree, and I think you should go back to your great grandfather and great grandmother if possible. It is no matter how remote your relationship is so long as you can show that you are in the right line of the intestate’s blood by marriage or otherwise. If, you think you can establish a claim to a distributive share in this large amount of money, I shall be glad to hear from you with as little delay as possible, as there is no time to be lost— I am, &c., R. Uniacke ” Perhaps some of the family residing in this Province, might benefit if they devoted their spare hours to the task set them by Mr Uniacke.

It must be awkward for great men when early reminiscences are revived, and forgotten friends start up in all sorts of odd places and say all sorts of odd things. We clip the following from the London Weekly Times:—“Mr Vogel declares his belief that New Zealand is destined to pass ahead of all the Colonies. Well, perhaps he is right. But what good fortune it was to Mr Vogel that New Zealand was a fact. I remember playing poker with him at Pleasant Creek, years ago, and clearing him out. He borrowed £1 from me to take him home. He was a rare fellow—elastic, full of hope, none of your croakers. He used to write some stinging articles for the ‘ local rag articles of the Carlyle strength, full of pith and energy ; and I sometimes regret that his pen is lost to the press. But between ourselves, he is an awful humbug. I don’t think he believes in anything, and I am pretty sure that if he could have turned his talent in this direction to profitable account in England, New Zealand would never have seen him again. As matters stand. Sir George Grey is ready for the fray.” A correspondent signing himself “ Old Practical ” writes as follows to the Cross Sir,— People can’t starve in New Zealand if they only go the right way to. work to prevent it. Of course every man can have his plot of five or ten acres of land, and with ordinary industry he will have his ton or two tons of potatoes, and many other vegetables ; then he will always have a pig in the sty, and a few head of poultry. A good crop of pumpkins is very easy to grow, and a piot of mangold-wurtzel ; and very soon a cow will be added to his stock, and this being acquired, where is starvation ? I believe the high-wages men generally come worse off, for they are content with their high wages while they are getting them, and are pretty free in spending their pay ; then, when the pinch comes, and work is slack, what a hullabaloo of “ Want oL work,” “ Government relief,” “ starvation,” &c. They have never striven to get the stand-by of cultivation, and now they feel it; and whose fault is it but their own ? Besides, even the wan t-of-work cry is all bosh. People in the Waikato want scores of men at 6s a-day, and can’t get them. Mr J. G. S §Grant has, if we are to believe the Wellington Argus, pleasant times in store for him. That journal says .—Mr Grant, in his letter, said that 10 per cent of the female immigrants had sought a life of- shame on the a*r*ets in order to obtain a crust of bread. There are in Dunedin some thousands of women who have come out to the Colony as assisted female immigrants. Many of these are now comfortably and respectably married ; but we hear that an association has been formed amongst married and unmarried alike to give Mr Grant a thorough good ducking under a pump in return for his foul aspersion ot the good fame of the single women who have come out to _New Zealand as assisted immigrants. The proposal is a laudable one.