The Nelson Evening Mail. MONDAY, DECEMBER 9, 1872.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VII, Issue 293, 9 December 1872, Page 2

The Nelson Evening Mail. MONDAY, DECEMBER 9, 1872.

. ! Nelson College. — The annual sports will take place in the College grounds on Wednesday and Thursday next, commen- j cinq each day at 2 p.m. Tickets of admission to the grounds may be obtained on application to any of the masters or senior boys. Evenings with the Musical Composeks. — The third of these very pleasant entertainments will be given at the Assembly Room to-morrow evening, the composers whose ' lives and works will then be discussed being Haydn, Purcell, and Rossini. We trust that Mr. Holloway and his band of assistants will be rewarded with a bumper audience for the time and trouble they have devoted to the work they have taken in hand. An alleged New Coal Seam. — A report having reached the Superintendent to the effect that a seam of coal exists in the - Valley of the Hope, a distance of about fifty miles only from Nelson, he has instructed Mr Lightfoot, who has just returned from the Buller, to proceed immediately to the spot to examine the alleged seam, and to bring a sufficient specimen of the coal to enable an opinion to ,be formed as to its character and value. Should it prove to be a true coal seam and in sufficient quantity, the importance of the discovery in reference to the question of inland communication with the Buller can hardly be over estimated. Italian Opera Company. — A greater treat was probably never offered to the Nelson public than that enjoyed by the rather limited audience at the Oddfellows' Hall on Saturday night, when this talented company performed the opera of II Trovatore. We do not intend to notice it at any length, but. cannot refrain from expressing our very great admiration and enjoyment of the magnificent acting and singing of Signora Bosisio as Leonora and of Signora Ribioldi as Azueena. Not the fainteßt idea of the extent to which they worked upon the feelings of their bearers can be conveyed to those had not the good fortune to be present, but those who were there will bear us out in saying that nothing of the kind has been experienced in Nelson since the days when Lucy Escott and Georgina Hodgson appeared here some years ago in the same characters. In the last act, and especially in the prison scene, the excitement of the audience reached a pitch that was at times almost painful, and when, after the falling of the curtain, : the actors were called to the front, their appreciation of the powers of I tlidae who ; had afforded them soj rich a /•'^treat^was shown; in the most demonstrative ; = mahuer, A their > appearance being; greeted with i sucb a -shower of bouquets als never .; ' stage.:;,':'. Such !• :^tthait^|iiich i .c^