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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VIII, Issue 281, 22 November 1873, Page 2

A writer in the Australasian saya :— The bricklayers and the carpenters' have had a strike, aud the infection spreadeth. Following hard upon tho heels of the tailor's strike are those of the wool-buyers and the morning papers. The stockbrokers meditated something of the kind, but the buyers were too quick and struck work first. We will all resume presently. But I think that after ail the tailors managed their little affair best, "^gles" writes in the Australasian: — I. heard a racing man who is as often at Epsom as at Flemington,, thus talk a few days ago. "I weot to see tho Derby with a friend from Sydney. Wekuew nothing or the horses, but, I suggested to my friend — • Let uh see if there is anything colored yellow and black (John 'Tail's colors), on the card — if there is, we'll b^ck it.' (He had won a thousand on the Peari). They found that there was " a yellow aud black," and went into the bettiug ring to back it. Wheo they asked the odds they found they were 100 to 3, and the price was so long that they thought the horse must ba stiff. Had I they been asked 100 to 20 they would have taken it readily, but the long price frightened thorn. When all was over, yeliow and bluck had won, — being the colors carried by Doncaster ! Cricketers are " stirring their stumps * now that it is known for certain that Mr Grace and his men are on their way here. A Match Committee of three has been appointed to select the players and get them into practice, a grand stand is being built on the Melbourne ground, and when

the raciugiexcitemeotia over with the V.R C Meeting, cricket will furnish the next, an.! be the chief topic in sporting circles until the first match between Victoria and Ed<.'land comes off, on Boxing Day, on the M.C.C. ground; Arrangements' have been completed for the Eleven to play at Ballaraf, Sandhurst, Maryborough, Adelaide, and Sydney, and their time wili be pretty well cufc out for them. It ia believed that a combined 16 from nil the colonies will be able to give a good account of Messrs Grace and Co. in a final mutch on the M.C.C. ground, just prior to the Eleven leaving for Eu»innd. Anyhow, it will be a moat interesting and exciting event. — Melbourne Argus. A contributor of the Australasian Sketcher writes as follows :-— Will the Atlantic branch of ths English-speaking race ever develop a dialect of its own, or are our descendants all over the island continent to be the only poopla in (he world that will speak the mother tongue without a brogue, idiom, or provincialism of any kind ? Uoiikeiy things, of course, take place, but the growth of an Australian brogue in these days of free and compulsory education seems almost impossible. On our hospitable shores wg welcome the Cockney colonist without his h, the Somersetshire ploughboy with his abounding z, and the Yorkshire jjekey with his burr and broad a; and with these we mix rollicking Paddy from Cork, sanctified Sawney frao Glaisco,and our hard-swearing nasal-voiced cousin Jonathan in such proportions that the peculiarities of none prevail, aud in the second or third generation at furthest, all wiil totally ditappear. Tasmania, certainly baa a ehaoca of raisins a brogue of her own, and will very likely succeed if she continues her present policy of frightening away visitora by putting a heavy import tax on their luggage. Through being severely let alona by the educated world for five or six generations, tho Yankees managed to create the ugliest dialect of the English language that the human tongue or nose is capable of uttering. It would he to the interest of experimental philosophy — however much againsi their own — that the Tasmanians Bhould continue to isolate themselves, for, say another hundred years, so that it might be seen what direction their corruption of the language would take. Of one thing we may be cerlain, they will not beat the Yankees ia ugliness. The Aurora Australis ia described in very vivid colouring in the following extract, recently printed in an English journal, from a letter by Captain Howes, of the Southern Cross: — "At about halfpast I," he Bayß, "on tho second of last September, the rare phenomenon of the Aurora Australia manifested itself in a mosfc magnificent manner. Our ship was off Cape Horn, in a violent gale, plunging furiously iuto a heavy sea, flooding her decks, and sometimes burying her whole bows beneath the waves. The heavens «vers us black as death; not a slar was to bo seen, where the brilliant spectacle first appeared. I caanot describe the awful grandeur of the scene; the heavens gradually changed from murky blackness till they became like vivid fire, reflecting a lurid, glowiog brilliancy over everything. The ocean appeared like a sea of vermillioa lashed into fury by tho alorm; the waves, dashing furiously over our aide, ever and anon rushed to leeward in crimson torrents. Our whole ship— spars, sails, and all — seemed to partake of the ruddy hue3. They were as if lighted up by some terrible conflagration. Taking altogether, the howling, shrieking storm, the noble ship plunging fearlessly beneath 'the crimson-created waves, the furious squalls of hail, snow, and sleet, showers, and mysterious balls of electric fire resting on our mast-heada, yard-arms, &c, aud above all the awful sublimity of the heavens, through which coruscations of auroral light would often shoot in spiral streaks and with meteoric brilliancy, altogether presented a scene of grandeur and sublimity surpassing the wildest dreams of fancy." A gentleman residing at Port Darwin, in a description of the place to (he Sydney Herald, says:—" I have yet to discover how it ia 'possible for Europeans to maintain an existence ia such a climate, * The rain, it raineth every day' does not apply to that vast continent, for at the time of writing there bad becD no raiu for seven months. Rain is not expected for some time to come— the dry season literally, and not comparatively bo, occupying nine months out of the twelve. But to make up for thi?— -yes, and to do much more, there is a continual downpour for three calendar months ;" at the end of which period the settlers might be espeqted to bo very little short of amphibipus. In dry weather it ia impossible to keep onesself clean, and walking is ancle-deep in dust. Bathing, to get rid of the grime which eucrusts one in such a place is out of the question, owing to the number,of alligators with which the different Vivers and streams abound. To add to the dtscom-

forts already enumerated, thero are myriada of mosquitoes and sandflies; but these are as nothing compared with the yellow fever^and fever and ague. The correspondent is certain that 25 per cent. of the iobabitaots are doomed to leave their benes there.