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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIV, Issue 142, 16 June 1879, Page 2

We are informed upon undoubted authority (says the loangahua Herald) that a. nugget of eighty ounces was unearthed at Carton'a-terrace, Devil's Creek, last week.' This is the largest nugget that has yet been discovered in that locality. A special telegram appeared in the Melbourne Argus, which was dated London June 4, stating that Sir Julius Yogel would conteat Eaimouth at the next general election ia the Conservative interest. The Maori is evidently a much greater adept at bounce and gammon than at anything in the shape of hard work. The Taranaki Herald says—" The native political ploughmen who have been amusing themselves lately on Mr Courtney's land at Oakura, are getting tired of their work. They made a start on Monday, and were there yesterday, but have failed to put iv au appearance to-day. They do not do much, for, although they have four ploughs in the field, the extent of their work each day does not exceed an acre." The Star says:— A special reporter at Te Kopua make a careful examination of the arms in the possession of Tawhiao'a so-called army, and estimated them at 180 guns, the majority being old, and their number included three or four Esflelds, some fowling pieces, and a few sporting rifles, a halfdozen revolvers, some old horse-pistols, two infantry officer's swords, one cavalry sabre with steel scabbard. About forty men of the' "army" had only long sticks or spears. The reporter estimated that thirty marksmen with Snid eta would be more thau a match for Tawhiao'a entire guard. The KingitesstatedthatMoffatbasmadethreetons of gunpowder, widen is stored inland. The natives were very sparing of powder at the late meetiug. In an obituary notice of the late Me Lazar the 2Yew Zeatander says -.—His memory was moat extraordinary, and it was recorded of him, between twenty and thirty years ago, that once for a wager he undertook to repeat by heart the whole contents of one page of the Adelaide Register newspaper, after readiug it over only a very few times. This, it is said, he succeeded in doing without difficulty, and many other feats of memory of a like character he also accomplished. Brother John Hyde Harris, Bight Worshipful District Grand Master of the Province of Otago and Southland (E.C ), has intimated to the various lodges under his jurisdiction his desire that the members should wear Masonic mourning for a period of two months id respect to the late Brother John Lazar, D.G.M. for the Province of Westland. An artist went to his family doctor for a remedy for a cold which kept his wife at home. "Paint your wife's back with iodine," was the injunction. In the evening the artist set to work. His artistic fancy got the better of him. He sketched a landscape with a river in the foreground, mountains io the background, and introduced bits of still life. " Have you not finished ?" said the wife impatiently. "Yes," he replied, " one half-ininute more to put my name and send for the framer." The spirit of volunteering is becoming developed to a wonderful extent in and around New Plymouth, and there appears to be no limit to the age or size of martial aspirants. A number of young blooda, who seem to be possessed of a deal of pluck, are anxious to form a cadet corps, and, for some time past, they have been in active training. There are two squads, each of them having its own leader, and, on an occasional evening, they meet each other, and have a pitched battle. The Herald says they have a systematic manner of going to work, and one of the captains, who has gained a victory, was beard remarking a few days ago that; bis opponent would have been successful if ,his men had stuck to him. A surprise party lay in ambush one evening, and upon the enemy showing itself jumped down and called upon it to surrender. The tactica adopted by this Liliputian band of embryo soldiers, and the spirit in which they are carried out might prove a lesson to older heads. An accident occurred at Wellesley-sfcreet, Auckland, the other day, which might have resulted in serious damage, if not loss of life. As a dray loaded with coal was passing along the street the wheel sunk, and on looking at it the driver found that it had pierced a thin crust of road metal, about five inches thick, and beneath that was a vast cavity of at least eight feet deep. He unharnessed the horaes, and left the dray to its fate. On examination it was found that about twenty feet of the brick sewer had been continually washed away until a large portion of the middle of the street was undermined, and only the hard crust on top supported fcke tffaffic. On Sunday last, at Tapanui, a man strnck one of the Chinamen engaged on the railway works there with a whip, and passed on. The Chinaman failed to appreciate the salutation, and he immediately turned to fcbe right about, and neatly planted his foot in the back part of his friend the white man, but who then failing to overtake John, set upon another Chinaman who happened to come in the way, and brutally assaulted him. The cries of the victim attracted the atten- | tion of other Chinamen in the vicinity to the number of about thirty, who, attacking the Englishman, gave him anch a handiiag that there is reason £o believe ha will remember it as long as lie toes. T i

The following from the New Zealand Herald, exhibiting the civilised nobility of the Maori, and recommending the prompt removal of troops from a settled, promising, and fertile colony, may not prove wholly uninteresting in the existing questionable position of native affairs :— « Wharekura, 25th June, 1868.— T0 Puano and the rest of the Tribe,— A word for you. Cease travelling on the roads. Stop for ever going on the roads which lead to Maugamanga (i.e., the camp of the Colonial forces at Waihi), lest yott be left on the roada as food for the hirda of the air and for the beasts of the field, or for me,- because I have eaten the European Trooper Smith, as a pieefl of beef He was cooked in a pot; the women and children partook of the food. I have begun to eat, human flesh, and my throat is constantly open for the flesh of man. I shall not diej I shall no*, die; when death itself shall be dead, t shall be alive. That ia the word to you, extending to Matangarara. That is the light (i.e., clear) word to you, extending to all your boundaries. Cease. ( Stop.— From Titoko Ward." Of the ways ttiat aye dark and tne tricks that are vain, peculiar to the present times, we give without names the following amusing incident of how the biter was bit in Christchurch the other day : — An individual, who Bhall be nameless, but doing well in a really good retail business, and possessing from 40a to 503 ia the £ ia property, thought he could see a happy mode of making a clear profit to the extent of one half of his. liabilities by making a compromise with his creditors of 103 in the £, but he reckoned without his host. Hia creditors knowing full well his financial position refused the offer— saying no ; we will realize the estate. He then in a terrible fright, seeing the eicov he had made, objected, and said that he could rather prefer to pay 20s in the £. The creditors, I however, still refused to accept without security} and he haa been compelled to deposit all the deeds of his property as security including a bond from a rich relation for a large sum, to prevent himself from being sold up and as abona fides of his "honorable" intentions to pay 20s in the XI. Honorable Representative of the people, would generally appear, in the eyes of the Oamam Mail at least, to be in a very impeI cunioos state. In a recent; issue it asserts | that it is argued by some that the next j I session of Parliament will he short because ' the pecuniary necessities of the majority of members of Parliament will render it compulsory for them to return to their business as soon as possible. Others say that members of Parliament will view Willington as a city of refuge, and will prolong the session in order to enjoy as much as possible the advantage of the privilege which members of Parliament possess of being unapproachable by their creditors during the period that they are actively engaged in serving their country. A Wellington paper says: — The proprietor of the Empire Hotel haa opened one bar for fourpenny pints and fourpenny glasses of grog. We presume this is to meet the times. A correspondent o£ tne Lake Wa&aiip Mail describes a Fenian of the ancient times : — " A Fenian was an Irish Militia man, or Volunteer, and before a recruit could pass for service in that army he should be able to perform or accomplish the following drill :— Firstly, he should stand in a cornfield and ward off the arrows of nine men of any other nation with a blackthorn stick, two feet long; secondly, he should run two miles, and jump 53 hurdles the height of hi 3 chin; and lastly he should run the same distance, stooping as low aa his knees, and pick a thorn out of his heel without losing time, the whole regiment of tlilitia being after him, and if he was caught by any one Fenian he would not pass as a recruit." It took a smart fellow to be a Fenian VoluUteer in those days. The Australasian has a discriminating and well-written review of Mr Gudgeon's " Reminiscences of the War in New Zealand," but the writer unfortunately allows his imagination to run riot over the portrait inserted as that of Te Kooti. He says :— " Dismissing the idea of treating the book as a history, and taking it only as a narrative of many of the prominent incidents of the latter part o£ the war, it can ,be read with interest, although the feeling will occasionally intrude — how worthy was the subject of more adequate and comprehensive treatment. The book contains a number of admirablyexecuted lithographic portraits of many of the prominent personages of the war, amongst which may be specially noticed the grim visage of Tifcokowaru ; the strange expression of dreamy, qu?eii9t fanaticism which marks the face of Te Kooti, capable, as the cruel, cold eye shows, of blazing up into savagery of the fiercest kind ; and the gallant, soldierlike figure of the brave Major Von Tempsky." The reviewer would ieel that he had been " had " if he were told that the portrait is no more like Te Kooti than he is.— Herald. The Berlin Borsen-Cousier says :— w Prince Henry of the Netherlands is one of the I wealthiest princes in Europe. His property ha 9 been usually estimated in Holland at 100,000,000 of gulden (nearly £8,300,000.) The greater part of it consists of State funds ; there are also shares in commercial companies, landed estates and castles, and similar property, some of it in the Netherlands, the remainder in Germany and the Dutch colonies. How much of this will be inherited by his young wife, the Prussian princess, will, of course, depend less upon the provisions of Dutch law for such cases ! than upon the stipulations of the marriage settlement, which, so far aa haa transpired, were drawn up very favourably for the interests of the princess*" At a Boot Show bald at Reading speci- ; mens were shown of a yield of HO tons of Mangold Wurtzel per acre. The specimen was Button's Mammoth Long Red. | A Cambridge telegram to the Auckland i Herald says:— ln the Native Land Court, the incessant coughing strikes a stranger before anything else, as most unusual, if any person who ia in doubt respecting the future of the Maori will attend the Court for half-an-hour, hi 3 doubts will soon give place to a settled conviction that ifc ia only a question of time ere the bulk of them will have disappeared. President Grevy, when asked lately to write something in a lady's album, put in the following sentence. "Life is like a game of chess ; each one holds his rank according to his quality : but when the game 19 over, kings, queens, knights, and all the rest are thrown in to one common box"