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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIV, Issue 145, 19 June 1879, Page 2

An inquest was held at Northampton, recently, on the body of a boy naiiied T. Ferney hough, who accidentally hung himself while playing with a rope on Tuesday. The lad had been reading a book, on the title page of which was an illustration of the hanging of some French officers. He went into a closet, where he found a clothes line, which he fastened to a beam, and at one end made a loop, which he put round hi? neck. It was supposed that whilst playing in this way he slipped, and as his feet did not reach the ground his neck was dislocated. Verdict i " Accidental death/ For mote than seven months there has not been employed for the Use of the inmate* either beer or spirits at the union workhouse in Thirsk, and the house was never known to have been in a more healthy state than it is at present. Although it contains many aged people, many of the men being between 80 and 90 years of age, yet among its own poor not a single death has occurred in the house during the winter. The use of both beer and spirits is allowed in the house, but during the above period there has been found no occasion to have resort to them.— Leeds Mercuty. Some time ago we (Lyttelton Times) mentioned that an American veterinary surgeon had turned his attention to the teeth of the horse, and was doing a good trade in " fitting" new " sets." In our advertising columns our readers will observe another novelty ha 9 been introduced in the shape of au artificial eye for horses. It is well known that many animals are afflicted with blinduess, which detracts from their appearance. Mr George Fleming and Mr Robert Ward, however, have now invented an eye made of vulcanite, which can be so skilfully adjusted as to almost defy detection. Mr Ward has experimented successfully on cavalry chargers at the barracks of the 2nd Life Guards; and also on horses at the Royal Veterinary College. We have no doubt many horse owners will avail themselves of Mr Fleming's invention, which, like his horse shoe and studs, is unpatented. A gentleman of great experience in the commercial world cashed a cheque at a London Bank for £UOO, taking the whole in jEIOO notes. He was only a few yards from the Bank when a person resembling a clerk, bareheaded and with a pen behind his ear, touched him on the shoulder, saying : " Beg your pardon, sir, will you allow me just to take the number of those notes again ? I won't keep you a minute." The gentleman, taken off his guard, handed the notes over to the supposed clerk, whom he followed into the Bank. After giving the former time to reach the top end and return, he met the gentleman at the door, sayin : " Please walk this way ; that gentleman will attend to you in a minute," pointing to a clerk who was deeply engaged. Five minutes elapsed before the gentleman could draw the clerk's attention to his case ; and he was thunderstruck to find that this officer knew nothing about it. The other clerks were interrogated, and they were equally in the dark. Of course, no time was lost in going to the Bank of England, but too late; the clever rogue had been before them, and obtained gold for the notes. The London correspondent of the Madras Times says:— The star of Mrs Langtry has set. Her face has been in many cases removed from the windows in which professional beauty is exhibited to its admirers, and other faces are worshipped in its stead The idol of the moment is a very youthful creature, whose portrait bears the name of " Connie Gilchrist. This interesting being, I believe, is engaged at one of the theatres. She is yet in " frocks ;" but a pretty face and graceful figure have made her queen of her more elderly rivais, and she enjoys the felicity of exhibition in a multitude of attitudes and in various costumes of various colours. The run upon her portrait and the interest in its exhibition indicate the worth and magnitude of the objects on which the heart of Cockneydom is set. The Dunedin Tribune takes a very cheer ful view of the future of this colony which it will not suffer to be clouded over by' any of the present troubles by which it ia beset. Commenting on the recent Bank failure in Melbourne our contemporary says : — There appears just now to be a general disposition to magnify these troubles, and we cannot see why it should be so in this part of the world. On the contrary, everything tends to show that the colonies generally, and New Zealand particularly, are in such positions that with the most ordinary foresight and ' precautions they have not anything to fear regarding their commercial prosperity. ; The trade and wealth of this Colony, as shown by statistics, compared with those of other countries and colonies, are so great, that people in these places cannot yet fully realise oar position, so different is it to their own. Troublous times with them are surely and steadily turning their attention to thia aa a land where there ia room for them, and where legitimate employment for their labor and their capital may be found ; and fast as may have been our progress during the past, we may rest assured that it has been slow compared with the approaching future. Banks may break and Banks may pres.s but these things cannot for one moment arrest our onward progress. The tide has hardly yet commenced to set this - way from the Old World, but ere long we shall feel its ful strength, carrying them and us along, and drowning the cries of the present alarmists in a sea of prosperity, such, as was never seen since history began. Here Zimmermann, of the German Parliament says that in Berlin, in the course of one year, two hundred thousand persons have been prosecuted for non-payment of income tax, and that in the great majority of cases a seizure of the effects of the defaulters yielded nothing. More than one hundred and twenty thousand persons were prosecuted fo thaving failed to pay their rent. In Spain, near Valencia, the selling price of irrigated is to that of unirrigated land as six to one. In the valley of the Ebro rents rise from 12s to £10 2s per acre when irrigated, the landlord paying for the water —nearly seventeen to one. Near Madrid the rents are as three to one, exclusive of the water rate, which is paid by the owner. In Belgium the price of waste land rises from 16b to £13 per acre when irrigated— sixteen to oce. In Southern India the increase in the net value of a crop due to irrigation is as fifteen to one, and in some instances [ twenty-two to one,— gan Francisco #«##«*.

a Ir-i i— ,n-i i '— A Western woman has lost two husbands by lightning. She ought to marry a condue! or. He used to cramp his feet up ia little bobts and limp painfully to her residence etery Saturday evening < but the morning after bis marriage he went into a shoemaker's, drew a chalk mark around his foot, and about an inch distant from it on both sides and at the heel and toe, and ordered the man 1 to make him a pair of boots after that pattern Oh, there's sweet liberty, there's balttiyj boundless freedom in the marriage state, of which s&re-heeled and distorted bachelors have no conception 1 The Christchurch Press, in commenting upon the shower of St. Michael and St. George honors that has recently fallen so indjgcrinrinatelj 'upon several New Zealand colonists, says: -Bill of all the shocks to colonial susceptibilities In the matter, the greatest was certainly the announcement of Mr Larnach becoming a C.M.G. Upon what possible basis, it is asked, could this have been managed As a claimant for public honors of any kind Mr Larnach ia emphatically nowhere. Until the session before last he was not heafd of as a politician. The way he came to be known was by an act of political treason. Complimented by the Middle Party with the position of moving the vote of want of confidence in Major Atkinson's Ministry, as the nedessary step to the assumption by themselves of the to«be-vacated offices, he banded over the seals, not to them, but to Sir George Grey. Nothing, we need scarcely say, could be a grosser piece of treachery. The very raison d'etre of the Middle Party— the sole cause which had brought it into existence-- was that at all hazards Sir G. Grey should be excluded from power. And here we have Mr Larnach placed by their confidence in a position in which he found himself for the moment master of the situation, betraying his principals, and doing the very thing in their name which they were banded together to prevent. Nor was the treachery relieved by any appearance of ability. His speech on the occasion was commonly spoken of ag simply destitute of merit. It was weak and bald as a schcolboy's theme. His subsequent appearance as Colonial Treasurer was equally conspicuous by its failure. He proved, we must suppose to his own satisfaction, the insolvency of New Zealand, and he made that insolvency the basis for a fresh loan. Aa luckily no one believed him, the loan was obtained, and the only person who has achieved no credit from the financial operation is Air Larnach. These two feats are literally all that the friends of Mr Larnach have to plead in of the impropriety of his being raised to his new honors. The verdict of the colony is that it is utterly indefensible. It is looked Upon as nothing more nor less than an insult to New Zealand, and to every public man in it, that the name of Mr Larnach should appear on the roll of her C.M.G.'s.