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Oamaru Mail, Volume I, Issue 331, 16 May 1877, Page 2

It is scarcely necessary to remind our readers that the meeting convened by his Worship the Mayor to consider what steps should be taken to secure the opening up of railway communication between Oamaru and Ivyeburu takes place this evening, at the Volunteer Hall. There was no business transacted at the Resident Magistrate's Court this morning. The damages done to the various railway lines by the late floods have all been repaired, and all the regular trains were run on each of the lines to-day. We understand that the matter in dispute between Mr. James Hassell's attorneys and Mr. Thomas Pratt, which formed the subject of Magisterial inquiry lately, has been amicably settled, and that the public are therefore not likely to hear any more of the grain case. The usual weekly assembly of the Quadrille Club is announced for to-morrow night at the Volunteer Hall. In connection with the above, a ball is to be held on Queen's Birthday night, for which an excellent baud has been engaged. A public meeting, called by the Mayor, is to be held at Palmerston, oil Friday evening next, to consider the important question of railway communication between Palmerston and Na'eby. The local paper says that Sir Francis Dillon Bell, and others, will address the meeting, and that Mr. De Lautour, of Xaseby, is also expected to be present. The roof of the Bruce Coal Company's mine fell in last week through being insufficiently propped, but fortunately nothing more serious occurred than the stoppage of work for a time. A telegram from the Stars Auckland correspondent says: —"Walker, the trancelecturer, continues to attract large audiences He protects himself against prosecution by making no charge, but by making voluntary collections at the close. He is denounced by both papers, and is almost universally regarded by his hearers as a rank impostor, but the notoriety he has gained by publicity serves to attract the curious. He goes South shortly. At Home a new fashion has recently sprung up at balls, and seems to have taken a fast hold on society. What are called " singing quadrilles " are got up at nearly all balls given now. The dancers, who have previously rehearsed their parts together, sing nursery rhymes while they go through the mazy figures of the dance. The Press's London coi respondent writes : —" I know of no spectacle more idiotic than that of a middle-aged gentleman going stolidly through a quadrille singing, ' Ba-a, Ba-a, Black Sheep,' and yet this is the sort of thing that is to be seen and heard in nearly every ballroom in London now. To a right-minded man it is as depressing as some of our comic papers."