A Highland Smuggler.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XIX, Issue 6897, 18 June 1892, Page 4

A Highland Smuggler.

An article in Good Words on Highland smuggling contains some good anecdotes : —John Campbell, of Rannoch, was employed in Edinburgh as a detective. His wife died, and he took her remains to the churchyard of his native district. He brought the hearse that conveyed them back to Edinburgh full of smuggled whisky, and said he had " left the body in Rannoch, but took the speerit back with him !" A Fortinal man went to Perth with a cartload of whisky. The innkeeper to whom it was consigned refused to pay him his price. Being a stranger in town, he requested the publican to direct him to someone who would be likely to aive him what he asked. He was furnished with a number irf a certain street. On knocking at the door a gentleman came out, whom he asked if he wished any smuggled whisky. He replied by desiring to know who had sent him there, as he was the exciseman. The man told him frankly. lk Return,". said the gauger, "and sell him your whisky for whatever he will give you, and leave town immediately." A few hours after the officer weut to the inn, seized the whisky and got the innkeeper severely fined. On one occasion the excise came upon a man in a bothy in Strathnearn. They seized the only cask full at the time, and spent the night in a neighboring inn, making themselves jolly in an upper room with their friends, one of them Bitting on the cask to make sure of its safety. Some of the friends of the smuggler were of the party and took nete of the exact position of the cask. They got an auger, bored a hole through the plank of the ceiling into the cask, drained every drop of it into a tub, and returned the stuff to the smuggler.

Log Paddock, near Mudgee, a famous field in the early gold digging days, is again to be worked, the "deep leads" being the object. The report on the "conjugal condition of the people " of South Australia shows there are 12,000 more unmarried males than females. He (fishing for a compliment) : " All handsome men are conceited, you know." She : " But it does not follow that all conceited men are handsome." His Honor : " How old are you, qjadam 1" Witness : " I have seen twentynine Bummers." His Honor : " Humph ! how Jong have you been blind,"

Th« ' Woman's Herald ' gives in its our- j rent number an interview with and portrait of Mrs Hilton, the foundress of the Creche Stepney Causeway, ana wife of Mr John Hi'ton, parliamentary agent of the United Kingdom Alliance. Answering the question, "Do von (md intemperance ;>n evil 1 ' Mrs Hilton gives this trench.-it answer: "Imay frankly say it is the curse of three parts of " the poorer population The poor little J babies who come here hive in many cases j inherited the awful legacy of drink. 1 j have been a total abstainer myself since I was a girl, and I belong to the Society of Friends, but I assure you I do not exaggerate when I tell you that I cannot look on any wine or spirit without a shudder. It is the destroyer of our race, ( and I have seen such dreadful scenes they haunt me. One little baby only five, who came here in a dying state, was simply mad for brandy, and would shriek for it. She had been given it by her parents, who were themselves drunkards. She would go into the most dreadful paroxysms of rage if we would not supply her. Once I tried the effect of having the other little ones in to sing to her. This quited her. Only the night before she died she got up from her bed when she fancied the nurse was asleep, and stole to the cupboard like a shadow in the hope of finding the brandy there. It was an awful thing to see such a baby mad for spirits. Yes, I may safely say drink is the greatest curse of all." The depressed state of the coal trade has compelled the Westport Coal Company to reduce hands at the mine, and to work one shift only in a portion of the mine. Upwards of 100 men ha\ c received notice of dismissal, but it is hoped it will not be found necessary to dispense with the whole of them. A gatekeeper on the railway line at Kingston (N.S. W.) hanged himself on the fence immediately behind the gatehouse. A short time ago he had four gates broken in one day by the train, and he was suspended pending an enquiry. This seems to have preyed on his mind, and led him to commit the rash act. A lawyer undertook to cross-examine a colored witness, Jim Webster. " What's your name 1" "Jim Webster." " What's your occupation?" "I drives a dray." " Have you got a brother that looks like you, and drives a dray 1" " He am dead " " What was he before he died." " Alive." Mrs Callaghan : "I want to get a pair of shoes for me little bye." Clerk : "French kid?" Mrs C. (indignantly) : " Indade, not! He's mo own son — born and bred in Ould Ireland." Orthodox old maid : " But, Rebecca, is your place of worship consecrated ?" Domestic servant (lately received into the Plymouth Brotherhood) : "Oh, no, miss, its galvanised iron." "Oh, papa, only fifty pounds from Sir Gorgius Midas ! Such a millionaire - why, he ought to have sent five hundred pounds at least." "Ah, I'm afraid he forgot tho ought, my dear."