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Colonist, Volume XXX, Issue 5016, 27 September 1887, Page 3

James M'Geegob, a Dandee man, arrived in Fleet-street, London, having walked from Dandee—a distance of nearly 500 miles by road - on a pair of stilts. M'Grogor stated that he would complete the distance in 80 days. He started front Dandee on the morning of the Ist of July, immense crowds seeing him away: He has completed the distance in 20 days and a half. ;. •. . . - A'wpßH has been found in Germany which devours iron and steel rails. U carries two glands filled with a corrosive secretion, which it ejects, corroding the- iron rendering it • soft And spongy, so that it can be devour&dfc An enormous mastodon was unearthed on July-12th, near San Juan-by-the-Sea, Southern California. The tusks were rl6ft long and Bin in diameter. They crumbled to dust- on being.exposed to the air. * :

Herb Ashrott. a jtidge at Casiel, and a co-religionist, has given the site for the English Church which' is to b§ built in honor of the Jubilee.- •■■-•'- Lord Hindu*, of the brewery" firm of Allsopp and Co., of Barton, accord* ing to his will leaves £558,000.; >. A. OopKxowsr telegram; reports this another fearful massacre has occurred in New Guinea. The cutter Cecilia, which left there on the Ist July, and Lizard Island on the 18th, arrived at Orapgerie Bay on the 26th. The Natives attaoked the boat, and killed. T. Heernan and William Hanson and severely wounded Gustav R'cciui. The boat was broken to pieces.' Biccius was afterwards rescaed by Cap* tain Ah Gim and taken to Port Moresby, where an inquiry is to be held. By the Gernnn steamer Ottilia news has been received that a severe battle was fought with the Natives of Hatafelt Haven. The Natives attacked the steamer, which beat them off and landed a party, who burned two villages and killed and wounded many Natives after desperate resistance. A sensation has been caused in French high life by the successful kidnapping of Countess Campos, recently divorced from Duo la Torre. The kidnappers-wore masks and seized the. Countess as she was walking in the Bois de Boulogne. They eluded pursuit. The present whereabouts of the lady is unknown, exoept to her captors, who managed completely to baffle their prisoner's friends as well as the police. The Due is the son of the late Marshal Serrano of Spain. The Spanish Embassy have instituted an energetic search for the lady. In a recent issue a contemporary gives an extract from a German lawyer's bill, which may be commended to the notice of those interested in the exorbitant charges of professional men in connection with' bankruptcy matters. It may be stated that the account referred to was for services rendered in connection with a bankruptcy matter, in which the proceedings extended over two years. Notwithstand ing this the total amount of the German solicitor's account was under seven guineas. At Napier, Mr Ivess was asked the following, qnestion :—" Will you tell us how Sir John Hall gridironed his run?" He replied. "In Canterbnry a regulation .was passed that ne> Hooks of land under 20 acres should Be sold, fcir John Hall had it surveyed into 19 and 20 acre blocks, and no one could buy the intervening 19 acres. At least that was how the story was told in the Canterbury papers." A man who for the past two years has been an inmate of the Eltham (Kent) Workhouse under the assumed name of "Wilton Loward," has just died suddenly from heart disease. He wa~s evidently by birth and education a gentleman, and his conduct while in the workhouse had been most exemplary. He spoke Hindustani, French, and German with fluency, and was equally well acquainted with Greek and Latin. His own account of himself was that he was of good family, and that at one time he was in possession of a considerable fortune. For many years tif-served in India as ' an officer in the East India Company's service, and retired with a pension. Later on in life, Laving lost his fortune through injudicious investments in mine 3, he commuted his pension, speculating with the amount he receivVL At Constantinople he was seized with paralysis, which incapacitated him from work, and, coming homa, he stopped at several watering-places, until he became destitute at Folkestone. He seems to have exhausted his friends, and he had no other resource but to obtain an order for the workhouse, from ihe relieving officer. At that time he was elegantly dressed. j;His manners and bearing were always courteous and dignified. He refused money gifts wiien offered him, and had a great horror of dying a pauper. He carefully concealed his name, his reason being, ho said, that he expeoted to come into a small estate, and he should not like it to be known that he had been an inmate ot a. workhouse. At his death his linen was found to be marked with an earl's coronet, and he has left a will, but no clue to his identity. Rather an awkward document that which we are told is goiog the rounds of-the city of Auckland for signature, and has already several hundred names attached to it. The document wants to make New Zealand a Crown Colony again, and so relieve it of a portion of that awful pressure of taxationr-for one thing—under which it is groaning ; and i'or another to put a bit of a drag on the headlong and headstrong progress of rabid democracy that threatens to—and will—carry everything before it. The Colony would be held up to the world as <i shocking had example if the substance of the Auckland document found effect, and that you know, would be awful and not to be thought of. Still the birth and circulation of such a document is significant in tho highest degree, and goes to show what soina people aro prepared to do under extreme pressure of circumstances, and is also a very wide and dcop suggestion to the administrators of '.he Colony's affairs to keep that administration within proper limits. No one may affirm that ' New Zealand's administration ii not overgrown, any more than that any one may affirm that labor is not just as big a tyrant as capital, and graeping withal, The action of the Seamen's Union proves that. In the latter case ie will just ba " pull devil pull baker," and lit the stronger win. In the former matters are more complicated, and although a graat many of us would be deeply grieved to saa the fair name of the Colony besmirched and befouled, stil the inception of that blessed document is a tolerably,broad hint as to possibilities and " might De's." There is a limit to human endurance,, and let us hope the new Parliament will take the bint when it assembles.— ' New Zealand Mail.' : At Cardiff, John Barry, master of - the steamer Constance, of London, was fined £5 and costs for allowing ... his ship to bo so over-laden at Bilboa V in June last.that the Plimsoll mark ; y when.she, loft Bilboa was submergejd .' ,<; sevendnches. - .■• *l> ■'■>£*•*'■' ■•' / Tjkbx is talk in Dublin, of erecting a statue of Gladstone- in one of the . ■ public squares. - '•' •"-" •'*.; Six eolonred men have recently been killed by white moto ut Louisiana. ;