The Evening Star. PUBLISHED DAILY AT FOUR O'CLOCK P.M Resurrexi. SATURDAY, MAHCH 1, 1879.

Thames Star, Volume X, Issue 3131, 1 March 1879, Page 2

The Evening Star. PUBLISHED DAILY AT FOUR O'CLOCK P.M Resurrexi. SATURDAY, MAHCH 1, 1879.

We learn, that the lowest tenderers fortho Ohinemuri bridge have been notified to-day of the acceptance of their tender, and preparations a>e being made to commence work. The good people of Ohinemuri intend to have a demonstration on ; the 17th, when the first pile of. the bridge will be driven.

Mb Bbodie returned to the Thames this morning in company with Mr G. V. Stewart of Katikati. The latter will meet the County Council early next week respecting inter-shire road works.

The troubles of the Harbor Board are only commencing. The foreshore, which has been so loug looked for, is now being claimed by some of our native friends. The Hon. Honi Nahe, Nikorima, and others have, we believe, lodged claims with Judge Johnston, which will be investigated on the 7th inst.

In Monday's issue of this paper may be looked for an advertisement from the Public Works Department, calling for tenders for the second section of the railway works upon the foreshore.

The new dog collars are read/ for issue at the Police station.

A boy named James Pick severely cut his hand with a bottle at the soda water springs yesterday, and lost a quantity of blood. He was brought down to the Hospital last night.

It has been suggested that an amateur dramatic performance should be arranged for on behalf of the Kaitangata Relief Fund; and we have the assurance from one lady amateur that she will give her assistance.

We hare received the regulations for guidance of intending exhibitors at the Intercolonial Juvenile Industrial Ex hibitioa at Melbourne in October next. It may be seen at the office of this paper.

These was again a clean sheet at the R.M. Court to-day.

We have to acknowledge the receipt from the Government Printer of copies of papers laid before the Assembly during last session ; report of the Public Petitions Committee, Goldfields Committee, and Immigration Officers, return of iands reserved for railway purposes, lands reserved for the purpose of granting them to Municipal Corporations, correspondence with the Colonial Office, and a number of other documents.

To-night Professor and Madame Alexander will open at the Theatre Royal iv a varied and entertaining programme.

The Volunteer representatives from the Thames have safely arrived at Nelson. Trouble commences pn Monday.

We have received a copj of the New Zealand Christian Record, a well got up weekly religious journal, printed by Messrs Mackay, Bracken and Co., Dunedin:

The P.B. Standard says: The young person recently from Ireland who excited the ire of Father Henneberry by coming in from Ormond to marry a non-Catholic, was afterwards united to the man of her choice by the Registrar of Marriages.

Thbhe have been some paragraphs in the papers lately about sleepers for railway works. From enquiries at the Public Works Department, it has been found that nearly three fourths of all the sleepers used in the past in this island, and Auckland especially, have been of heart of kauri; but while such may be procured in this part of the Island at a cheap rate, ,it is said that wood can be obtained cheaper from the neighboring colonies than sent from this Province to the Southern parts of the Colony. It costs no less than Is per sleeper to send them South, while the first cost is about 3s in the Auckland Province.

We believe it is intended to send a delegate from the Harbor Board to Wellington to lay the position of affairs before the Government, if an unfavourable reply is received to the telegrams already sent.

A private letter from Melbourne, under date February 11, states : " I had a pleasant surprise this morning. I met Messrs tt. Brett and W. H. Niohollf, of the Thames, and showed them the sights of our city. ? JThey leave to-morrow for England by the Lusitania. MS.—Mrs Brett had her pocket picked on/the Steam Tender at Sydney Wharf, by a man 60 years of age. He was caught in the act by a detective who had been watching him. He had taken fifteen pounds and some loose silver; also a passage ticket. The money had to be left in Sydney until after the trial."-, ... f

The following is the Auckland Star's notes upon the race for the Dunedin Cup:—Mr Bay declared to win with Templeton. Mr Goodman with Chancellor. Titania, Fallacy, Blue Peter, Dead Heat, King Quail, Sapphire, and Dorando were scratched. The usual difficulty was experienced in getting the field away to a good start. On passing the stand Sinking Fund was leading, Maritana, Camballo, and Nemo were next in a cluster with old Templeton well to . the rf ar .on the right. On the Dunedin side of the course, Chancellor and Nemo : improved their position, while Venus Transit whs well back. The others now began to fall off on the opposite side of rishe course. Mata was not last, Cloth of Gold bringing up the rear. Sinking Fund led past the stand the second time with Fishhook and Nemo well up, Chancellor being evidently out of it. Templeton, who had evidently been hard led, was now let go, and rapidly cutting the field there appeared a certainty for him. It was now apparent that Mata had also been, riinningr a i waiting race, for she quickly came to4he front. A magnificent race down the straight ensued. The old horse, however, j «ras over-weighted, and was outpaced. Sinking Fund and Mata finished a dead heat, Templeton being a bai third; Nemo was fourth, and Venus Transit fifth. Time : ( 57*ecs (?).. or 3secs. faster than the Cup wjp. ever ran in before. — The dead heat was run off between Mata and Sinking Fund at the close of the programme. A splmdid race ensued, finishing in a victory for Mata by a neck. —Betting 3 to 1 against Sinking; Fund ; 7 to 1 against Chancellor; 5 to 1 against Templeton; 7to 1 against Fish-' hook-; 10 to 1 against Mata. and Nemo; 100 to 7 against Canob\U6 aijd! Maritana; 100 to 5 against ClotH of Gold, Vampire, and York; 100 to 3 against Benjiroo and Venus Transit.

The Liverpool Mercury says that aj noteworthy instance of commercial! morality is announced by Peter Bancroft,' of that town, who recently received an unsigned letter, in which was inclosed a bank-note for £1000. The only information vouchsafed by the sender was that the bank-note was the amount of an old' debt, and accumulated interest, which he was sorry not to have been in a position' to forward to Mr Bancroft before. Mr Bancroft has not the slightest idea from whom he has received this conscience; money. ;

" They sliall spoil the Egyptians," was written long enough ago about the Hebrew race, but Egyptians are not Maoris, 'and to judge from the following story were only about half as smart as Maoris, or the prophet's speech would have been turned upside down :—A few days ago an aboriginal brother met an Israelite to whom he owed asmall account of some £4 or £5. Having been duly bailed up by the descendant of the two tribes, " who were not lost," the aboriginal, who is really well off, requested his creditor to write out a cheque for the amount, to which he would attach his autograph. This was duly accomplished, the cheque signed, and transferred to the pocket of the representative of the chosen people, who duly " shouted," and each went their way. A short time afterwards, happening to meet a Pakeha-Maori friend, he told him that „he had got his money from his dusky brother, and triumphantly produced his cheque in evidence, when it was discovered that the name at the bottom was represented by the two words " kapai tenei" (Anglice, "this is good"). The joke was good, and the effect on the recipient indescribable. — Bay of Plenty Times.

I am free to confess that I never was an admirer of amiable people—men and women who have no individuality, and are ready to smile at anything or nothing, just as it happens. On the contrary, if there is any class of my fellow creatures whom I don't love it is yb'ir "amiable person. In the first place, this creature has no opinions about anything ; or having any, keeps them to itself, in order to keep upv its " amiable " reputation. It laughs when it would rather cry. It cries when it would rather laugh; and all for the same reason. It waives off discussion lest it should in an ungarded moment utter something on Friday that it would not, for many reasons, be convenient to believe on Saturday. It shakes hands, alike with the rogue and the honest man. It smiles alike on the scamp and the selfrespecting; man. It knows no good—no bad'; and chuckles to itself that it hat made no enemies. The question is, whether after all these ignoble pains, this " amiable hypocrite and coward has made any friends.—Exchange.

Frederick Eckert, of East Orange N.J., died recently from a singular cause. At the second battle of Bull Hun, in the summer of 1862, Eckert, who was a member of the Second New Jersey regiment, was struck by a minie-ball in the back. The ball entered his body an inch below the short rib and two inches from the right side of the spinal column. The bullet could not be found by the surgeons, and the wound was of such a serious nature that the man was discharged, and returned to his home in Newark. The orifice finally closed, and Eckerf became engaged in the grocery business in East Orange. The ball almost imperceptibly crept around the side of his body to a point just abov.» the pit of his stomach, where it caused him much pain and trouble. The point finally came it. contact with the right lung, and for over a year before his death he was unable to speak without having severe pain. Friday morning he was found dead in bed. A few days bpfore his death he told his attending physician where the bullet could be found. When tiie post-mortem examination was made, the missile was found within half an inch of the spot designated by the deceased. The point was imbedded in the right lung, and the hollow end was filled with a fatty substance. The physicians decided that his death was caused by the bullet shot in his back sixteen years ago.—Chronicle.

Undeb the head of "The Minister's Wife," the London Baptist Magazine has the following bit of pleasant satire :— " The Minister's wife ought to be selected by a committee of tie church. She should be warranted never to have headache or neuralgia; she should have nerves of wire and sinews of iron; she should never be tired or sleepy, and should be everybody's cheerful drudge ; she should be cheerful, intellectual, pious, and domesticated ; she should be able to keep her husband's house, darn his slocking, makes his shirts, cook his dinner, light his fire, and copy his sermons ; she should keep up the style of a lady on the wages of a day labourer, and be always at leisure for ' good work,' and ready to receive morning calls; she should be secretary to the Band of Hope, the Dorcas Society, and the Home Mission; she should conduct Bible-classes and mothers' meetings ; should make clothing for the poor, and gruel for the sick; and finally she should be pleased with everybody and everything, and never desire any reward beyond the satisfaction of having done her Own duty and other people's too."

One Alfred Barnard, alias T. Edmiston Gough, has supplied us with a novelty in swindling—a thing one would hardly hare thought possible after so many ingenious gentlemen have devoted so many of the best years of their life and so much of their brains to that art. Mr Barnard, or Gough, got up on his own account a testimonial to the police superintendent of Whitehaven, took lodgings for himself in the place, gave himself out as a solicitor, and wrote to-a London firm for a gold watch, g^ld' chain, diamond ring, and locket, value £96, all for the unsuspecting superintendent of police at WhitehaVen. The goods were promised,; but were conveyed by a representative of the firm, who had his suspicion* aroused when he arrived in 1 Whitehaven. He communicated with the police, and in a little while ■Mr' Barnard waa in the cuttody' of the superintendent for whom he professed to ,be so zealously working.—Morning Herald.

. , At an early hour in the morning, (says the Sydney Evening News) a person who, we presume, was incommoded with the amount of his riches, dropped a sovereign down the drain at the intersection of King and George streets. With a look of aespair in the direction of his lost treasure, the individual with some difficulty managed to Sgtftf beneath the culvert, and smeared himself as black as an Ethiopian with mud, in a vain endeavour to recover the coin. At length, having partially scalped himself against the iron of the culvert, torn a large hole in the dexter knee of his inexpressibles, barked his shins in a fearful manner, and, in fact, generally 'embellished himself, he uttered a few familiar quotations, and went home in"a rage*ill the omnibus. Now, it came to pass, that •notber man had beheld these proceedings,, Onrjhe disappearance of the unfortunate loser of. the gold, there crossed the road, in an oblique direction, a rough-looking party with a thin forbidding countenance, a pair of scrubby whiskers, and two of those side locks known to the more aristocratic of the fair sex as " aggerawaters." This grim wight planted himself on the culvert, looked fcearchingly up and down the street, and then his expressivei physiognomy wrinkled into a genial smile. His next proceeding was to doff' a long and very grimy coat,' which/he carefully folded up, lest the garment should lose any of its gloss, an* spitting, on his hands, he produced from the recess of a soiled "bandanna" a large and rusty-looking dipper. Then he smiled to himself and murmured: " Here's a start! Ho! ho! I'll strike it Tich by-and-bye," and proceeded to raise the iron grating. Then spooning out with dignified composure the black, oosy mud with his dipper, he began to search for the sovereign. By this time a crowd had collected^ which hailed every appearance of the tin utensil with cries of—" He's got the color" "No he ain't." " Wash that dish, old stocking, &c." At length, however, the efforts of the persevering miner were crowned with success, and he held aloft, with many exclamations of delight, the gleaming coin. On this there was a general chorus of—" Come on, Smith ; I'll take a nobbier of brandy." " I'll take rum and raspberry." " Two ales for me," with many more cries of a like nature. But clutching the " greed " tightly in his hand, the besmeared goldfinder emerged slowly from the muddy well, and shaking bis grimy head from side to side, exclaimed, " Where's my fantail banger?" That garment having been produced, he slowly drew it on, and wiping his fevered brow with his much frayed coat cuff, he said— "Gents, I am rich, but honest. The coin I hold iv my palm represents 80 drinks. phorus : •• Hurrah!'- "Of course," continued the man, " I should be happy, charmed, ravished, to iuvite you all—(cheers)—but there is one little impediment — I am a Good Templar (groans). We cannot always be together, d ar friends, and so now I will leave you. Bless* you; be virtuous, and you'll be happy." And with a smile upon his visage that cracked the layer of mud with which his brow was coated, he walked slowly away, amid the execrations of the multitude.

Somebody observes that when six young ladies sit down to talk about dress, a small boy with a tin horn is a refuge for the weary.

As year after year passes on the sewing machines that have been purchased at J. Gbigg's warehouse in Pollen street prove their worth to their owners. Lockstitch, £4; table and treadle, £2 ss.~[Advt.]