CURRENT TOPICS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 4878, 17 February 1894, Page 6

CURRENT TOPICS.

Humphrey Piatt, a letter carrier at Hobart, aged only twenty, bub married and with one child, was arrested on Jan. 31 for a breach of the Postal Act, and on hiß residence being searched nearly one thousand undelivered letters, circulars and papeis were found. Over two hundred letters were handed by the police to the Postmaster-General, who ordered them to be forwarded to their proper addresses. Mention is mado in many of the letters of remittances enclosed, but no money has been recovered. Pratt was remanded for seven days. The salary he waa receiving was 27s per week. The postal authorities objected to his marriage, and advised him to wait for a better position, but he disregarded tbe advice. Pratt was much trusted, and though the department had received hundreds of complaints about the non-delivery of letters, he was never suspected.

An article in the Pall Mall Gazette deals exhaustively with the prospects of the Manchester Ship Canal ev°r returning anything in shape of interest to the shareholders. It is pointed out that although millionaires and others in the immediate neighbourhood at Manchester, Salford and the district through which the canal passes will obtain their goods at from 6s to lis per ton cheaper than heretofore, this saving mil not apply to persons resident in the smaller towns, such as Oldham, Blackburn, Burnley, Preston, Wigan, Accrington, Boltcn and others, which are some distance from the canal. Already shipowners are charging 6s per ton more to Manchester than to Liverpool, and it is believed that the detention in the canal will warrant this additional charge. The expenses chargeable to the preferent shares, debentures, &c, will absorb about .£300,000 per annum, and it is not likely that the net revenue will for many years exceed that sum. But those who live will see.

The Melbourne Age of Jan. 30 says :— An experiment is about to be made in providing work for the unemployed in cutting down the mallee on two large blocks covering an area of 93,000 acres of land, that were resumed some time ago by the Lands Department from Mr Macredie. The furthest point of the land is thirty-one miles north-west of Swan Hill, and it is proposed to clear with axeß the eastern portion, tho stems of the mallee being too thick for rolling down in the ordinary manner. The Minister of Lands was yesterday interviewed by some forty-five unemployed men, who had learned that euch a project was on foot. Mr M'lntyre Btated that he was prepared to inaugurate the New Zealand system of clearing land by giving parties of men from 4s to 5s an acre to cut down the mallee over an area of some 20,000 acres, and he suggested they should form themselves into parties of six, eight or ten men to work on the butty gang principle. Each party would elect one man, who would be responsible to the Government for the due payment of the moneys earned. The men retired to consider the offer, and it is understood they will tell the Minister to-day what they propose to do in the nutter. They will be required to provide their own tents, axes and food. It is stated that a man can clear an acre a day. The Minister proposes to add the cost of the clearing to the price of the land when it is selected for cultivation, bo that the State shall be recouped tho money advanced to the unemployed.

Dr Bakewell writes to the Auckland Star aa follows : — Permit me to say that I never in any part of my article in the Nineteenth Century asserted anything bo foolish as the statement imputed to me by the Women's Political League ; that I nowhere stated that ninety-five per cent of the population of New Zealand were either " adverse" or " opposed" to the female franchise, or any words to that effect. The cablegram, of which I do not acknowledge the correctness, states that I assorted that ninetyfive per cent of the population did not desire the extension of the franchise to women. j

The Excelsior, the largest diamond in the world, is now deposited in one of the safes of the Bank of England. It was found in June last in the mineß of Jagers-' fontein, Capa Colony, by Captain Edward Jorganson, the inspector of the mine. In hia opinion, corroborated by that of the director, Mr Gifford, the Excelaior ia a stone of the purest water, and is worth about a million sterling. Exceptional precautions were taken to have it conveyed from the mine to the coast. A squadron of the 16th Lancers guarded the carriage to Capetown, from wnich it was brought to London in the gunboat Antelopa. It is fully three inches in height, and nearly three inches in breadth, weighing 971 carats or about seven ounces troy. The colour of the Jagersfontein diamond iB white with a very slight bluish tint ; and it 3 lustre is matchless. At the centre ia a very small black spot, which expertß consider will be easily removed in the cutting. According to M. K. West, the British Government have offered half a million pounds sterling for this diamond to the proprietors, Messrs Breitmeyer and Bernheimer, but the offer has been refused. It is alao said tbat the directors of the Chicago Exhibition were willing to insure the diamond for three-quarters of a million, in order to show the eighth wonder of the world. The German Emperor is reported to be the probable purchaser of the ExcelBior.

The Rangitikei Advocate says that recently, probably during the last fresh, a portion of the bank of the Manawatu River was washed away near Palmerston, exposing the tracks, stamped in soft clay, of* two moas. The one track measured 14in long and 14in across, and the other Bin by Bin. There were 12fb of Boil and clay resting on the bed on which the tracks are exposed, apparently a recent deposit, for some totara logs embedded in the Clay are still sound and fresh, but a wood which resembles manuka has commenced to decay. On his return from the Conference of School Inspectors, Mr H. Hill, F.R.G.S., will visit the spot in company with Mr Gibber d, and examine the footprints.

Particulars of a singular case which occurred at the Thames last Saturday were conveyed by telegram to the Auckland police authorities. It seems that a young man named George Ellis, of Auckland, was arrested at the Thames that morning on a charge of having obtained _£3 by false pretences from J. G. Pannt.ll, licensee of the Northcote Hotel. He was brought before the Police Court immediately, and remanded to Auckland. After leaving the Court, Ellis took sick and commenced to vomit. He said that he and his wife had taken chlorodyne that morning before his arrest, and that they had agreed to die together. Sergeant Gillies called in a doctor at once, and after using the usual remedies, the latter ordered the removal of the young mau and hia wife to tbo Thames Hospital, where they are at preeent. Ellis and hia wife took the chlorodyne immediately after the man was

arrested, he having asked permission of the police to speak to Mrs Ellis. They hava been married only a month,

On Monday, says the Shannon paper, the postmaster of Ohau passed through the post a small packet wrapped in brown paper, with a lap attached, to which was affixed the stamp. It bore the Manakau post mark, which fortunately had been placed over the stamp. The person bearing the name of the address sent for his letters in the usual way, the packet going with the others. After some short time the parcel was brought back to the postmaster, with the information that it waa not intended for the person to- whom it wa3 addressed, and that'-ifc"*contained an explosive. It waa then found that the packet consisted of a match-box containing ten dynamite cartridges packed in tightly. The postmaster in Wellington was then communicated with, and Constable O'Rorke took the matter op, when, after some investigation, it was discovered that a yonng man at Manakau had forwarded them to a man who had lately taken up some contracts at Ohau. There il no doubt tbat the packet was Bent in ignorance, and that the sender was perfectly innocent of any intention to do harm; but it must also be remembered that if either of. the postmasters had stamped the packet on the flat of the box the blow would have been sufficient to have effected the discharge, the result ofl which would moat certainly have been losa of life and destruction of property.

A curious action is being brought in the Swiss Courts by a convict named Maradan* who was found guilty a couple of yeara ago at Fribourg of attempting to murder his wife. The trial excited great publio intereßt in Switzerland, partly because the prisoner had conspired with his mistress and a strange man to do the deed, by throwing his wife in the river, and partly because it was more than hinted by the prosecution that Maradan had committed other crimes, including the murder cf his first wife. Maradan was sentenced to eight years' imprisonment, which he is now undergoing. Some time after the trial, M. Edouard Rod, tha well-known Frenoh novelist, made it the subject of a story, reproducing all the incidents and preserving the locality of the crime, but at the same time altering the names. This story haß been published recently in serial form by a Fribourg paper called L'Ami dv Peuple, and somehow this fact has come to Maradan's knowledge in prison. The result is that he is bringing an action for libel against the paper, claiming 3000 francs fox damage to his " good reputation."

The West Coast Times complains that at Hokitika, on Feb, 9, a humiliating spec, tacle was witnessed at mid-day. On the adjournment of the Court, two boys, charged with breaking and entering s fruiterer's shop, were handcuffed together and marched to the lock-up, with a policeman on either side. " The boys up to that time were only accused of the crime; they had not even been committed for trial, andthe English law always assumes a man is innocent until he iB proved guilty. The two policemen were sufficient to prevent the boys from escaping when on their way to the lock-up without the degradation of handcuffing them together."

Among all the illnesses from which a diplomatist ever suffered surely none could be more remarkable than that whioh afflicted onr Ambassador in St Petersburg in 1844. It is mentioned in Mr Hare's book about the Ladies Canning and Waterford. Their father, Lord Stuart de Rothesay, was the Ambassador meant. He waa attacked by a kind of nervous paralysis. One of its oddest forms was that he could no longer command his limbs. His legs ran away with him ! Mr Blomfeld, his secretary, passed him. once running rapidly along the quays. After* wards he heard himßelf called, and found Lord Stuart clinging to a lamppost. "I wanted particularly to speak to you, but could not stop; my legs ran away with me." On another occasion he rushed involuntarily throngh the rooms of the palace, and was only forcibly stopped by an equerry at the door of the Emperor's private room.

A gentleman presented a parcel the other day at the railway Btation at Brie-Comte-Robert, and asked to have it registered to Vincenneß. The railway official who weighed it said that it weighed 32 kilogrammes, and that as fractions of 10 kilos reckoned aa 10 kilos, the cost of carriage would be the same as if it weighed 40 kilos. The owner of the parcel Beemed extremely annoyed at this. "Wait a minute," he said, and he stepped outside, returning presently with about 7 or 8 kiloa of paving atones, which he picked up at the station entrance. This he added to the parcel, which, with the extra weight, was accepted at the rate originally demanded. Doubtless the irate customer of the company thought he had done a rather clever thing, but his triumph was short-lived, for on arriving at Vincennea he was, on peremptory telegraphic orders from Brie, arrested for stealing pavingstones, and marched off to prison between two policemen.

Lord Chief Justice Coleridge has written as follows to the Secretary of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge :— I have learned from what seems unquestionable authority that those who administer the affairs of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge have finally determined to range the Society in the number of those favouring the practioe of vivisection and advocating its horrors. It ia my duty, as I regard it, to separate myself at once from such a body, and I have accordingly directed Messrs Childs not to pay any further subscriptions to the Society. Aa I informed you of what I should feel bound to do in the events which have happened, I shall not ocoasion the Society any inconvenience.