CURRENT TOPICS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 4905, 21 March 1894, Page 1

CURRENT TOPICS.

m A law clerk got a severe lecture from the Chief Justice of Victoria the other day. He bad ascertained that a judgment of the Supreme Court had been filled by him \ in the prothonotary's office without the name of the defendant being entered thereon. As his employers were interested he got possession of the document, oaten- ', eibly to make a copy, and then inserted 1 the defendant's- name, without which the judgment was waate paper. The addition was detected, and the clerk was had up for ' contempt. He said that he thought he \ wae only rectify is g a clerical error. Tho I Chief Justice told him that he had rendered himself liable to five years' imJ prisonnientj and only becanee he bad made ; a clean breast of the whole business he ' would accept the explanation and let him go free.

I A case of poiaouing through eating ' unwholesome tinned fish occurred in Pabiatua recently (says the local Herald). Messrs Madder and Doel and Mr Madder's son, who live together near the Mangatait noka Biver, made their tea that evening , off sardines, Mr Doel and young Madder | dividing one tin between them, ¥r Mudder ' drawing his supply from another, At the time young Madder noticed a peculiar 1 taste, and mentioned the fact, but nothing was thought of it then. Between ten and | eleven o'clock at night, however, the two were seizod with violent abdominal pains \ and excessive vomiting. Mr Madder immediately rushed off for Dr Gault, who ! was speedily in attendance, accompanied by Mr Hackett. Both patients displayed | all the symptoms of poisoning, and emetics and antidotes were at once administered, , For some time the case looked very Berious indeed, but finally the two were pulled round and declared out of danger. Both, ; however, continued vomiting during the night, and were reduced to a very weak etate. Mr Madder, who had partaken of fish from another tin, was nob affected. Mr Doel states that when he opened the tin he thought it had not boon thoroughly air-tight; and tbat, probably, was the cause of the trouble.

Moat people are under the impression that bimetallism is just now in a bad way, but not 80 does it appear to Mr Chaplin. The late President of the Board of Agriculture has been assuring the Lincolnshire agriculturists tbat he believeß that with President Cleveland asking for powers in . America to summon a conference of nations i when he desired, and with France ready to • join, and Germany appointing a commißi sion, the truth of what he has alwayß contended was rapidly becoming borne out, i namely, that it is England alone who stands ' in the way of the introduction of bi- ) inetallism at the present time. Having delivered this opinion, the member for the > Sleaford Division communicated to his . audience " a little secret." This was that Mr Gladstone's Government had just got ' into a dreadful difficulty in connection i with Indian finance, which was entirely its own fault, and was due to its i hatred of the policy which he had been advocating. So great indeed is < this > Indian difficulty that Mr Chaplin is oon- > vinced that there will be absolutely no . way whatever out of it excepting on bimetallic lines.

Last year was a moßt disastrous one for the private savings banks in France. Owing to the panic got up for political 1 purposes at the beginning of the year, the aggregate deposits fell from 3227 millions of franca to 3143 millions. There are in all 1106 private b..nks, and the returns 1 show that during the year the depositors numbered 6,173,000, aa increase of 51,000 on the previous year ; but the yoar's deposits wer© 785,924,000 f, a falling-off of 1 93.987,000 f, and the withdrawals were 947,617,000 f, or 156,688,000 f more than in 1 1892. In the first quarter tho withdrawals exceeded the deposits by 169 1 millions. In the second quarter the excess of withdrawals waa only 30 millions, and t the recovery during- the rest of the year reduced the decrease in deposits from 200 1 millions to 84 millions.