NOTES.

Westport Times, Volume II, Issue 313, 1 August 1868, Page 3

NOTES.

A witness possessing some original views on matters of theology is thus referred to by the " Bendigo Advertiser" of 27th ult.:—" lu a civil case tried in court yesterday, at the Townhall, a plaintiff named Guy, a West India black, said, in answer to the magistrate, as to whether he was a Christian, 'l'm not a Christian if I have not received the Spirit from the Son.' !Do you go to church ?' asked Mr M'Lachlan. 'No,' replied the witness; ' but there are many bad Christians who go to church.' The witness was sworn." Mr Harrison, the member for the Westland boroughs, has, we notice, been appointed a member of the Printing Coinmii tee of the House of Representatives. " On Monday the 29th ult., says the "Bendigo Advertiser," " something remarkable occurred in the Supreme Court-house. The principal witnesses examined in a case of larceny were Danes, while the prisoners were Chinese. Two interpreters were in consequence needed, and hence at one and the same time, while the Danish interpreter was talking away to the witnesses on one side, the Chinese linguist was eloquently descantiug to the prisoners on the other, while the lawyers were arguing in English in the centre, and we need not say that a noise something like that heard at the building of Babel was the result."

The S. M. Hearald contains the following curious statement: —" From the records of the City Coroner's office, it appears that during the past five years no less than twenty-seven adult persons have been found dead "n the district of Sydney, without any clue having been obtained as to who or what they were. Nineteen of this number met their death by drowning, either in the harbor or the Parramatta or Lane Cove rivers. Three of the others were found dead in the bush—one at Bondi, one at George's River, and one on the Liverpool Road. The other four died within the city, three from apoplectic fits, and the forth from exhaustion, produced by want and self-neglect. Out of so large a number of ' disowned' persons, it is not improbable that in most instances those best acquainted with them have had very cogent reasons for not idendifyiug them. It has been suggested that identification would be facilitated if placards containing the description of the deceased persons were posted in conspicuous places, such as is now done with regard to murders, &c. This might not lead to the indentification in every instance ; but the suggestion does not seem altogether unworthy of consideration by the Government."

A Slave Question in Cuba.—Two slaves, belonging to the English director of the copper-mines, have appealed to the presiding Syndic, claiming their liberty upon the following extraordinary plea:—" We are slaves of the consolidated mines. These mines belong to the English. The English law prohibits slaveholding. Ergo, we are free." It is impossible to tell how the case will be decided, as all depends upon the private sentiments of the solitary Judge who constitutes the Spanish tribunal. The damage arising from the last flood has not proved great, and the alarm occasioned has entirely subsided. The beach is strewn thickly with drift wood, and there is row every chance of a good bank being soon made which will prevent a recurrence of the late disaster. The wreck of the Ada is a prominent object, and as that can hardly come under the denomination of drift wood, we may look for its early removal.

Complaints in reference to the Caledonian track are incessant, but we refrain at present from publishing them, though the names of many writers of first-class standing are appended to their communications. We understand that Mr Kynnersley went up the track on Thursday for the purpose of examining it, and till he takes some action we forbear from comment. That he will pass it there cannot, we should think, be the slightest prub luiii.y, for if one half of what is broadly alleged is true in re ference to it, a more perfectly useless work was never constructed, nor one in which the specification was so thoroughly departed from.

The Provincial Government of Otago is prepared to enter into an arrangement whereby land to the value of £ISOO will be conveyed to any individual or company which shall during two years from the 9th inst., manufacture not less thau 250 tons of good marketable sugar from beet grown in the province. A supply of seed to produce the above quantity is now on its way out. " On Friday, the 19th instant," says the " Tuapeka Times," " Mounted Constable Dunne, of Waipori, captured five men at the back of the Waitahuna Eanges, who had been sheep-stealing for some time. They were carrying on mining, and living together; and as they required mutton, they supplied themselves with that requisite from Messrs Cable and Drummond's run, and also from Mr Cummings, of Horse Shoe Bush. The place where they Avere at work and lived was situated in a very lonelylocality, seventeen miles from Waipori, where they have carried on their nefarious practices for some time. At last, however, they fell iuto the hands of Mr Dunne, who arrested them, and marched them to Waipori at the dead of night, through a rough country covered with snow. The prisoners were brought into Lawrence under a strong escort, on Monday, the 22nd instant, and brought before the Magistrate. On examination, a very strong case was found against them. With great difficulty some of the stolen sheep were found 12 feet underwater, and weighed down with stones. This extraordinary capture of Mr Dunne's may be placed side by side with his 100 miles ride and successful capture of Devine, the horse-stealer. A Distillation Act has been introduced into the Assembly, which proposes to very materially reduce the duty on colonial made spirits, and make other concessions to colonial distillers. Amongst other matters in connection with it, it is proposed to admit Australian wines at greatly reduced rates, and as to the advisability of the latter proposition there can be scarcely two opinions. The Australian wines are sounder, more genuine, and more wholesome, than nearly all that comes from other parts of the world, and even the strictest teetotaller would scarcely object to this preference being shown. We regret to say that Mokihmui has gone from bad to worse, and may be said to have reached prefy well its laat stage. There are only, we hear, twenty inhabitants left in Mokihinui proper, and about a hundred scattered about the district. The weekly mail service however is continued, and its utility may be guessed when there are conveyed on each journey, on an average ! four or five letters. Taking the outside estimate, as the service costs £3 per week, each letter costs the revenue twelve shillings, tolerably expensive postage to say the least of it. We understand that both the contractor and the postmaster, Mr Winstanlej r , are agreed as to the the desirability of putting an end to the coutract, but as the latter cannot do so without communicating with head-quarters at Wellington, and as Colonial, like English Circumlocution offices cannot return a plain answer to a plain question in less than three or six months, we may expect that the contract time will elapse before they formally agree to its being cancelled.

The Gymnasium Club, to which we referred a few days ago, has been formed, and some twenty members have already joined it. It will be in the drill room adjoining the Little Grey Hotel, and Mr Emanuel has already provided the different appliances. The opening night will be on Tuesday next. A shocking suicide in Victoria: — A shocking suicide was committed at Blackwood on the 18th inst. A miner named Tomkin, who had been doing remarkably well for some weeks past, indulged in a drinking bout, and whilst under the influence of delirium tremens • cut his throat nearly from ear to ear. Death resulted almost immediately. The last dividend received by deceased amounted to £73 ; his share in the claim is estimated to be worth £6OO. Extraordinary births, —It is related by Burdock that the wife of a countryman, in the Moscow district, had given birth to sixty-nine children at 27 confinements ; four times 4 at one birth, seven times 3, and sixteen times twins. In the year 1809 the Vienna newspapers contained the following announcement: —Maria Auna Helen, the wife of a poor linen weaver in Neulerchenfieldjtwenty years married, bore at eleven confinements 32 childdren, 28 living and 4 dead; 26 were males and 6 females ; all were by one father and nursed by herself. She had at her last confinement three children, one living and two dead Her husband was a twin, she herself one of four. Her mother had produced 28

children, and died during a confinement with twina. The greatest number of children ever produced at one birth appears to have been six, all of whom were boys, and all dead ; and the woman who gave birth to them had been twice married, and had already given birth to 44 children. During her fiirst marriage, which lasted 22 years, she bore 27 boys and 3 girls. In her second marriage, which lasted but three years, she bore 14 children—• 3 at the first, 5 at the second, and 6 at the third confinement." A French Estimate of the Scotch Soldier.—A writer on the British army in the Moniteur de Soir speaks as follows of the Scotch soldier:—The Scotch soldiers form, without contradiction, the cream of the Biitish troops. The Highlander is the prototype of the excellent soldier. He has all the requisite qualities and not one defect. Unluckily for Great Britain, the pouplation of Scotland is not numerous. Saving, it is true, to the point of putting by penny after penny, the Scotchman, for all that, is honest, steadfast, amiable in his intercourse with others enthusiastic, and proud ; chivalrous when the question is about shedding his blood. The old traditions of clanship subsists ; each company is grouped round an illustrious name, all and every man in it is sure to be the captain's cousin. The Highlanders have a strange sort of bravery, which partakes at once of French fire and of English calm. They rush on with impetuosity; they charge with vigour; but they are not hurried away by anger. In the very hottest moment of an attack, a simple order suffices to stop them. Formed in square, one would take them for Englishmen; in charging with the bayonet you would swear they were French. For the rest they are of Celtic origin, and the blood of our fathers flows in their veins ; but the blood has a little cooled down by the severity of their climate. In the eyes of the Turks the Scotch had one enormous fault, that of showing there legs. In our eyes they have but one d ;fect, a slight one, but still excessively annoying—their depraved taste for the screaming of the bagpipes. We know that the Highlanders would not get under fire without being excited by their national airs, played on this discordant instrument. One of their generals having put down this piercing music, they attacked the enemy on one occasion so languidly that the bagpipes had to be restored to them, and they then took the posit'on. In a word, we repeat the Scotch are magnificent soldiers." Observers of the phenomena attending the recent earthquake in New South Wales, says the Australasian, all dwell upon the terrible noise by which it was accompanied. An openair observer in Maitland heard, as he thought for the moment, a mighty wind roaring through a forest, rapidly approaching him, and then the sound striking him with a rush, and a kind of electric shock, but no wind accompanying it. "We may imagine," writes the Sydney Morning JEL&.'dld, that those various reports as to the kind of sound heard indoors are partly, due to the fact of people being sud-' denly awakened, and being confused; and partly to the ever-varying acoustic properties of different houses and different* rooms in a house. But a thoughtful observer, who was certain at the first moment his house was tumbling about him, suggests as the cause of these extraordinary sounds, that—the crust of the earth being supposed to be three miles, or say 16,000 feet in thickness —the "earthquake was splitting up and distributing the relative portions of the rocky layers, perhaps thousands of feet below the surface of the earth; grinding, falling sounds may have been thus generated so far below us, and their faint echoes have been heard by us as pervading all the air around us. Certainly it is wonderful that so very few houses have had more than the plaster slightly broken, when such awful sounds of crushing power were heard in the houses. It may be of interest to learn whether any difference is observable iu deep wells, or in mines, since the earthquake. The water in a well in Olive-street, West lvlaitland, is stated to have fallen four feet lower since, but whether the bottom of the well itself has also lowered we have not heard. But it is hardly to be expected that in West Maitland, situate on alluvial soil of unknown depth —no rock has ever yet been reached in well-sinking in it, we believe, such changes would show strikeingly as they would in other places."

Post-office Statistics in America.— The gross receipts of the United States Post-office Department for the last year were $14,000,000, and the expenses §18,000,000, thus leaving a deficiency of §4,000,000.