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Westport Times, Volume III, Issue 399, 10 November 1868, Page 2

A reporter having dined with some friends, attended a lecture afterwards and favoured the public with the following report:—' The lecture last evening was a brilliant affair. The hall ou~ht to have been filled, but we are sorry to say that it was not; only forty persons were present. The speaker commenced by saying that he was by birth an ecclesiastical deduction ; gave a learned description of Satan, and skill in saving trees. Among other things he stated that the Patriarch Abraham taught Cecrops arithmetic. We trust the eloquent divine may bo induced to repeat the lecture at some future day.' What the lecturer said of the reporter : —'Dear Sir, —In a report of my lecture in your beautiful city, you have made some mistakes, which I wish to correct. Tou make me speak of myself as by birth an ecclesiastical deduction.' What I said was, that I was not by birth but only ecclesiastically a Dutchman. Instead of

speaking of Satan as sowing - trees, V spoke of him as sowing tares. I said nothing of Abraham, but spoke of the j\ nibians an nomads of patriarchal simplicity. I said that Oecrops was the founder of Athens, and instructed the people in agriculture.' Strange excuses are sometimes made for not subscribing to newspapers ; but the following, extracted from the Fleasant Creek News —a Victorian journal—is unique : —A geiftle'man largely interested in quartz reefs at Pleasant Creek called at our office to stop his paper. The incident itself is hardly worthy of mention, but the explanation is. The customer gravely stated that he was stopping his subscription to all the papers he had patronised, as he was under the impression that those connected with newspapers were a set of rogues. In a trial at Winchester before Baron Martin, a witness was called who interlarded Ins account of a conversation he had heard with so many ' says I' ' says he,' that he was hardly intelligible. The counsel failing to make the witness 'comprehend the form in which he was wanted to make his statement, the Court took him in hand, with the following result: —' My man, tell us exactly what passed. ' Yes, my lord, certainly. I said I should not have the pig.' ' Well, What was his answer ?' 'Tie said that he had been keeping the pig for me, and that he ' ' No, no, he did not say that —he could not have said it. He spoke in the first person.' ' ls r o, I was the first person that spoke, my lord.' ' I mean this don't bring in the third person —repeat his exact words.' ' There was no third person, my lord, only him and me.' « Look here, my good fellow —he did not say he had been keeping the pig, he said, ' I have been keeping it.'' ' 1 assure you my lord, there was no mention of your lordship at all. We are on two different stories, my lord. There was no third person ; and if anything bad been said about your lordship, 1 must have heard it.'