MISCELLANEOUS.

Inangahua Times, Volume II, Issue II, 28 March 1881, Page 3

MISCELLANEOUS.

• ....... ♦ At the inquiry re the management of the Wellington Lunatic Asylum, Mr Henry Henderson, journalist, is reported to have said in hi* evidence : — •' I have a nephew in the Asylum, He is a perfect idiot occasionally^ Whitelaw said he was not in a fit con* dition to be seen. I insisted upon seeing him. My nephew was in a horrible condition. His eyes were bunged up, and his cheeks and other parts of the face were a mass of bruises and extravasted blood. I asked, 'Now the?devil didjny nephew get that F 9 Whitelaw explained that the poor fellow had walked up and down tb|«drtidor'in l»w. paroxysms, and had knocked bis head against the wall aod door posts. I retorted, * That cannot be. 9 The bloodshot condition of the eyes «uggestedfa good ' pound' ing.' Then they brought a powerful lunatic of 14 stone, and got him to tell that|he|and (my nephew had been fighting My nephew was no more able to offer resistance than a book ; he was utterly helpless. Traces of tbe burises were visible for three or four weeks. My nepbewfmust have got an awful hammering, I consider he must have been most^damnably;ill"treated. Wbitelaw seemed sorry for the fellow's appearance. 1 ! For myself. I am an expert in the way of inflicting bruise* but I could not have painted a man's face like thatfunless I had him.under operations for several minutes. The Nelson Colonist suggests that 1 one million eepoys should be 'shipped to Ireland, to restore order/ When the late $r Carcroft Wilson^saysjtbe Christchurch Telegragh) proposed that the Indian Ghoorkas Bnould be enlisted to quell rebellious Maoris, [there was a howl of indignation f A new parlour game, likely become very popular. Half-a-dozen cardboard figures of milkmaids, pretttily 'dressed to bright colours, are set upon a smooth table and the game is to see which of them can be blown across wtyflout^eing blown down Tneaii figures i^an envelope, forming a pretty New Tear's gift for children. I said T did not like Judge Fenton, and I tell your readers iwhy. When that time serving Governor, Lord Normanby, was fighting Sir George Grey on what ib known as tbe Constitutional question, Judge Fenton wrote and published a pamphlet in support of the late Governor's views. Very «oon after Sir George Grey came into power, and just as tbe change was in tbe balance, his Honor withdrew all tbe books be could from circulation. Some would call "this the act of a coward, I do not call it so, but it is a chapter in tbe life of tbe Chief Judge of the Native Land Court, which will not soon be forgotten, and will always be remembered, by the writer,, esoecially as teems probable that Mr Fenton will retire on his pension* after the Patetere business is disposed of, and will be called to the Upper House :— Thames Star. , .. } A farm labourer at Goldberg, Germany, while having a drink of milk took a wasp into his jnoutb, and although he promptly spat it out, the ugrjr creature found time to plant i's sting in the back qf his tbrat before he Could rid of it. The interior of the unfortunate man's larynx swelled so rapidly that, in less than ten minutes he died of suffocation, after enduring terrible agonies HI the vain endeavour to open the , air* passages in hU throat. i A very funny qaasi-Kterary contest is proceeding at present in Wellington, It appears there is some person there named Chantrey connected with a local paper, and who, as reader, sees all the manuscript that is* sent in to be printed, A wager was laid that this person would be made to print three times in his paper the words * Chanterv w an idiot.' The first time the bait was not only taken, but taken eagerly, The offensive words took the shape of an acrostic, and the verses in which it was conveyed were not only inserted, bub a footnote was attached to the effect that the editor admired the verses and hoped to near from the writer again. Tbe second shot was fired the other day, in the form of a letter touching the ' Management of Lunatics/ in which the following sentence occurs : — ' The Japanese, amongst whom it was my lot to live for some

years, have a proverb, • Totdii Threyanc ifl na, 1 broadly interpreted, meaning 1 Where there is one sore the whole body is diseased.' Will not this apply to our whole system,, of management of lunatics? I thiuk you would do a public service by advocating a commission of inquiry having a wider scope than the present one.— l am, etc.* A very simple transposition of the' italicised words will show lhat they read * Chantrey is an idiot.' The 'third time of asking/ has, we (Lyttelton Time«»J presume, yet to come off, and as it is said that a conditionofthe wager is that the victim i« to have fair warning, all literary , men wiH watch with interest for the result, * Nearly every hotel in Wellington has the acrostic and the < Japanese proverb' pasted up, and the whole thing is the local joke of the day..•.'■■ ■ ■ .•.'■■