MISCELLANEOUS.

Inangahua Times, Volume II, 12 August 1881, Page 2

MISCELLANEOUS.

«♦" The United States l^slrmsfr;* General, Mr Junes, is miking pretty thorough woik with the t^r.iva<i.infc and fraudulent contracts fnr mail serv ; ce. lie lus already cut. pfl- some half million of dollars in the expenditure, and he has but. made n b^hrr'n^. Ue bids fnir to make hi-i dep irttn ?nt self-sustaining, if the ra^ally contractors do not get political influence enough to ou^t him from t!i3 Cabinet whit'h is, un-'oriunately by no menu impossible. It is a fact worth noting, that these frail Is were first uneirt'hed, their general plan discovered, an.l their au'hors, pointed out, not by any official, but by a Washington correspondent of the New York Snn newspaper, while the heaviest part of the actual investigation n>w going on is being made by another correspondent employed by the New York Times. These papers are respectively Democ* ralic and Republican in their polities, bufc are both very earnest in their exposures, the Times, as in political sympathy with the administntion, being, to its credit particulaiy so . — Correspondent of the Argus. After peace was concluded with Ihe Boers, each of the English c-ibinefc Min : sters, received a card from some unknown source, bearing the following words : — * Sacred to the memory of Honor. Join Bull's wife. She suffered greatly in India, and died at the CapeHer end was Peace,' It is reported of the wife of a Ctbiuet Minister that on receiving tho black bordered envoi ope, she exclaimed, * How very strange that they should h-.ivo sent us this! We don't know tho Bulls]! 1 The prospectus has been issued in London of a company called Robert Campbell and Sons. Limited, with a capital of £600 000, to purchase Innd and further devolop sheep farming in New Zealand. The Rev. Father Me Guinness, who for nearly two years, has had eh irge of the Koman Catholic Church at Waipawa, Hawke's Bay, has been removed to Greymcuth. IJis departure from Waipawa appears to have caused deep and universal regret amongst; members of all denomination*. There is an advertisement (s.iys the London correspondent of the Argu*) just now of a certain tonic (let us call it calamilla) iv the papers which for audacity and a certain (probably unconscious) humor demands re* cognition. * I never,' wrote a young lady to a friend, ' go to church or lecture but I am half«asleep, and never know afterwards what the ser« mon or lecture is about.' It was n plain case of nervous lethargy, produced by a want of action of the liver and digestive organs. S!ie was persuaded to try calamilla, and now she writes, ' How intelligent ani bright are sermons and lectures now, and how glorious is tbe world we livo in. 1 Thus writes the Melbourne cor res* pondent of the Timaru Herald : — ' At Sandhurst the Mayor took the op« portunity of the Princes ' vist to be avenged on the aristocracy of tint premier qmrfz mining city. Tho Mayor isau honest, triv ng grocer, r.nd an old identity, but the aristocrats, composed of cattle salesmen, bankers, and counter jumpers, took offence at his plebeian occupation and refused to accept his invitations to attent the imyDral ball. Mr Mayor Hayes saw bis opportunity to be revenged ami gave a series of princely entertainments to the lloyal middies — a procession, lunch mining excursion, banquet, and ball — all supervised by the verteran Boniface Elefferman, to not one of which tho * upper teu ' were invitpd. Tho result was that tho aristocracy had to stand in tbe gutter-* and watch the democracy parading Royalty about. It was the ' hoighaf fun,' as tbe Mayor afterwards ob •* served.'