MISCELLANEOUS.

Inangahua Times, Volume VII, Issue 1184, 25 September 1882, Page 2

MISCELLANEOUS.

The Melbourne Age, with characteristic courtesy, chose the morning of !Sir Henry Parkes's arrival to inform him " that he is biggest bladder left unpricked on the face of the

planet."

The members of the Port Chalmers Town. Council are taking steps to give Mr James Macandrew, M. H.R., a banquet upon his return from his legislative duties.

A flirting belle of Akron, Ohio, ling caused a social excitement by having all the love Jotters she lias received bound handsomely in a morocco volume for her parlor taV>lo, in place of an ordinary autograph album,

The victory of the Australian Eleven over All England was received with great enthusiasm in Sydney. '! ho president of the New t-outh Wales Cricketeis' Association caUed his hearty congratulations to the toain.

The salary of the Lord .Mayor of London, although £10,000, is not near sufficient to do the requisite honours of the oilice. His first day in ollice is enough to alarm one who has not a competency. A mong the expenses of the day incurred at the last Lord Mayor's inauguration, were £1,650, for the dinner ; decorations, £620 ; the procession, £700 ; the music, £60 ; printing and stationery, £300; and general expenses, £100 ; total, £3,600. About one-half of this was paid by the Lord Mayor, while the two sheriff's contributed the remainder. It is a r,de that a Lord Mayor far outlives his income, hence no poor man can aspire to the oflice, inasmuch as the Mayor has nothing to do with the confiscation of property, widening of streets or erection of public buildings.

i A.i insurance agent who started out fro:n Chicago to do a little business in | the country, camo along to an old tumble-down farmhouse, and started !in for a risk. The farmer seemed to take kindly to the idea, but wanted j to Irani all particulars at iirst. " I o | you mean to say that I can get the old I house insured for five hundred dollars T' 'he asked. "Yes, I guess so." "And ■ the company is sound V Sound as a dollar." "And they pay promptly 1 !" j," Right on the nail." " And you mem to say that if I insure my house for five hundred dollars, and she burns down, the company will pay me that sum?' " that's it." "Then go ahead and insure, and, if you come back this way to-morrow, you might as well stop and view the ruins, and report to the ! company that a defective (iue carried her oft while the family was at a prayer meeting." j It seems strange (says the Australasian), that we should have to ascribe praise for courage to a clergyman, ' merely for venturing to preach a _ sermon in which he contends that actors and oetresses arc not necessarily . abandoned reprobates, and that going to a theatre is not a crime. And }'et no ono will doubt that it required a i good deal of courage; for the i cv. E. | A Crawford to go to the theatre at Castlemaine to witness a performance of "Hamlet," .and afterwards to preach a sermon pleading for showing greater liberality of view and esteem towards theatres and theatrical people. And the worst of the case is that every sensible person feels that what there is I on the other side opposed to this view is not the bigotry of Puritanism, which might, iv its earnest narrowness, be respectable, but only a senseless, traditional conventionalism, which nobody any longer believes in. " It was said Mr Crawford in his sermon, " a disgraceful and scandalous thing that be. cause a man was an actor, or a woman anactress, they were to be regarded as social criminals.

Lately, at the salerooms of Messrs Christie, Mansion, and Woods, London, the picture of " Napoleon I. in the Campaign of Paris," which was painted in 18.62 by Meissonier, and was sold a few years ago for 1,000 guineas to Mr Ruskin. was bought back by the origin al vendor, Mr Henry YVallie, for 5,800 guineas, amid a scene of the utmost excitement. The bidding was watched throughout with breathless intetest, and this feeling intersiiied as the Original price of the work was successively doubled, trebled, quadrupled, and quintupled. When at last the hammer fell at nearly six time;; the sun given for t|,». •("•,» VI ,:■> [•i-i-t.-vpiive ■ -which mea-.;:i:-i"-; \\l-.. ''■■; '■'■•■ :.'<: tL- tune of its .jxhiLiLiOi. in f.iu; lioiich Gallery, tliti sjuiitl tvuked a buiot of apjjluusc.