SHIPPING INTELLIGENCE.

PORT OF LYTTELTON. ARRIVED. April 6—Arawata, s.s., Underwood, from Northern Ports. SAILED. April 6—Tui, s.s., for Kaikoura and Wel lington. April 6—Arawata, s.s., for South and Mel bourne.

POST OFFICE NOTICES.

Mails at the Ashburton Post Office close as follows :

For Christchurch and North at 10.20 a.m., 4 p.m., and 7.30 p.m., daily. For Chertsey at 10.20 a.m. daily. For Rakaia at 10.20 a.m., and 4 p.m. daily.

For Ashburton South, Winslow, Minds, Coldstream, RangitUa, Orari, Winchester, and Geraldine at 10.30 a.m. daily. For Ashton, Waterton, and Longbeach at 2.45 p.m. daily. For Greensireet, Ashburton Forks, Mount Somers, and Ashburton Gorge on Tuesdays and Fridays at 10,30 a.m. For Teinukn, Tiinaru and South at 10.30 a.m. and 3 p.m. daily.

UNCLAIMED LETTERS. The following letters are advertised at the Post Office, as having been received from places beyond the Colony, during the month of January, and remaining unclaimed on the Ist April, IS7S Cadle, W. C. Doorman, John Durham, Robert Hearn (2) Elliott, Win. Flanigan, Daniel I landasyde, John J. McLoughliu, Denis Miller, T. Parsons, James (3) Smith, Robt.

Letters originating in New Zealand are not now advertised, but are sent to the Dead Letter Office, after having lain for two clear months.

The Evening Echo. SATURDAY, APRIL 6, 1878.

The advent of Sir George drey on the “ Wet ” Coast seems to have made some of the local swells ” brush up their hair and pare their nails. Two telegrams (says a contemporary) were lately picked up at Hokitika in a pro miscuous manner, the contents of which ran as follows : —“To R. J. Seddon. — Correct costume to receive Sir Ceorge is a cocked hat, white trousers, and cavalry sword. Have sent them by tram.- —W. H. R., Grevmouth.” “To E. Barl'f. —Your washing will be home to night : have sewn a button on your pants. —Bridget Flaherty, Hokitika.” 'File Thames Advertiser says that Captain Goldsmith, the Inspector of Mines, is about to fulfil some of the functions of his office, by a wholesale forfeiture of ground shepherded, but not worked, by various bogus companies or the field.

The following is styled the latest idea in rabbit-killing:—A settler on the banks of Jacob’s River, in Southland, having secured a rabbit alive, tied a small flask of gunpowder to its tail, having first put an ignited fuse into the end of the flask. He then stopped up all the holes of a burrow but one, into which bunny was let loose. This hole was then closed up. In a few minutes a loud explosion took place, and when the burrow was examined, a large num ber of rabbits were found dead.

A small English colony, according to the Yacht , a Russian paper, exists near Archangel, which at the present time enjoys a perfect independence. This colony was formed gradually by emi grants drawn there by the establish ment by an English company of some impo tant sawmilts. The colonists have raised a town, the existence of which is, so to speak, unknown, as it neither figures on maps nor upon the official records of real property, nor in the rate-books. The inhabitants of this happy place, whose numbers are not mentioned, are therefore (remarks the Pall Mali Gazette ), free from rates, taxes, and all other burdens, such as weigh so heavily on British house holders. They are, moreover, inde pendent of all local authority, and, in deed, of authority of any description. This strange colony, is, it is stated, not the first of the kind which has sprung up in these quarters. Not long ago an American town, established under some what similar conditions, was discovered in the neighbourhood of the Bay of

Morton in Kamstchaka. A correct list of these independent little colonies, with information as to the readiest method of reaching them, would doubt less be a boon to a large and important class of Her Majesty’s subjects. Mr. Gladstone has been challenged as a wood cutter, a tradesman at Clay cross, near Sheffield, having written to him on behalf of a timber feller, who is prepared to stake a sovereign that his tree would be down before Mr. Glad stone’s The right hon. gentleman re gards the challenge as a compliment, but says at once he must give in, what ever pretensions to excellence he had having been lost by age and other causes.

Always fond of sport of every degree and kind, a canny Scot had a wonder ful badger that it was reported no dog would tackle. However, a friend of his, it was found, had a dog that he proposed to back against the badger, and a match was in due course made for to come off in two months’ time. As the day drew near there were rumours that all was not right with the dog, and the friends of the Scot were congratulating him on his being in pocket. Imagine their surprise, and disgust too, at hear ing that Mactavish had accepted as a compromise in lieu of the £IOO. “ You’ve been done, Mac,” said one of them, “ the dog is so mangy and unfit he could not kill a rat.” “ Ah,” re turned Mactavish, “ I daresay—but my badger has died.” To the sentimental young, who im prove the occasion of giving and re ceiving music lessons by indulging in the blissfulness of “ spooning,” the fol lowing little German story has an excellent moral : —A young student was giving a music lesson the other day to a young lady. They were alone, and dolce was to be played. “ What does that mean ? ” she asked. “ Softly and sweetly !” he said, looking at her in a soft, sweet manner. “ Legato ! what does that mean ? ” she asked. “ Con nected, joined together,” said he, putting his arm gently round her. J ust at that moment in came her father, who was a professor; he cried, laughing, “ Stac cato! —detached—separate ! ” and they flew apart. The pride of mankind is great. Re cently, a family in New York was awak ened by unusual noises in the house, and, cm turning out, saw the eldest

hopeful rushing about in his suspenders brandishing a now Wesson, and shout ing “There’s a man in the house!” A long search failed to show any founda tion for the young man’s warlike de monstration, when he mildly informed the breathless and exhausted tribe that it was his birthday, tie was twenty-one.

INQUEST.

An inquest was held yesterday after noon on the body of Anna Maria Osborne, aged 16 months, alleged to have met her death by burning, in a house on Mr. Winter’s station, when that house was destroyed by fire on Wednesday afternoon last. Dr. Trevor was coroner, and the following jurymen were sworn :—Messrs. Matthew Smith (foreman), Donald Williamson, D. K. Clarkson, J. Mac Lean Dunn, Charles Braddell, Nathaniel Hall, J. M. Cam bridge, George St. Hill, A. Pearson, Charles Reid, John Robb, Joseph Firth, and W. H. Zouch.

After the jury had been sworn, they went through the usual form of viewing the body. Corpses after a violent death, laid out for the inspection of a jury, are usually a revolting spectacle, but in itself the body the jury of yes terday were required to look at was not so, for so completely had the fire done its work, that not a vestige of re semblance to humanity appeared in the charred remains, and but for the fact that the jurymen were called to look at them as what had once been a living child, they could not have recognised them as the body of a human being. The Coroner, in opening the inquest, said there could be no doubt as to the cause of death, and what remained to be done was to find out what was the origin of the fire. The first witness called was

Elizabeth Osborne, the mother of the child, and wife of Joseph Osborne. She and her husband were employed

as a married couple on Mr. Winter’s station. On the day of the fire, about half-past one, directly after dinner, she went to clean out the oven preparatory to baking bread. The oven was a brick one, and was built on the outside of the whaie. She found that the stud of the wall nearest to the oven was on fire, which had spread between the weather-boards and the match-lining. Tore away a portion of the lining, and drenched what she saw of the fire with two buckets of water. There was no flame arose after she had poured on the water, and she fancied the house was safe enough till she could call the men from where they were working. Her baby was asleep in the bedroom. Ran and called to the men, who came in a few minutes after she had left the house. When she and they reached the building it was a mass of fire. They tried to enter the building from all sides, but could not because of the flames. All the men on the station were there, including her husband, and all were trying to get into where the baby was, hut could not. A strong north-west wind was blowing at the time. The door of the oven was defec tive, and would not close properly. The fire had been lit in the morning before breakfast. Nothing was saved from the wlnue. She ran for assistance in the belief that the danger was not so great but that the men would have plenty of time to rescue her baby, and save the house. Baby was 16 months old.

Joseph Osborne, husband of previous witness, mainly corroborated her evi dence. Was working about eight minutes’ walk away from the house, and heard his wife screaming for help. She said the house was on fire and baby was in it. Ran along with the other men to the building, but could do nothing as it was all in flames. It burned like shavings. - Attributed the fire to cinders blown out of the oven. The house, he had heard, had been on fire before from a similar cause. The oven door would be four feet from the house. Wile was by herself in the building, only the two children were with her. The eldest, a boy of four, was outside when the fire occurred. Poured water on the embers and searched for the infant’s body on the site of the bedroom. When found, could not have known it to be his child. When the house was burning, could not come within nine or ten feet of it.

The jury returned a unanimous ver dict of “ accidental death.”

CHISPA'S LETTER

“ I am not yet so bald that you can see my brains.”—Longfellow. T was at Mr. Wason’s meeting with other chawbacons. 1 looked up to his intelligent face, and admired ; I mea sured with my eye his six feet of graceful manhood, and admired ; I listened to his gift of the gift, and admired; I heard him rob the devil to enrich the man of the land of Uz with a wise saying, and I thought within myself, “ If Mr. W. is as knowing in politics as he is in the hook of Job, then the representation of Coleridge is not in the hands of a man well up. Or if he knows better than he seems to know, then he is a plucky thief indeed.” For all must allow that a man must have some genuine pluck in him to cheat his Satanic Majesty out of an epigram, and that too before a houseful of the intelligence of Ashbur ton, and no man to say him nay. But Mr. Saunders came to the adversary's rescue, only he came with a broken sword—may the devil’s advocates al ways be so armed —and struck but half a blow, for he, too, seemed ignorant of who was the author of the powerful saying that Mr. Wason found so useful. Mr. Wason, let me advise you to lay down Hansard for a time, and take up the grand old Book. In the second chapter of Job, at the fourth verse, you will find the correct passage. “ And Satan [not Job] answered the Lord, and said, * Skin for skin, yea all that a man

hath will be give for his lije [not skin].”' Even from a humble individual like myself you may learn to give the devil his due.

The assault at arms between twocham pions of different political parties, Mr. Wason standing up like a tower for the now Opposition, and telling the story of its wrongs—Mr. Saunders coming upon that story like the east wind that blasted the seven thin ears in Pharaoh’s dream— just before I had made up my mind to go, I was philosophising at the corner of a street leading off the main thorough fare, I heard words uttered that were not complimentary to the person ad dressed, and as warlike as Russia’s re marks about the British fleet anil the Dardanelles. I followed a bee-line to the sound. Two men differing in opinion—that difference producing red laces and gleaming eyes. “Come round to this paddock,” etc. “ All right, go on.” I followed—at a safe distance. More threats. Warlike attitudes. Coats dashed down. Hats flung aside. Sleeves tucked up. Arms flung about. Then— sudden discovery by the most demon strative of the two that he had an affection of the chest, and should not excite himself. Discovery welcome to both sides. Comparison picture in Chispa’s mental camera —two young roosters with neck feathers up, beaks within an inch of each other, for a time big with war, simultaneous but harmless leaps in the air, and—the unbloody war is peace. I saw you, my boys. If you again shock my nerves for nothing, I’ll give your names.

In the dark 1 can’t tell the difference between Ashburton streets and Ashbur ton waste land till I flounder amongst a sea of tussocks. Can I, who am a rational being, fail thus in topography and expect the horse I bumped against, and immediately afterwards sat down so vehemently as to spill three teeth and jar my vertebrae in such manner as put it in a backbiting mood ever since—can I expect that re.peetab’e and hard working horse to know better, or the one I was able to steer past, or the one who steered past me, or the one who walked into Mrs. C.’s egg-basked while she tied her bonnet-strings ? Ido wish they would walk into Sergeant Felton’s domicile all at once. He is a man equal to the occasion. Mrs. C.’s egg basket suffered, I said. So did I, as a natural consequence. But 1 could for give that if I could get over the other difficulty that Sergeant Felton cannot help me out of, and the clerk of the weather is deaf to all appeals. Mrs. C. buys her butter now by the pound, and the cruet has to make room for another bottle, and the oleaginous fluid that fills it is sold as butter.

One cannot always go through life with a hop, step, and jump. There are things which will bring the strongest men up all standing, and flare in their faces a truth we must find out some times—that we are human. Not one heart of all that jury who sat in the Somerset yesterday but felt life was not all joy when they returned to their work after viewing the sight that called them together. There are times when one cannot say all he would, and when sym pathy is best expressed by silence. There was not an unsympathetic bosom in that room, and it is well indeed that men do not ever}' - day have to look up on a sight that calls their tenderest feelings to the surface—well, in that we might otherwise become callous; and well that such sorrow falls seldom to the lot of poor humanity.

Chi spa.

THE PRINCE OF WALES AND HIS ALLEGED DEBTS.

The “Lady Correspondent” of the Dublin Evening Telegraph is responsi ble for the following, which is written from London :—Again is the town filled with gossip concerning the Court, and reports are flying balloon-like through the - saloons concerning the debts of the heir apparent, and the satisfactory ter mination of his difficulties. Gossip, however, is in one of her gentle moods, and tells us the entiie submission of will to the counsel of real friends evinced by the Royal heir, and approves of it with the highest eulogium accord ingly. Gossip says that his Royal

THE EVENING ECHO, SATURDAY, APRIL 6, 1878.