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Typo: A Monthly Newspaper and Literary Review, Volume 4

[miscellaneous paragraphs]

The book-fiend is still at large in the Australian colonies, and the papers are full of his misdeeds. In court he generally comes off victorious, but not always. At the Brunswick (V.) police-court lately, Samuel M'Cardell, book agent, sued S. Burrowes for the sum of £2 7s, alleged to be due on a publication called the Catholic Educator. Prosecutor put into the witness-box a canvasser named Harrison, who produced an order for the work. This was signed « Mrs S. Burrowes. » Mr Grylls, who appeared for defendant, asked witness if he often received orders signed after that manner. Witness acknowledged that he did not. Mr Grylls: Did you not ask Mrs Burrowes her name, and then say, « I have forgotten my spectacles, » and request her to write her name on a slip of paper? Witness: I do not use eyeglasses. Mr Grylls: How was the book delivered? Was it returned on the first occasion and again sent to Mr Burrowes' house? Witness: It was. Mr Grylls: On the second occasion was it not thrown on to the veranda and left there? It was delivered in the usual manner—left at the house. Mr Grylls pleaded that the defendant did not order the book, that his wife was a married woman holding no property of her own, and that neither she nor her husband were Roman Catholics, and would never under any circumstances have ordered the book. The bench dismissed the case.

The book-debts in three Gisborne bankruptcies, put down at £2325, were submitted at auction the other day, and realized only £2.

Mr Thomas Culling sends the following reminiscences to the Mataura Ensign:—In reference to the paragraph in your last Friday's issue, in which you notice « two facts of local interest » in connexion with the Early History Court at the New Zealand and South Seas Exhibition, and in which you make kindly mention of my name, allow me to say that I joined the staff of the Lyttelton Times in 1851 and continued to occupy the position to 1856, in which year the Otago Provincial Council wisely passed liberal land regulations. These induced me to sever my connexion with the Lyttelton Times and purchase land on the Taieri Plain. But the Lyttelton Times was not the first staff I joined in New Zealand. Early in 1849, I joined the staff of the Otago News. Otakau News was the heading brought out from Home for the paper. [ « Otakou » is the correct form. « Otago » is neither Maori nor English.—Ed. Typo.'] The Otago News was first printed and published in a small shed at the corner of Princes and Rattray-streets, Dunedin (Wise's Corner); afterwards the office, so called, was removed to a more pretentious building in Princes-street, where the Bank of New South Wales at present stands, I think. The staff consisted of the late John Boyle Todd and myself. We had to act as compositors, pressmen, devils, publishers, and frequently wri e letters and leaders. It may be interesting to some of your readers to learn that in 1857 the Otago News ceased to exist, and the present Otago Witness sprang from its ashes, but instead of 32 pages weekly as at present it consisted of at most four, sometimes only two, demy folio pages. On the news available from the outside world and the amount of jobbing on hand depended the day of publication—if not convenient this week, it may be next. These were happy-go-lucky times.