Mr G. Thomas's sale; of drapery, which should have taken place to-day, will be held to-morrow. ; Mr Thomas arrived per steamer to-day, .;:■;.■ :

I Taupo has become quite a fashion abl place of resort. Large numbers of j>ec >le have pas ed through Cambridge this sux nier en ro'.ce for the Lakes. A good roa*. from Can bridge, on which a coach could be run, says the Waikato Times, would be a great boon to travellers, and in addi tion, would open the country through which

it passed,

The following telegram dated London, January 2nd, appears in our southern con temporaries ; —" The railway accident at Skipton was unparalleled in the history of railway disasters. The train consisted of two engines, with sixteen carriages attached. It was proceeding at the rate of forty miles an hour, when an axle of a third-class car riage next the engines "broke. After running i for thirty yards, imd tearing np the track, part of the train was precipitated over the embankment into a meadow, and part into the canal. The actual number of deaths is reported at thirty-one, and there are fifty persons in the hospital at Oxford, suffering from injuries they sustained."

It appears that the man John Mercer, noAv in custody at Christohurch charged with the murder of the girl Thomson, is identical with John Kobinson Mercer, who was sen tenced to twelve months' imprisonment on October Gtli, 1573, at Dunedin, for a com mon assault upon a little girl 10 years of age In connection with this case, it may be stated that in August, 1873, the prisoner met the little girl in William Street, and asked her to show him the way to Morning ton. The girl consented, and when they were near the cattle market, the man told her he would give her a shilling if she would go and cut him a switch. The child went into the bush to get the switch, when the man followed her, threw her down, stuffed a pockethandkerchief into her mouth to stifle her cries, and then beat her. The man then ran away,, and was appreheaided three days afterwards on board the barque Duke of Edinburgh, just as the vessel was about to sail for Newcastle. 