PASSING NOTES.

(From Otago Witness.)

One of his brother clergymen brought to the Times office the other day tho Rev. George Brown, ex-mtesionary to the anthropophagi of New Ireland. Mr Brown is a celebrity amongst missionaries. When the cannibal members of his flock ate up some of their teachers, and announced their intention of dining on the remainder at some future day, Mr' Brown chastised them with powder and t)all, for which unevangelistic discipline he has been severely sat upon by the friends of the interesting aboriginal all over the world. The commodore on the naval station, however, apE roved his energy, and public opinion generally as pronounced in his favour. For my own part, I hold that it is not a missionary's duty tp be eaten till he has expended his last cartridge. Personally, Mr Brown perhaps did not offer much inducement to appetite. He is spare and sinewy, with an uncomfortable look of determination about the eyes. I had rather hear him preach than shoot with him any day. Seven years ago this excellent officer of the Church militant left Fiji at the head of a detachment of native teachers for the scene of his subsequent labours, an island 400 miles long, in the iieighbourhood of New Guinea. No one had been there before him but a few traders, and they did not always leave again. New Ireland has a vast population of entirely naked cannibals, amongst whom Mr Brown landed, without knowing a word of their language, and explained as best he could why ho had come and what he wanted. Before he left them he had reduced their barbarous speech to writing, had constructed a grammar, and translated the Gospel of St. Mark. I inquired whether the New Irish bad to any considerable extent abandoned their habit of eating each other. Well, yes—the church members had, at any rate. When I suggested that the introduction of ths pig had tended to abate cannibalism almost as much as the introduction of Christianity, Mr Brown surprised me by averring that the pig is indigenous in all the Polynesian groups. The notion that Captain Cook introduced him is a delusion. I should like to know whether this statement can be corroborated. As an example of the changes that are passing over the New Irish, there is a boy in one of the Sydney public schools, and in high favour with the masters, who not very long ago. assisted to eat his uncle and his two aunts—family feuds in New Ireland generally ending in a feast at which tho majority dines on the minority.

An Australian telegram- announces that the Queensland Government has instructed the Police Magistrate at Thursday Island, North Australia, to " tako possession of New Guinea." That is what the Americans would call " a large order." Tho Police Magistrate, with the assistanco, no doubt,' of the Clerk of the Court and tho local policemeu, is to annex New Guinea. The probabilities aro that tho New Guineans will annex the Police .Magistrate, and that the jawbone of that unfortunate functionary, together with those of the Clerk of the Court and the local policemen, will be handed down as hoirlooms in the family of' tha principal chief. According to the Kav. Mr Brown, a jawbono ia to a New Guinea man or New lrelander not only what a scalp is to a Red Indian, tho prize of battle, but also the cherished memento of a square meal. They have a great affection for human jawbones in the New Guinea group. Seriously, what does Queensland want with New Guinea ? Is there the slightest chance that a tropical island. swarming with savages not yet ameliorated by missionaries, can be profitably colonised? The French experiment in New Caledonia was an experiment with regiments, and is not a dinning success at that, Where is' Queensland

to get regiments? She may expend rw-ry P.M. in thu service, unrl use np the .7.1. li.-t asi well, without any iilher rrault than tlmt of making the New Ouineaiis a. little fatter. Air Brown gives a liuiicrou.s account of the tragedy-fareo played by tho Marquis do Ray's expedition in Now Ireland. De Ray is a political fanatic who fancied it possible to found a monarchical colony in the cannibal islands Ho brought with him tho plan of a great city in which tho quartier for tho noblesse was carefully distinguished from that assigned to tho boimicoisie and ouvricrx. Ho brought also tho.bricks for a cathedral, to be dedicated to the Virgin, which bricks wore landed and lie thora still. Ho brought vast Hugnr boilers and a machine for making macaroni, but thero was not an axe in his whole expedition. His people lay about in tho jungle till most of them died of foyer, and those who finally got away are now prosecuting the Marquis before the French courts for swindling and ruining them. Englishmen would hardly mako so complete a fiasco as this, but the time has not yet come for colonising Now Guinea. Thero, as in New Zealand and Fiji, the missionary will havo to precedo the colonist.

Ona of Lite minor hindrances to tho success of tho great Temperance causo is said to be the inability of the English language to furnish any single word which may serve as a descriptive namo for a teetotaller. The name "teeto-

taller" itself is objectionable for two reasons. In the first place it is gibberish, and in the next it is said to represent historically the effort made by an early disciple of Father Matthew to explain to the policeman, who accused him of being drunk and threatened to run him in, that he was a " t-t-totnl abstainer." This

term "total abstainer," too, has its disadvantages. _ It is cumbrous, and yet incomplete. What is it that the abstainer abstains from? and how can a man be a total abstainer unless

he is dead ? Then the namo "Good Templar " ib fanciful and arbitrary; "Rcchabito" .requires a Bible Dictionary'to explain it. There is, in short, no word in the language which exactly describes an abstainer from alcoholic beveragos, and a correspondent of the London Times recommends that, in the interest of the Temperance cause, some competent "wordbuilder" should be invited to invent one. Ho

himself suggests "hydropot," a Greek compound meaningn "drinker of water," employed by St. Paul in one of his Epistles to Timothy. On turning up the reference, howevor, I find that St. l'aul is counselling Timothy not to bo a "liydropot"—"Drink no lonycr water, but take a littlo wine for thy stomach's sake " —which soems a somewhat unfortunates text for a teetotaller. An equally serious objection occurs to the Times writer himself. " Hydro " represents the Greek word for "water," whence it might happon that if teetotallers called themselves " hydropots," an unfriendly public might take to calling them "watorpota,"

—a sarcasm which, there can hardly be any doubt, would be exceedingly disastrous to the interests of Temperance On the whole, therefore, he concludes that "hydropot" is not exactly a happy thought, and asks somebody else to try. Another correspondent thereupon suggests "Methcenist"—sarcastically, I should imagine, since the word seems to be compounded of metlie, drunkenness, and oinos, wine. "Methujnist," if it moans anything, means a man who is "taken in drink. The prospect of getting a docent equivalent for " teetotaller appears to be very dubious, Somethicg might be made out of the Greek words for "temperance" and "moderation," but teetotallors go beyond temperance, and denounce moderation. ' The preternatural virtue of abstaining altogether from alcoholic drinks is one which human speech seems unable to find a name for,

Though not a teetotaller myself I am quite willing to lend a helping hand to anybody else who feels it necessary that he should become one. In that spirit I reproduce the following story, hoping it may afford a hint to some weak-kneed "Good Templar" who finds the •' pledge" an insufficient mora' support:—

At a tetrfperance meeting held at Barnstaple, a local clergyman, related how Canon Basil Wilberforce gave nim a distaste for wine, albeit without the least intention of so doing, as it appears that in his " sallet days " the ardent Vicar of St. Mary's not only liked, but understood wine. The Bpoakor was at Oxford with Canon Wilberforce, and they occupied adjoining rooms. The Canon was then famous for his skill in the compounding of claret-cup. One day, his friend, coming hot from the rivers walked into his (Wilberforce's) rooms, and found a tempting tankard of the noted claret-cup on the table, at which he took a hearty pull. Wilberforce came in just as he had finished, and exclaimed, " I hope you have not been drinking that?" "Yes, I have; what is the matter?" " You will soon find out what is the matter. You had better go to your rooms at once. There is a lot of tobacco juice in that cup. People havo been coming in for weeks consuming my claret, and I was determined to stop it; but 1 did not mean to catch you, old fellow." The speaker explained that ho went to his chambers, and so desperato and prolonged were his sufferings, that from that time he never could bear tho taste of wine.

Moral; Beer and tobacco judiciously combined —say a plug of Barrett's Twist in a quart of "colonial"—will qualify the most confirmed inebriate to becomo a temperance lecturer.

The momentous question "Why don't the mon propose?" ia always being asked and is seldom satisfactorily answered. They do propose to a certain extent, and now and then wo have a crop of weddings. But it is a melancholy fact that many fairly eligib'e partis hold aloof from the final plunge. They

Linger shivering on the brink And fear to launch away. Why is this thus ? A conversation which I had with some bachelor friends the other day throws some light on the subject. Expatiating to them eloquently on the comforts and advantages of married life (married people have always the Satanic desire to see others in the same condemnation), I was met with the cynical reply that they were very comfortable as they were, they thanked me, and did not care to risk a change which might not prove for the better. They expressed considerable doubts as to whether the modern young lady knows how to cook a dinner, or manage a small establishment with reasonable economy. This was a heresy which I took occasion to combat, as I know several nice gifls who can do both. Fair readers, am I not right ? I even offered to negotiate between Barkises who were " willin"1 and fair Peggottys who were waiting. But still I found inveterate scepticism. We then got to the question of what it would cost to keep an establishment as a start for a young couple, on a scale sufficient for reasonable comfort without luxury. I was met with the statement that nothing less than £800 a year would do ! And this was both startling and horrifying. For few young men in the Colonies, however great their talents, make their start in life, or get past the age of 30, with anything like that. I put the safe limit down at half that, but was met by blank incredulity. Nothing short of debts and duns would be the result of such a venture. Now this is very sad —it leaves a very poor prospect indeed for tho many dear ones, with every virtue save fortune, who I knoio, by a sort of fatherly intuition, would make good wives and mothers. If thore is any truth in either allegation, then we need reform. We want girls who are domesticated without being drudges; we want girls who can be happy with the man of their choice on £400 a year, and save at that. I believe it is a calumny to say that we have not such girls, and those selfish old bachelors don't know anything at all about it. What do you say, ye anxious mothers ? Is Civis, who is always right, wrong for once ? If ho is wrong, then Society—which Dickens maintains should be spelt with a big " S "—is wrong too, all wrong, fatally wrong. There may be faults on both sides, but I back the dear ones against the masculine cynics. I always back the dear ones, and I advise them henceforth to go in for sweet simplicity in attire and personal adornments, lest they alarm the too shy "eh'gibles" with too much display, the cost of which the said eligibles are apt, in their selfish way, to tot up and score down against them. We now and then have calico bulls, can't wo have calico weddings ?

A correspondent, referring to my Note on the subject of the Dental Examiner for the New Zealand University, thinks I have missed the point. In seeking fo,r reasons why such an appointment should be made, he thinks I stated all but the true one, which, he says, is that there may be a mm on tho spot ready to certify to the Council when the students have cut their wisdom teeth. Perhaps he is right, It had not occurred to me, but I daresay that will account for the whole mystery. I am not quite sure whethor some students do ever cut their wisdom teeth, but no doubt they will fail of distinction till they do. I must, therefore, thank my correspondent for supplying the omission, for even ' Civis" is not above taking a hint from a friendly quarter. Cms.