ANCHOVIES AND TOAST.

Auckland Star, Volume V, Issue 1306, 15 April 1874, Page 2

ANCHOVIES AND TOAST.

TH g ASHANTEE WAR. Every one is pitted at the intelligent which reached us las.1 Friday to the effect that the Ashantee war v7 as virtually at an - end. The fact was thafe wb" were all getting very nervous about the whole affair. Pj^jj beginning to end this war has .keen, on the part of the Government, a hug© intake and a stupendous blunder. The details i'TOe also, carried out in a blundering manner. Ko^-ore than ten days ago it had been fairly reah^ed that the troops were at a standstill on thO1 * road to Coomassie for want of provisions. The native carriers were too lazy and too frightened to work, and the two West India, regiments had been turned into bearers for the occasion. Had it not been for the genius of Sir Garnet Wolseley, and the earnestness and indomitable pluck of the officers and ' men under his. command, the whole thing would have collapsed long age. Asit'-t-. ' German missionaries, who were confined at Coomassie, have been liberated, and King Coffee has agreed to pay an indemnity of L 200.000, about an eighth partpf the expense of the war. It is presumed that the General will enter Coomassie, but in a peacefnl attitude. Although rejoicing intheterminationof the war which will release from a position of peril and hardship some of the flower of the British army, one cannot help smiling at the predicament in which it has left the Gladstone Ministry and it apologists. We were told that our great mission was to wipe out the Ashantees, that snch a bloodthirsty race did not deserve to exist, and that Coomassie must be destroyed in justice to Africa. And now after suffering large losses and expenses we are about to make peace with this wretched race. a GERMAN ULTRAMONTANE STRUGGLE. A monster meeting has been held in Lon- - don to express the -sympathy of the English .-. people with the Germans in their straggle against theUltramontanesand a countermeeting has also protested against what the Ultra- ' tramontanes are pleased to call the injustice of the German Government. It is as if you, the head of a large household, should 5 have a refractory son who inevery|possibleway tried to thwart you, broke your rules, defied your authority, and, worst of all, instigated his brothers to do the same, and you should give that son fair warning by saying "Ishall be most happy for you to remain undermy roof if you will obey the regulations which! have • made for the maintenance of peace and order, but if you persist after warning in disregarding them I must turn you out of doors." I don't think you could be accused of injustice - if you carried out your plans in spite of your son and his machinations. But this is just. how the matter stands between Bismarck and the Ultramontanes, and the German Government is called over-bearing and tyrannical. THE TICHBORNE CASE Is drawing very near its close, and it is just possible that the mail which brings you this letter may also convey to you telegraphic intelligence as to the verdict. We have had a most masterly speech from Mr Hawkins, who began to reply on the 15th January, and brought his remarks to a closo on the 29th January. The next day the Chief Justice began his summing up, and is still at it. This has really been the great pleasure of the . whole trial. We have always before had the evidence placed before us more or less in a distorted manner by one or other of-the counsel, and moreover it was always presented as it were piecemeal, seme portions being- ' suppressed and others given undue prominence. Now we are getting a altogether in a clear and tangible form the entire sum and substance of the whole thing. And the consequence is that no honest man who has read his Lord- " ship's remarks can have the faintest doubt in his own mind, whatever he may say, that the defendant is the principal moving figure in the most impudent imposture of modern times. That others have been and are pull- , ing the strings there can be no doubt. E. will be well for Mr Whalley, M.P. for Pete borough, and Mr Guildford Onslow if they can clear their characters from the imputation of having had hold of some of JM strings. They have been implicated by the prisoner, Jean Louie, the pretended steward of the Osprey.' The way in which one piece of evidence dovetails into another ip a prove the case for the prosecution is , 1; something marvellous. For hardly a day during his whole life, from the time W played marbles in front of bis fathers shop in Wapping up to the moment of the com-, | mencementof the present trial is the defendant lost sight of. The plot is traced ' back to its hatching, its incubation, its originThe light of undoubted evidence breaks up the clouds of sham mystery in. which Orton vainly strove to clothe his _a_t life. J-/" Chief Justice is a wonderful man «>'*£• age. He has lost little of the fire ofiu* , youth. When he has concluded the otnw_ judges will make a few remarks upon w» moro prominent parts of the evidence, anu then will come the moment of suspense.