TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Press, Volume XLVIL, Issue 7724, 2 December 1890, Page 4

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

British New Guinea, if it does not «boom" as a colony, seems at any rate not to be going back. We learn from the annual report of the Administrator, Sir William MacGregor, for the year ending June 30th last, that the total value of imports entered at Samari and Port Moresby was £16,104,, aa compared with £11,108 in the, previous year; of exports £6455, as against £3943. Gold does not appear inthe exports, but it is being got in New Guinea notwithstanding. Vesselsarecleared outwards from Samarai,. passing the goldfields.!—Misima (St. Aignan), and Tagula (Sudest), on the voyage to Cooktown. All gold obtained in this way was taken or sent to Australia without being entered or declared at a Customhouse in the possession. The amount declared at the Custom-house at Cooktown, which, no doubt (says tbe Administrator), is greatly less than the total obtained, was 34700z, value £12,440, as compared with 38500z, value £14,387, the previous year. Next to gold, the most valuable article of export was trepahg, 70£ tons, yalue £4682. Pearlshell was next in importance, but the fishery is still deciining—*l2J tons, value £1050, as against 16f tons, value £1510. The freight and charges on copra, it is said, are so heavy that its export does not pay. Only 48 tons, valued at £250, was exported during the year. ''

Sous rather curious questions of juris-, prudence seem to have come before tbe New Guinea Courts. At the Central Court twelve sentences of capital punishment were pronounced. Tbe crime in each case was the'murder of a native by a native, and in no instance was tbe sentence carried out. In six cases the prisoner bad killed a person found stealing in his garden, in three of which the victim belonged to the same tribe as the murderer. In one of the six death was caused by strangulation. A man found a' native stealing his food, and tied bim up against a tree by a cord put round his neck so tightly that strangulation ensued. It is not contrary to Papuan cuatorn to murder the thief under snob circumstances, and these murders were committed at a time when food was very scarce. In three of' the twelve cases retaliatory murders were committed to revenge or pay for two of the cix murders arising from theft. This was formerly required by the custom of the country. Two cases were for the murder of an illegitimate child. It was at least not unusual to destroy such children in former times. One was au intertribal murder,, $he last, it may he hoped (says the report) of a long series of slaughter and massacres between the two neighboring septs. The most remarkable case that came under the Indictable Offences Jurisdiction of the lower courts was thatof a European, who accused himself of shooting three natives. After much, inquiry, carried out at considerable expense, the determination arrived at was that there was no truth in the allegation. Under the Summary Offences Jurisdiction there was one conviction each for supply-' ing arms, explosives, and liquor to natives. In tlie lower courts there were 43 criminal proceedings, making, tha total 65, and the; number of civil proceedings amounted to si**

Thsbx is no "land-grabbing" in New Guinea. No grants of land in fee simple were made during the year. A large additional area of the lands of the possession came under inspection in the course of the year- The bee. that came under notice, tbe administrator says, is that of the St. Joseph River district, which, appears to be of high quality. It has a large, industrious,, healthy population, who live by agriw&lture. No systematic plan for the settlement of Europsahs there would be possible} but. it is not impro-

"babie that smaUtwM of neutral land fi**£ ***** that rjf_l_2 may he fot_ad "which eottld become Crown landseitheron the ground of twin* waste °* by purchase. If this it found to he the case there could be no better place for the commencement of some industry, such, for example, aa that for the production of sugar, the cultivation of oom, rice, &c On the lower stretches of the Great Fly Bitot there ia apparently not much land sufficiently elevated to be fit for European occupation that is not in use by the natives, Towards the frontier, on the upper regions of tbe Ely River, there is an indefinite area, of land that might be fit for occupation by Europeans, and the olimate there seems to be good, and there are traces of stold all along the river beds. But the distance from the coast, 600 or 600 miles by the river, is practically prohibitive at present. The country that lies between the Fly Biver and the Government station at Mabudaun is so low and wet thac European settlement on it on any large scale is improbable. There ia a considerable native population, there. on. ti_e drier and better portions. Apart from the question oi climate, the scarcity of good land not already taken up by the natives must be a serious bar to the growth of New Guinea as a British colony.

Students* of the pianoforte who are by no means a «' feeble folk," either in point of numbers or in powers of making their presence felt will be interested *,in some remarks of Sir Sterndale Bennett as recorded in a book by Miss Walker, one of bis pupils, just published. It appears that he gave his pupil very little scale playing or exeroise— happy Miss Walker I — because he considered they wonld cause her to become stupid. "There are people who must be always on the strain, 1 ' said he "and if yon demand anything from them but the highest—what, in fact, they can't do—they become languid and relazed. Ton cannot actually do what I am giving you at present, but in the effort to do it you are kept on the strain, you are roused and stimulated, and this is what you need." Full of encouragement to pupils who try their best and then finding that they apparently make no progress, give themselves up to despair, are the following remarks of the same eminent composer and teacher .—

" Making progress on the pianoforte is not like walking along a road where you can see what you have just left behind and what you are just about to walk over. Here you advance by leaps and pauses. You Beem to have a barrier before you, and you can't climb over it, and you keep struggling and striving either to get over it or push it aside, and some happy day find yourself over it, and for a short time you feel you have made a stride; but there before you lies another barrier, and you are restless again, and tbe struggle and the effort must begin afresh.''

After all is this not true of many other things besides piano playing P Apart from purely .intellectual studies we fancy that something of tbe same sort is met with by learners in swimming, skating and lawn tennis. There is nearly always a period of despair, and usually this happens just when the novice is on the point of conquering the preliminary difficulties whioh appear _o impossible to overcome.

"Spoilino tbe Egyptians" is a process with whioh the world has been familiar from time immemorial. The way in which tbe Land of the Sphinx- has been robbed of its precious antiquities is especially scandalous. Its mummies have been used as fuel for locomotives, and exported wholesale to every part of the world. The tombs have been rifled of "scarabs," and every trinket they contained and sold to tourists, while some'of ita most ancient monuments hay.i bee-J'carried away bolus-bolus to adorn the- fhoroughfares of western cities. We did think, however, that the Pyramids wMeisafe.' On the contrary, it appears that 6 they rare in considerable danger. We learn from an English paper that, under pretence of removing only scattered blocks, for which they declare they have a _i_e'h_e from the Khedive's Government, two local sheikhs are busily digging out stones from the lower courses of two of the largest pyramids at Ghizeh. Presumably they intend to use them for building materials, as some of the Egyptian have in times gone by been pulled to pieces Wiethe same object. The Bt. James's Qasetie very properly suggests that the Pyramids should be neutralised, and the opportunity should be taken to appoint custodians with full power to prevent all avoidable dilapidation. As it remarks, the Pyramids belong neither to the Khedive nor to the Egyptians but to the world at large.