TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Press, Volume LIII, Issue 9365, 14 March 1896, Page 6

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

One of the most celebrated i An gold mines in Victoria, the 1 Historic Gold well-known Madame Berry, Mine. of Ballarat,. is in process I of becoming a thing' of the past, as far as gOld producing is conI earned. The mine took its name from the j wife of Mr (now Sir) Graham Berry, who was then at the summit of his political I career. The area of the claim was one square mile, and the issue consisted of 28,000 shares at 10s, and though the shares have been sold for as little as 7s 6d, they I have also touched £25. ss. The shareholders had comparatively little experience of the unpleasant task of paying calls, for the total capital called np only amounted to 17s 9d per share, or a total of £15.975, and against this has to be set the dividends, which from first to last- have amounted to very little short of £850,000. The aggregate output of gold is valued at a good deal more than a million and a half sterling. Not a few residents of the colony, we are told, particularly several in the Ballarat district, who are now in effluent circumstances, . freely admit'that the wheel of fortune took for them a decidedly favourable turn when thoy invested at a nominal outlay in Madame Berry stock. Nor is.it only the shareholders of the mine who have profited by its wealth. The land on wbich are the Madame Berry and several other mines is owned by a Company, the shareholders in which have received for many yeara very good dividends from the 9 per cent, royalty on their gross yield which the mines have to pay, and one individual alone is said to have received £50,000 from this source. When in full swing the Madame Berry gave employment) to 300 men, and has paid altogether nearly half a million in wages. The deoision to suspend operations at the mine has been forced upon the Company in a manner quite unexpected at the half-yearly meeting a few months ago. It was then, apparently, supposed that the mine had a prosperous future before it—there was, at least, nothing to give rise to a contrary opinion. But in the aourse of prospecting hitherto unworked ground, inbursts of water and sand occurred* which deluged the workings. The miners refused to work, and as the cost of testing the ground would have been very heavy, and there were doubts as to its value, it was decided to close the mine. The final dividend has yet to be declared, when the valuable plant is disposed of, and when this is done tbe Madame Berry mine will disappear, much to its shareholders' regret, no doubt, from the list of gold-pro-ducing mines. An Auckland gentleman, ! Rifle Clubs Mr George Fowlds, has for started an agitation for the Defence. ' organisation of Rifle Cluba for the defence of the colony. The events of the post few weeks have convinced him of the error of his belie f that among highly civilised people war was practically an impossibility, and be now recognises that we in New Zealand may at any time be called upon to defend ourselves from tbe attaoks of enemies* " Whab pro-

vision," he asks, "h%ve we for meeting such an emergency ? " and he goes on to say that " without disparaging any of the organised means (presumably the Permanent Artillery and the Volunteers) beyond expressing his conviction that they would be inadequate, the citizeus should undertake to preparo themselves to protect their homes and families should necessity arise. He suggests, therefore, that rifle clubs clubs should be formed, that citizens should arm themselves with Lee-Metford rifles, and loam to use them as well as tho Boers of the Transvaal appear to bo able to use them." They should also •« leatn such tactics as those adopted by the Boers iv the repulse of Jameson," and thus qualify themselves to give a good account of any stray banda of freebooters who might land on our shores. If this wero done, Mr Fowlds thinks nino-tentha of the necessary provisions for protecting New Zealand would be made. «' Many of us," he remarks, " who would never dream of becoming Volunteers, as they arc now made, would be found at tho club or the rifle range. We should not need to vex ourselves with unbecoming trappings, or with the humiliating goosestep. We might not have the brisk bear, iug and emarb looks of the drilled soldier, but grey tweeds or black coats without facings, upon shoulders capable of properly supporting a good rifle, would be everything that could be wanted in tho way of uniform. Citizen soldiers, without the tomfoolery ol the - pomp and circumstance of glorious ' nothing, would be the thing for the present time. They would be a corps for defence, and might, since their expenses would be limited to the costs of the arms aud the ammunition, purchase them for themselves." The last suggestion is admirable, but it does not altogether agree with Mr Fowlds' telegram to\the Premier, asking what assistance in the way of arms and ammunition could be granted to such Rifle Clubs us he describes. He might also, we think, have advocated Rifle Clubs without disparaging the Volunteers. However weak and unsatisfactory us a means of defence the Voluuteer force as at present constituted, is, it must be remembered that its condition is, to a very large measure, not the fault of the men themselves. Whatever may be said against them, they are men who are fitting themselves for the de. fence of their country at some pononal sacrifice and in the face of much discouragement, and they deserve thanks for their public spiritedness. The idea of forming Rifle Clubs for defence ia one to be considered, bub, personally, we | are getting rather tired of having the | wonderful shooting of the Boers held up as an example to us. In the first place, ' the old generation of Boers were taught to shoob by that best of teachers, necessity ; if they did not shoot the antelope I they aimed at they stood a good chance of I going without their dinner, and that is a risk which makes one careful. In the | second place, the present generation ol I Boers have yet to prove that they cau shool straight in open warfare. Ab fur aB we can | remember, on the occasions when thay have | displayed deadly marksmanship against other troops they have had the advantage ol being behind cover and of resting their rifles on the rocks behind which they crouched or lay. That is the kind of shooting ab whicfc they excel, aud as their country favours it they naturally do not come out inbo tin open juab to give their enemies a battel chance. But it does not. prova that they are anything particularly brilliant in the way of rifle shots in the open.

Mb W. T. Stead, who is Favourite ever inventing new literary Hymns novelties, is about to pub of lish a penny volume of Public Men. hyinnß, one of the tiller

being *• Hymnß Whicfc Have Helped Me." He sent letters to many eminent men, asking their opinion and transmitting the selection made by a piebiscite of the readers of a Sunday magazine* In this selection the hymn whioh received the largest number of votes was Top* lady's " Rock of Ages." The answers of some of the celebrities approached are decidedly interesting. The Prince of Wales replied that opportunity hardly offered for rendering his aid in the proposed work, but he ventured the opinion '■ that - among serious hymns there is none more touching nor one that goes more truly to the heart than 'Nearer, my God, to Thee."' The reply received from Mr Herbert Spencei was more decisive. Hia experience fur* niahed no' example's of the kind described, but he thought that parents might exercise more sense than to set their children to learn hymns as-tasks. He seems to havi had considerable experience as a child ir this respect. The process of learning was a penalty and the feeling assooiated with that penalty became a feeling associated with hymns generally. Hence, he says, he cannot name any hymn that has helped him. The reply received from the Headmaster of Harrow was very different and most appreciative. Dr. VVeldonaays that he had thought a good deal about hymns, and in choosing three that have been most helpful to him be did not choose necessarily the most beautiful. He selected three, and placed them in the following order:—•" Hark my soul it is the Lord," " O God our help in Ages past/ and ♦* Rook of Ageß." But he adds that Bishop Heber'a " Holy, holy, holy. Lord. God Almighty," is in his judgment the finest hymn ever written, and be I strengthens his opinion by adding thab Lord Tennyson onoe told him he thought so too. Another interesting reply [ was that from . Mr. 8. R. Crookett, whose letter, as might be expected, contains .passages strongly resembling parts of his own books. "I wonder," he writes, "if you are Scot enough to understand that I have never taken very kindly to hymns. Neither, so far as I know, have I ever been greatly 'helped' by tbem. I rather stand for the Psalms in the ancient version which came from England in 1649 by the hands of Francis P.oui, and which haß been the possession of Scottish child and sire ever since. For mc there is no hymn like ' The Lord's my Shepherd, I'll nob want.' I think _'• I must have stood by quite a hundred men-7: and women as they lay a-dying, and I can '. assure you that these words—the first learned by the ohild—were also tbe words ' that ushered most of them out into the : Quiet. To mc, and to most among these Northern Hills, there are no words like , them." Mr Crockett mentions also "I t» the hills will lift mine eyes" and «' O thou my soul," and he also refers warmly to *' O God of Bethel," but it is vain, ho thinks, to try to tell the depth of influence exerted by these songs over those who learned them when little more.than babies.