TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 9703, 15 April 1897, Page 5

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

With the passing away of the Maori older generations of the Maori Art. there also disappear the skilful

workers whose carvings are the tftistic glory of the race. Specimens of thci** work arc no longer to be picked up in ♦Very pah. Such as have been saved from iestruction aro in many cases carefully treasured in museums, public and private, .for they cannot now bo replaced. It is, fterefofe, with great pleasure that we note toe publication by the New Zealand Institute of a work dealing with the art work-Joan-hip of tho Native race of this colony. «wto be issued in parts, and will consist °''' a series of illustrations from specially t"*«i photographs, with descriptive notes •"•d essays,. on the canoes, habitations, 'capons, ornaments, and dress of the Maoris." The compiler and author of "• book is Mr Augustus Hnmil- »">. Registrar of the University of Wago, an undoubted authority on this "•rticular subject, who, we are told, has ***■»■ h'scamera visited many outlying parts <*»<*-colony, and has also been accorded •"•w-l assistance by those in charge of P-wic museums and by the owners of pri- ****** Elections, so that his illustrations are ** complete as they could be made. Ad- *«"■<* sheets of Part I. of this publication, «*oribing the canoes of the Maoris, «" Vt " reached us through Dr. Dendy, of w-'erbury College. Five parts will comP"- 0 a volume, and the other numr rs * iU he devoted respectively to Maori J**" 11 '",*, weapons, dress and decoration, life. Part I. contains ten finely photo - engravings, representing •f'Wty-seven separate carvings, with exJ®"«*tory text. The publishers, Messrs and Mitchell, Dunedin, have ■g» their work well. The format of the i_t il. am P tuous » fche paper and printing .•"{» being excellent, and the price at which "*••* part will be published, 7s 6d, with a JW">ction to members of the Now Zealand Mtiite -nd its branches, cannot be said _ P* «travagant. The Institute must be upon initiating a work of * great importance.

»-, Th-re comes to hand ft omen Swaggers from a Sydney paper "n a curious story of an Australia. old woman, who at the age of seventy is billy and swag in the back blocks «ew South Wales. Recently, it is said, was travelling from Hay to Wilj* a "*'» she called at an out-station and ob"u Je directions as to tho route, which she j^ 10 . 8 t0 bave misundorstood. The police, jjj,"* 1 * °* her by some means, and learning * Bho had not reached the spot she was T** 10 -' i went in search, thinking that

I some mishap must liave befallen her. As it proved she nearly died of thiretand starvation, but after three days privation she managed toreach a Government tank. - 'She bore hardship so well that she just clambered up, helped herself to a mighty drink, and Boon afterwards betook herself to the road ones mote." As our contemporary suggests, some drop of gipsy blood in the veins must be necessary to induce an old woman such as this septuagenarian swagger to take to the road and face the perils and discomforts that frequently daunt good bushmen. The distances in New South Wales are so great, the work to be had is so laborious, and the conditions of travelling are so irksome that it is small wonder the number of women swaggers in the sparsely settled districts is so few. Where settlement is closer they are said to be more numerous, travelling generally in company and making a round trip about a district, with a short spell of some unskilled work i here and there, but always returning eventu- | alty, like the gipsy, to the untrammelled life of the roads. Apart from these regular swaggers there have been several cases of j women throwing off, for other reasons than ' inborn restlessness, the restraints of ordinary life. The Sydney Herald quotes asan instance of this the case of a woman who, some four or five years ago, was found lying dead hy the wayside. She had for many years been in the hat-it of wandering about a western selection district. " Long before she had become distracted by the death of a shearer she was to marry, and, being harmless, yet beyond control and poor, she set out in search of the absent, carrying his swag. People would feed her and give her clothing, and she was quite well known along her many routes, but she could not be prevailed upon to stop, and the end came upon her in her frustrate quest." A case is also mentioned as having occurred last year in which a girl yielded to the persuasions of a lad, and, dressing herself in bojs' clothes, went with him across one of the roughest parts of Australia, from Tibooburra in New South Wales to Hergott Springs in South Australia. But in neither of these cases had the chief actors much in common with the female swagger, of which the old lady just mentioned is so striking an example. She must be a hearty, plucky old dame, and though one naturally feels some pity for a woman in such a position, it is probable that she does not pity herself but is a good deal happier than the average inhabitant of benevolent homes or kindred institutions.

We referred yesterday to one " A of the series of articles supplied Gigantic to the Scotsman by its editor, Fraud." Mr C. A. Cooper, while touring New Zealand. In another article Mr Cooper describes his visit to some freezing works, and speaking of the mutton there treated, he says he can vouch that it is of the best quality—-*No Scottish mutton is or could be better. The nutritive qualities of the meat are little lessened (by freezing), and better meat could scarcely be desired by the most fastidious." He thinks that if the wholesale dealers at Homo ''would be content with a moderate profit the meat could be sold at from 3d to- 4d a pound less than the price commonly charged for it," and adds that he need not say what this means to thousands of families. The North British Agriculturist makes Mr Cooper's remarks the text for a diatribe on frozen meat and the wickedness of those who export it to England. It points out that the best frozen mutton from New Zealand is sold in England as Homefed meat, and as such is bought at a high price, "the unwary purchaser" being "defrauded into believing that it is Home fed meat, fed on the rich pastures or on the juicy roots grown on the arable lands in Great Britain." The writer next refers to " the startling report of the House of Lords," which shows " the numerous extent (sic) to which this fraud is carried ou," and goes on to say —"It seems clear enough that the Governments of New Zealand, and other countries interested in the frozen meat trade, have connived at the fraud also. Had these Governments set principle before interest, or had it served their interests to do so, they would have speedily started retail establishments in the great centres of population for the sale of that foreign meat under its proper name, or they could have had each carcase so branded that it would have been at once recognised as foreign meat. But they have made no move in either of these directions, and therefore they may be held as having connived at the carrying on of this colossal fraud." There is a good deal more of this sort of thing, and the writer winds up with the assertion that "as a matter of justice this colossal fraud of selling foreign meat as Home meat should be put down with a firm hand." So it shoiild, but if the writer had the least knowledge of his subject he would know that no blame can be attached to the colonies in this matter. Everyone knows that there is fraud, and plenty of it, in the meat trade at Home. It is not, however, committed by the colonial exporters and their Governments, but by the British retailers, and if the North British Agriculturist can induce them to mend the error of their ways and sell New Zealand mutton as such, instead of calling it best Home-grown, it-will deserve, and no doubt receive, the sincerest thanks of the colony. But we don't think it will succeed.