THE WELLINGTON LYTTELTON SERVICE.

Press, Volume LV, Issue 10148, 22 September 1898, Page 5

THE WELLINGTON LYTTELTON SERVICE.

The Council of the Wellington Chamber of Commerce has agreed to join the Canterbury Chamber in urging that arrangements for a fast steam service between Wellington and Lyttelton should be made with some existing shipping company, in preference to a Government service being undertaken.

"MY LEARNED FRIEND." The frequency of passages-at-arms between counsel in tihe Wellington Magistrate's Court caused Mr Kenny, S.M., to remark that he wished to goodness the term "my learned friend" had never been invented. "The more important a case*" said he, "the more I hear about 'my fearn-sd friend,' and the more time is wasted. What he wanted to hear was the case, and the less Ihe heard of these expressions of opinion on the merits or demerits of 'my learned friend' the better pleased he would be."

SMOKELESS POWDER IN WAR. One of the lessons of the Spanish-Ameri-can war is the value of smokeless powder. In the fighting outside Santiago all the Spanish sharpshooters were provided with this powder. They climbed the trees, and were completely hidden among the leafy branches. In the absence of smoke it was quite impossible to discover their positionThe American troops had to face for hours an incessant fire from an unseen enemy. Scores of soldiers were hit before they had even seen a Spaniard, and they could hardly guess from which direction the bullets came. A newspaper correspondent who was in the hospital camp during the fighting gives the following account of how impossible it is to detect an ambush when smokeless powder is used:—-"A soldier was shot," he says, "less than fifty yards from mc yesterday afternoon by a Spanish marksman hidden in a tree, and although I knew from the report of the rifle that the sharpshooter could not be more than seventy-five yards from the trail I failed to discover him. He was seen and killed about half an hour later, but not until he had disabled another man. This was back of the firing line and only a short distance from the hospital camp," THE LATE PRINCIPAL CAIRD. Of the late Principal Caird, of Glasgow, whose death was reported some weeks ago by cable, a London paper says he was in his younger days one of the most eloquent pulpit orators in Great Britain. It adds.- — "In 1845 (when he was twenty-five) he was ordained to the pastorate of Newton-upon-Ayr, whence in 1847 he was translated to the parish of Lady Yester, Edinburgh. Here his popularity was extraordinary, with the result, however, that the demands made on his physical energies were so great that he found it necessary to retire to the country. He accordingly accepted in 1849 the rural charge of Errol, Perthshire, and while filling this cure a sermon which he Breached before the Queen and Prince Albert on October 14th, 1855, in the parish church of Crathie, obtained an extraordinary popularity. Her Majesty was so struck "with it that she 'commanded' its publication, und when it was published under the title of Tho Religion of Common Life,' it was as universally admired throughout Great Britain. Translated on the Continent under the auspices of Chevalier Bunsen, who wrote a preface to it, it suddenly carried tbe fame of the author into all parts of the Protestant world."