A VALUABLE WORK OF REFERENCE.

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XXVII, Issue 4330, 1 July 1871, Page 3

A VALUABLE WORK OF REFERENCE.

The amount of iguorauce displayed by English writers wheu treating of Australian events has frequently been remarked. Not simply in newspapers, where the compilation of articles and paragraphs is necessarily very liuriied ; but in magazines and in books professedly written as works of reference, do we find the grossest geographical and historical blunders, which are remarkable, considering that there are many works available to authors from which really authentic information can be obtained. In the Corporation Library of the City of London we doubt not there are many such works; yet here is a specimen of the historical and geographical knowledge of its librarian. The passage occurs in a work entitled, " The Dictionary of Chronology ; or a Historical and Statistical Registry," compiled and edited by William Henry Overall, F.G.A., Librarian to the Corporation of the City of London :— " New Zealand, discovered by Tasman, 1642; Captain Cook visited the island, 1769 and 1774 ; first settlement made by the English, 1815 ; government established, 1833 ; New Zealand Company formed, 1837; received its charter, 1539 ; dissolved, 1851 ; made a colony by charter, November 16, 1840; separated from New South Wales, May 3, 1841 ; Captain Hobson, the founder, and first Governor, from January, 1840, to to September, 1542 ; Bishopric established, 1843; war declared against the Kaffirs, April 4, 1846 ; Legislative Council opened by Sir George Grey, December 20, 1848 ; a representative constitution granted to the colony by 15 and 16 Vic, c. 72, June 30, 1852 ; goldfields discovered near Goulbourn, January 17, 1853 ; termination of the Kaffir war, February 22, 1853 ; great distress j amongst the Kaffirs, November, 1857 ; war | again declared, in consequence of a dispute about land, May 3, 1860 ; the natives submit to the English, March 19, 1861; war renewed, 1863." As the book will probably be referred to by other writers and speakers on colonial topics, it is very likely the errors thus so authoritatively propagated will become perpetuated by many leading authorities, until the rising generation of colonists, in order to show their acquaintance with the early history of their country aa set forth, in standard English works, will really have to accept the statements, and suppose it was so. The blunders serve to throw light upon one historical anomaly of the present age^ We refer to the clearer staWmepts of the historical facts and events d£ ing agea'by modern writers than by those historians who preceded them, and jwho, from the fact that they lived at an agemore nearly contemporaneous with the events of which they treat, might have been expected to give the most reliable' details. The whole secret of historical accuracy lies in the reference to standard authorities, and, of these, State papers and blue-booka, are 'after all the only ones that should be trusted by com piler,s o/ a " Dictionary of Chronology or •'.Historic,*! and Statistical Registry." '

JsriXT^lsttih—rThi import«no3 r f 'proper foo<i for s,yoUDg children has occupied tin attention' ofVnedlcal men (for,manyiyesr»,'»nd Dr. Bnrkcr,- tbi . liond6iil?hy6ici«n7has certified taUie great vxlu^rffj l-» "the food ?prep»red^bjr " B*vorjr »nd Moofe,'" tVp' SOhetnUti to the EoyaUF»mili(is ! of England,' Tr»nC« ' Rnd^Belgiuni.^MpMt »Jone has Cftnked'lt toßeuse^in'the Jioyal NptierTo»;-and th« jiTibHo''cau' ;?J piir>b<je «f with full direction* of any ChemUt or StprekMpeV,but BVliuriibit ' ' Savpryand M^oß'sTuwaw andaddr«ss, , ** !> '' *'"' • ' '• 1&W8P , &'"' 1 *■',^-' V^it'