TOWN EDITION.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 7976, 30 January 1897, Page 3

TOWN EDITION.

Tho Telegraphic Department informs us Vint must eon telegraph poles aro down batwoon ?<lr Eudman's house and tho Shamrook Hot. . Drivers of vehicles going out of town will do well to be on their sruard

against the wires, whioh are strewn all over tho road. All telegraph line 3 aro interrupted today, which accounts for the absence of all colo .al and foreign news.

The Customs duties collected at Napier during tbe month amounted to about £4547 lCa 3d, and the beer duty to £322 Os Ud. For tbe corresponding month of last yoar the figures wero: Ouatoms duties, £4848 19s ; beer duty £318 8s 3d.

Mr A. Hamilton, formerly curator of the Napier Museum, and now Registrar of the Otago University, is at present in Napier. He has with him a .peoimen copy of the first part of his work on "Maori Art," whioh he has been asked to prepare by the New Zealand Institute. It is a well gotup book of about seventy pages, and treats entirely of the parts of Maori canoes and the elaborate carvings with which they were adorned. One very uaeful item is _, double sheet of diagrams of the parts of a canoe, illustrating tho details of the fittings and the general arrangements. With the exception of the shell, all tho illustrations, about thirty in number, ate reproduced by a photographic process direot from the original photographs taken by Mr Hamilton, thus ensuring the accuraoy of detail which ia so essential in a work of this kind. The scheme of this work provides for five parts in the first volume, the fir.t being that now ready, on oanoos; the second and third, which it is hoped will be ready this year, will treat of the houses and settlements of tho Maoris and of their weapons. The edition will be a limited one, but the price is fixed at a remarkably low figure. Members of the New Zealand Institute will be able to obtain the parts from the offioe in Wellington. The descriptive matter in the first part includes the introduction and soparate artioles on " The Canoes of the Maoris," a list of all words ia the Maori language relating to oanoes, an article on "The Historical Canoes of the Maori Migration to New Zealand," with tho list of the names of the oanoes mentioned in Maori traditions and myths, and tho description of tho speoimens figured. As Mr Hamilton sayß in his preface, thedesirability of some record of this kind is now so universally recognised that it will probably be qiite unnecessary to explain the necessity for ouch a publication. The only remarks that seem called for are those of regret that a definite scheme of reoord of a national oharacter has not been in operation for years. The work will be of value as a record of the art. and customs of a most interesting people, whose mtasuro of culture at the time of their coming within the sphere of liuropean influence would compare favorably with any of thePaoific rue...