TOPICS OF THE TIME.

Evening Post, Volume LII, Issue 21, 18 June 1896, Page 4

TOPICS OF THE TIME.

♦ ■ Unfortunately, bad weather has put a stop to the match between the Australians and Yorkshire. What little cricket did take place resulted, in favour of the visitors, who now hold a winning position. Jones has once more proved his ability to get wiokets when the ground helps him. Denton, the top scorer for the Tykes, is a most promising young player, and last year made over 1000 runs in first-class matches. This is the only time this has been done by a young player in bis first season of first-class cricket.

Decisions and recisions of decisions on the public baths question by the City Cbuncil have recently followed one another so closely that it is small wonder if the general public interested in the question "dunno where they are/ It may therefore not be but of place to explain how matters stand. The complete plans for the proposed baths at Thorndon are now in the hands of the Marine Department for inspection and approval, in case it should subsequently be discovered that the baths will interfere in any way with navigation in the harbour. When sanctioned by -the Department and the Governor-in-Council, they will again come before the City Council, which will then have to decide the question of inviting tenders for constructing the baths according to the plans. A decision on the books of the Council authorises the expenditure of £3000 for two baths — one at Thorndon and the other at Te Aro. The plans for Thorndon, as prepared and approved by the Tremier, seem likely to cost something like £2400, leaving only £800 available for Te Aro. Here at once arises an awkward obstacle, for the City Council last week adopted a modified p^lan prepared by its Engineer, providing baths for Te Aro at a cost of £1600, making the total probable cost of the two baths £4000, or £1000 more than the amount originally allocated. Te Aro most probably— and quite properly— will not consent to accept inferior baths to those proposed to be given Thorndon; but the Council is in this difficulty with regard to Thorndon, that the Premier in granting the site insisted that the baths must be substantial and good, and selected the more costly of the alternative plans submitted to him. There is no such difficulty in regard to Te Aro, as the Corporation owns the site, and has only to obtain the sanction of the Har>

hour Board and the Marine Department, for reasons before stated. The position, therefore, appears to be this : the Council will either have to proceed only with the construction of the Thordon baths for the present, leaving Te Aro to wait until the money required to build baths there can be spared, or hang up the whole scheme indefinitely. [Since the above was in type the plans for the Thorndon Baths have received the approval of the Governor-in-Council, and will come before the City Counoil at its meeting to-night.]

The existence in Victoria of a law which prohibits an unlicensed dealer from purchasing what are known as marine stores, such as old nietals, old rags, bones, and the like, was recently brought somewhat forcibly under the notice of a business firm in Melbourne. The firm in question was prosecuted by a marine-store dealer for having purchased, some zinc from another licensed collector of old metals without having first taken out a dealer's license. The offence was admitted by the defendants, who, however, pleaded that they had been ignorant of the existence of the 'statute, and a fine of 10s, wit h costs £2 10s, was ( imposed. The Age, referring to the prosecution, says that "the Melbourne police would be very glad if the operation of the Act were extended so as to include furni- - ture, jewellery, clothing, and second-hand goods generally, because a olass of secondhand dealers has sprung up who can carry on without license or restriction of any sort a wholesale traffic in stolen property. Pawnbrokers cannot handle stolen property to any extent without jeopardising the renewal of their licenses, and marine store dealers are subject to similar control; but a secondhand dealer may have stolen property found on his premises time after time, and do a large business as a ' fence ' with impunity Prosecutions may be instituted against the dealer for receiving stolen property, but in practice it is found that juries will not without special incriminating circumstances convict second-hand dealers of receiving goods which they allege they have purchased in the ordinary course of business. This is a difficulty that faces the detective police daily, and it would be a great protection to honest dealers and the general public if all second-hand dealers were required to take out a license." Marine store dealers in New Zealand are not required to take out a license, nor is there a law which says that persons who purchase from them must be licensed. Against many of the secondhand dealers in Wellington the police have had no complaint to make, but at the same time we do not see any reason why they and the others in the business should- not be licensed as well as the pawnbrokers. We are thereforo glad to notice that the Hon. T. Thompson has introduced a Bill which provides for the licensing and registration of second-hand dealers:

" The new diplomacy " is the latest term applied to the methods of the " pushful " statesman of Birmingham in negotiating with the sturdy President of the Transvaal. And it is meeting with a good deal of criticism on the part of political opponents. For example, Lord Rosehery, speaking at one-of the provincial centres, chaffed Mr. Chamberlain upon .the unusual method by which he invited the Boer chief to England. " President Kruger was asked through the newspapers, and he saw the polioy that ms recommended to him through the newspapers, because a despatch which ought to have reached him or the High Commissioner in the ordinary way was sent to the newspapers instead. The result was that the policy was instantly repudiated by the Transvaal Government, and we are told that it was a matter of no consequence — that the policy prepared by Her Majesty's Government and put forward by the Secretary of State in a deliberate despatch was a thing of no consequence. It may have got into the waste-paper basket or not, and as to the invitation, President Kruger might consider it. This went on for sfcme weeks, and then our Colonial Secretary, in the vigorous practice of the new diplomacy, went to a public dinner and said that the administration of President Kruger, the gentleman, he had invited to England, and whom he wa« anxious to conciliate, was eminently corrupt. Well, if that is the method by which the new diplomaoy conciliates the person with whom it is negotiating, it is a very new diplomacy indeed. (Hear, hear, and applause.) Then came the refusal of President Kruger to accept the invitation, and now we are told, as a last act in this melodrama, that Her Majesty's Government have withdrawn the invitation to President ■ Kruger— it is, I think, an unusual proceeding witn regard to invitations, but it is evidently part' of the new diplomacy — the Government has withdrawn the invitation to the President, and' sent it to Sir Hercules Robinson instead. (Laughter,) Now, gentlemen, I say a greater comedy of errors than that I have briefly depicted to you was never achieved by any diplomacy, either new or old. At any rate, if that be the new diplomacy, I must ftt once express my unhesitating preference for the old. (Cheers.)" But for all that Lord Rosebery did not despair of the course of. the negotiations, for, as he sarcastically told his audience, Mr. Chamberlain was a very "adaptable" man, and with patience and vigilance and forbearance, and a civil tongue — a sally that brought out more laughter and cheers— he felt certain the negotiations would yet be brought to a satisfactory conclusion.

Wellington has long enjoyed a singular immunity from serious accidents on the football field, a fact which says much for the precautions taken by the governing bodies tor the suppression of brutal or rough play on the part of those taking part in our grand national game. It is an old and true saying that accidents will happen in the best-regulated families, and especially is this applicable to football. Suoh injuries as have happened to players have resulted from uncontrollable causes, and not been in any way due to rough play on the part of adversaries. This season the game has been fairly free from rough play, and although on two or three occasions a very important match has been fought out by the contending parties with right good will, there has been no exhibition calling for further interference by the referee than remonstrance — except one case in which a player was suspended for rough play for the remainder of the season. That decision, by the way, was generally condemned as being unduly light, more partioularly as the player had previously offended. This has been the only glaring case calling Tor the attention of the Wellington Union. Taranaki has earned an unenviable notoriety for rough play. The latest inoident, regarding a match played at Hawera on Friday last, lias moved the Hawera Star to speak out in the following strain : — "Yesterday's exhibition was simply a disgrace to the district, and the Association, in the performance of its duty to sport, and as custodian of the credit of Taranaki in this matter, should come down heavily on offenders. Everyman , ordered off the field should be required to show cause why he should not be 'put down ' at least for the rest of the season. In other parts of the colony it is very mach the # fashion to unjustly discount Taranaki's Victories by complaining of rough play, and this makes it the more advisable for the Association to act vigorously. Lot it be known that any man, no matter what his social position or his capability as a player, who cannot control his temper and behave decently, will at once be put off the field, and kept off. As to the treatment the referee received from a section of the spectators, it was most discreditable. The actions and language of some persons made them liable to a police prosecution." One by one the old-time myths and legends melt away as tha Wcrbt «* ♦*•-

modern day floods in upon them. We have been told that the old fairy tales— universal, with but little variation, m every race — are nothing more than metaphorical illustrations of natural events. It has been left for an English explorer, Captain Younghusband, while among the Pamirs — desolate valleys in the Himalayas— to dissipate an illusion which must have stood in the same relation to the Chinese as our folk-tales stood to us. This phenomenon was known aa the ■ Cave of Perpetual Light, and had been mentioned m histories many hundreds of years old. It was affirmed that a cave existed in which burned, and had for ever burned, a perpetual light, coming oither from the head of a dragon that lived therein, or from a jewel placed on the dragon's forehead. Presumably no one had ever vontured near enough to locate the light with accuracy. Captain Younghusband went to see— and saw it. The dragon was evidently awake and awaiting his victim. But, unfortunately for the interests of romance, the Captain climbed up twenty feet of perpendicular rock, and entered the mouth of the cave. "I looked eagerly round to discover the source of the light, and, when I had got fairly on my legs, found that the cave was simply a hole right through the rock, and that the light came in from the other side. From below, of course, this cannot be seen, for the observer merely sees the top of the cave, and this, being covered with some ■white deposit, reflects back the light which has come in from the opening on the other side." This, then, was the secret of the * Cave of Perpetual Light, which had been a mystery to the Chinese for ages. One feels sorry for the end of the existence of that dragon— probably the last surviving example of his species.