TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVI, Issue 125, 25 November 1908, Page 6

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

.After a carnival week of elections the people are more or less Back to absorbed in their orPlain Work, dinary work, and they may have patienpe t/* read about the doings of such bodies as the City Council and the Hospital Bor/rd. Many nave enjoyed the election ey.tiitement and have even cheerfully s<vfc out many political meetings, but some believe that the electoral agony was too, long drawn out. A correspondent dec Ay.red in The Post last night that he and. others, •contrary to their Government py inciples, voted yesterday for an Oppositionist, because tho Oppositionist led v,t the first ballot, and they supported . him as a protest against the nuisance of the second ballot. Business people, with shops and offices filled nVith victims of election fever, are no d«rr/ot praying that the second ballot's last,, as well as first, appearance was made, yesterday. However, there is mostly /jeacefulness in the community to-day. \ r ha people will perhaps try to remem ! j ei . the promises that their favourites h'/v,*e made, but by-and-bye they may not// ev en bother to recall a tithe of the 'declarations of 1908. Rumour is mo'^iy dead to-day, and the candidates Ka-fej recovered their reputations. The v/.ird allegations have been mostly laid ?,side for three years, but it is possibly that they may be resurrected before \fy c end of 1911. In Chri.fi/oelnpch the City Council is baring its head for the Free sticks and stones of the '-P. the populace. The Cor&quare. poration is courting a buffeting by an attempt to ?/.iduce the police to "move on" the crowds that congregate in Cathedrals'"^ aare to listen to various promoters of t>ie Millennium. For n^iny years the fjart-tail, the soap-box, the steps of /lamp-posts, and other eminences have been popular pulpits in the Square, and the people have developed;' a habit of strolling to that rendezvous on Saturday and Sunday evenings to hear "the very latest" in Utopian schemes or other projects for regaining Paradise or carth — making all this world a garden growing nothing but the choicest fruits and flowers, real and metaphorical, for everybody. The contention is Uhat the open-air assemblies tend to t>lock the ordinai'y traffic and make breaches of the peace, but these objections seem hardly stTong enough to justify <* ukaso against public meetings in a large public place. What would Wellington say and do if the City Council here tried to prevent gatherings ->t the Statue and rob the people of the entertainment that they derive from the discourses of various partisans. Even Wellington, usually apathetic about great public matters, would hasten to vigorously assail the corporation. But Christchurch has a very protestant public whenever there is any attempt by a public body to run counter to the popular will. The City Council there has about a ■ quarter of the "ghost of a chance" of putting a ban upon tho "Square" orators as the Wellington Corporation would have in proclaiming a perennial "close season" for speeches at the Statue. The award of the annnal Nobel Prize for Chemistry to ProA Gratifying fessor Ernest RutherRecognition. ford, reported in today's cable news, will, we think, meet with general approbation, and will give special pleasure to New Zealanders. The prizes, which are allotted under the will of tho Russian millionaire Alfred Nobel, who made his great fortune out of high explosives, aro of substantial value, amounting to nearly £8000, a welcome aid to anyone engaged in_ scientific research ; but, apart from intrinsic value, the honour is one greatly coveted, as the committees in Stockholm, by whom the awards are made, have, in the twelve years since the prize was instituted, given their decisions with impartiality and excellent judgment. Professor Rutherford's career has been followed with so much interest in New •Zealand, the land of his birth, that it is not necessary to say much about him. He was born in Nelson thirty-seven years ago, and has won his many distinctions at an unusually early age. He was educated at Nelson College' and the New Zealand University, and his record was ft brilliant one. On the discovery of radium by M. and Mmo. Curie he devoted himself to the study of radio-activity, and published a book on the subject which made him famous. He is now admittedly the highest authority in this department of science, and the scientific successor of the late Lord Kelvin. He was appointed to the chair of Experimental Physics at Montreal University, which position ho resigned last year to accept the post of Director of the Physical Laboratory at the University of Manchester. And now he has worthily gained the " blue ribbon " of chemical science. The comportment of a man after a victory gives a good insight A Peevish into his. character; But Loser. his deportment after a defeat, fairly and squarely administered, is an e\en better gauge. Some men take a beating very sadly, and look upon the victor as a man who must have broken tho ten commandments and more to achieve his success. When they are political candidates these men, too, are sometimes disposed to chido the people for failing to see their merits, but other wooers, of happier temperament, take a reverse as something- sent to them for the good of _ their souls, and they aro grateful rather than resentful towards their opponents and the general public. In this generous category most of tho Wellington candidates can be fairly placed, but at least one, Mr. F. G. Bolton, 'the vanquished Ministerial candidate for Wellington North, has no place there. Last night he looked for a. scapegoat, and tried to lay hands on The Post. Groping around in his mind for an explanation of his misfortune, he thought he. found one in a delusion th^fc he had notbeen fairly treated by 'J?he Evening i Post. Believing that fir. Herdman would do better service for New Zealand' than Mr. Bolton would, we opposed the Ministerialist in «ur leading columns, but our editorial opinion of his candidature did not interfere with our fair treatment of him, in the news columns. Mr. Bolton, in. the first moments of disappointment af ter an arduous cErnipaign, may have been speaking from hearsay evidence, the promptings of a misleading friend* To correct his error he is welconv© to visit our office at any time to perjuse our file and see for himself that h& has no cause to coni^ plain about ihe treatment, meted out' to him in the news columns. As for our comment in. the leading columns, we have criticised) Mr. Bolton fairly, and we supported,' My. Herdman because, he was commia^ed! to the policy of reforming r t ho i adfttrhyistratioii.

Coyjring from England by the R.M.S. Ara^va, which is due at Wellingtoa.early next week, are 388 passengers booked fr/r various parts of the Dominion. Of '<3ris number 218 are travelling third.jclass, 79 second-saloon, and 41 first saloon. Wellington is the destination of 135 of the total number, 69 are for Auckland, 43 for Lyttelton, 19 for Wanganui, 16 for Dunedin, 12 each for Westport and New Plymouth, 9 for Gisborne, 8 for Napier, 6 each for the Bluff und Picton, 8 for Nelson, and X fjv: Timavu,