NOTES.

Evening Star, Issue 7361, 5 November 1887, Page 1

NOTES.

The late Minister for Education was undoubtedly in the right when he A Dangerous resisted any attempt to interfere Move, with the Act under which the existing system is constituted. There are, it is true, several points of detail in regard to which amendments are desirable ; but the risk has always been great that, when once an amending Bill was introduced, it would be a veritable " beginning of strife," which, we know, is like "the letting out of water." The avowed and covert denominationalists muster pretty strongly in the new House; and, as we see, the opportunity afforded by Mr Wilson's motion was at once seized for the appointment of a Committee to inquire into the. possible reduction of the education expenditure to raise the question of aid to denominational schools. It is aow an instruction to the Committee to consider whether such aid may not be'afforded, and whether the Bible should not be read; in the State schools. Attempts are to be made to pack the Committee by the addition of members notoriously unfavorable to the secular principle, and the campaign is likely to be opened by a series of free fights over the constitution of that body. Whatever the ultimate constitution, and whatever the character of the report which may be adopted, the questions at issue are certain to be fought out in the House. -'-It behoves all who believe in the efficacy and justice of the existing system to bestir themselves, and let it be known what their opinion is, and possibly it may be necessary that this should be declared in a constitutional manner by public meetings and petitions to Parliament Apathy is certainly dangerous, and may be fatal.

Bishop Nbvill, one of tfce .most amiable n„ «.«««m and well-meaning of. men, is for Ob theStaol ever « puttin g hisfo(jt - m it „ by Repeutancc. utterances, the significance of which, if well weighed by himself, are very apt to be misunderstood by the public. Not so very long ago the 1 Bishop brought down on his devoted head the wrath and indignation of large sections of the community by his defective logic..in assuming the generality of very- isolated particulars. Some months ago he so expressed himself as to be understood to denounce church and charity bazaars as institutions. specially favored by the evil one; but now H appears that this was all a mistake, and he opened on Thursday the " Swiss Farm " (why Swiss farm ?) in aid of All Saints' Church in one of those well-turned speeches with which he pleases the ears ,of the upper ten. He explained that in what he said against bazaars he did not intend to imply anything more than thafche'4hought they were not the best means of raising money for Church purposes. The fact of the matter, however, is, that cash is thus extracted from certain pockets which are closed to the ordinary solicitations for religious and charitable purposes. Young men, with what may be termed floating incomes, are thus got at, as well as persons who seldom attend church and have no religion to speak of. On the principle of spoiling the Egyptians, such persons are fair game. There is, moreover, another consideration—namely, that bazaars, whether under the designation of Old English Villages, Swiss Farms, or what not, are social institutions affording amusement, almost equal to amateur theatricals to select circles, whilst not boring the general public to anything like the same extent!

The general run of the questions which appear on the Order Paper of the Stuff and House oi Representatives exNonsense, emplifiea in a marked manner with how little wisdom the members, who appear to devote themselves to this method of giving evidence of their Parliamentary existence, are endued. Silliness is the prevailing characteristic, and valuable time is every day Wasted. Occasionally, no doubt, taken of the forms of the House in this matter to badger Ministers, and to make under pretext of desiring information, which involve debateable matter. It would be a desirable reform if questions, instead of being put orally, were simply printed in, the Order Paper, and the Ministerial answer 1 entered against them. On Thursday, a regular private members' field day, the Government were asked inter alia whether they would amend the Disqualification Act in the direction of prohibiting members of the Legislative Council taking part in elections for the House of Representatives. The Premier very properly snubbed; the-questioner, who must indeed have curious notions when he confounded the position of Legislative Councillors with that of English Peers, who very rightly are debarred from using their territorial - influence, "large_— wealth, and exalted social position in theJeledjions to the popular Chamber. The circumstances ,of this Colony are In no respect analogous. Except as private in-'proportion to their intelligence, Legislative Councillors have no influence hardly indeed regarded with any mpje respect than members of a borough council., ~The insistence upon being paid, for their.legislative services has reduced such they had to a minimum, whilst the appointments during the last ten years have altoSither lowered the position. Sir George rey, , wa. firmly beUeSfe with malice perchance, commenced degradation of the Council \ and the Stout-Vogel Government carried this out, we mjght com* pletion. ; . . - { „)*',

The Legislative Council, on the motion of ■ the Hon'. Mr Waterhouse, has Bight Seek °^ ered * retumof Renames of all i. persons "temporarily appointed" to the public service since the passing of the -Civil.-.Service;,Beform Act, 1886. This Act was supposed by sanguine persons inside andT outside of - Parliament to effectually put a stop to the irregular patronage exercised by certain MinillSrs, bat as a matter of fact-things have ;gorie t>n much as usual. The Government offices!'in Wellington are crammed witt. Ministerial proteges,-and it is hardly going too far to say that the. existing system of circumlocution was initiated and has been maintained for their benefit. In several departments there are three officers to do theowork of one, and this necessitates one'of .'higher grade to look after them; arid so the game has gone on. The late Colonial 'Treasurer has never allowed himself to be ahackled by statutory obligations which can in any way be evaded, and we conceive) that, the return referred to will show that the departments under his special control have been; specially favored by the introduction of'influentiallyconnected nincompoops.

Ministers, if they succeed their « j-« ..proposals,, will have, not* eoodteound the retrenchment, six new appointments at their disposal—to wit, the Commissioner of £ail< ways, and three members of the proposed Civil Service Board. - In. Victoria* these offices are all highly paid, and are'indeed the plums of the public service, Dig* appointed aspirants to portfolios had better therefore mind their p's and q's, and not be in too great a hurry to desertthe Ministerial ranks in the hopes of what may torn in a general metee" 1 It will; indeed, lie a very crown of sorrow to Sir Julius Vogel that the chances of dispensing such good things is not in his hands. He would Pj ßecure any number of votes by a hint here, word there to members shaky in allegiance to himself, or even committed to the other side; and then, by wayof equalising matters, would probably appoint outsiders fis>m England or Victoria.. "Coming events,"says the poet " cast their shadows before," and we notice already, in the altered tone of certain honorable gentlemen, that the bunch of carrots is dangling before their eyes ! It is hot at all improbable that natural jma may bediswverMin.NewlZeaNutural oas. •. I " ld ». *?& create such a erase as there is just-now in- certain ... 7 P* 1 * 8 of;;ihe 1 TJniteMstates. The discovery may not, however, prove an

entirely unmixed blessing. In China two centuries ago natural gas was discovered to exist over a large area. Gas-we Is were sunk with as much vigor as the Celestials were capable of, but owing to an explosion, which literally killed millions of people and tore up and destroyed a whole district of country, leaving a large, inland sea known on the map as Lake Foo-Chung, the boring of any more gas-wells was then and there prohibited by law. It seems, according to Chinese history, that many large and heavy-pressure wells were sunk quite close to each other; gas being lighted as soon as struck, as in America. One well, with its unusual pressure by induction or back draught, drew down into the earth the burning gas of a smaller well, resulting in the dreadful explosion we noted above. The same catastrophe, says the 'Cincinnati Commercial Gazette,' is imminent in this country.

Amojjg the drugs mentioned in the standard medical books of Nuremburg of A Curious 2)0 years ago are "portions of lh-ng. the embalmed bodies of mans flesh brought from the neighborhood of Memphis, where there are many bodies that have been buried for more than a thousand years, called Mumia, which have been embalmed with costly salves and balsams, and smell strongly of myrrh, aloes, and other fragrant things." The learned doctors of France, Germany, and Italy all made use of this eccentric drug, and in the seventeenth century complaints arose as to its adulteration, 'it is recorded that Monsieur Pomet, chief apothecary to one of the French kings, went to Alexandria to judge for himself in the matter, and, having made friends with a dealer in mummies, was admitted into the store-house, where he saw piles of bodies. He asked what kind of bodies these were and how they were prepared. The dealer informed him that he took such badies as he could get—whether they died of contagious diseise it mattered not. He embalmed them with the sweepings of various old drugs, myrrh, aloes, pitch, and gums; wound them about with a cere cloth, and then dried them in an oven, after which he sent them to Europe. Even this revelation did not suffice to put essence of mummy out of fashion; and it is known that Francis the First of France always carried with him a small medicine chest, in which this was the principal ingredient. It is satisfactory to know that all the fools do not live in the nineteenth century.

Since we are all rapidly becoming rich, it is important that we should pos- . « R „n ftll v sess some definite standard for the estimation of our accumu-

lations. It is unsatisfactory that there is no accepted definition in the English language for the word "billion." The ' Journal of Commerce \ (London), in answer to a correspondent desirous of learning the precise significance of this majestic word, says:—"Up to fifty years ago a billion in all English-speaking countries was reckoned a million millions, written thus: 1,000,000,000,000. Then an ass published an arithmetic, in which he gave the French definition of a billion, which is a thousand millions, written thus: 1,000,000,000. This was followed by others, until the public were completely bewildered. The dictionaries began to give both definitions, and now when the word 'billion' occurs with nothing in the context to mark the quantity no reader can tell whether the author means a thousand millions or a million millions. For this reason we never use it, but write two hundred thousand millions for 200,000,000,000, or after this fashion whatever else the sum may be."

The agricultural interest in Victoria have \n at is at ' ast w °k e U P to the necessity Sanpe'forthe of looking after themselves, (ioose is For years past they have Sanoe for the apparently with patience, at all Under. events w j tn apathy, borne the burden of a Protective system which, whilst doing them not one half-penny worth of good, has severely taxed their industry, besides keeping up the prices of everything beyond their own produce, which they used or consumed at an extravagant figure. At last the worm has turned, and we find that the Farmers' Conference sitting in Melbourne have adopted resolutions urging the imposition of 25 per cent, ad valorem duties upon live stock and cattle, and placing protective duties upon agricultural products generally from beyond the Colony. We hail this move as the beginning of the end ; it is the application of the reductio ad absurdum to the Protection argument. Melbourne, with its congested population and crowds of ill-paid artisans, would soon feel the shoe pinch if the Farmers' Conference have their way, and the days of prohibitive tariffs in Victoria would be numbered. We fail to sec how a Protectionist Ministry have any logical ground for refusing to comply with the demand of the farmers, or how the Protectionist Parliament can decline to give legislative authority for levying these import duties on the necessaries of life. Wc sincerely hope they will so legislate to the bitter end, which then assuredly will not be far off.

If there is a subject of which the country is or should be heartily sick, it is A Qneer that of local government. For .Notion, years it has been the stalking horse of Parliamentary faction. Ministries have been tripped up and carried into office upon it, and policy has succeeded policy with equally unsatisfactory results. The only material fact which has come out of all the palavering and chronic legislation is the piling of local taxation on the unhappy ratepayers, which was certainly done with some effect by the late Administration. Now we are told from Wellington that several independent members—i.e., according to Lord Palmerston, "members who can never be depended upon"—consider that the Cabinet have "overlooked the key ot the position " in not dealing with the question of loeal government in the Financial Statement. This is, indeed, most veritable nonsense. The most notorious defects in the local government system will, no doubt, be effectually dealt with in several of the measures to be introduced having for their object the carrying out of the Ministerial proposals ; but the extension of the sytem, already run wild, would, we are certain, not be tolerated either by the House or the country. The independent member referred to possibly held antidiluvial opinions as to the revival of Provincialism, and believes in the economy .of burning the candle, not only at both ends, but in the middle at the same time, by having three Governments and three Legislatures; as if one of each was not more than enough, economically considered !

The absurd canard that Major Atkinson, when engaged in forming his FMttwto Ministry, had offered the AtFly With. torney-Generalship with a seat in the Legislative Gonncil to Sir Robert Stout was brought down at the first Bhot in the House. The idea was so preposterous that it is somewhat surprising that the rumor gained any credence at all; but ■erne people will believe anything of their political opponents, even against the plain evidence of their senses. A very little consideration would have shown that at the period indicated Sir Robert was still Premier, and could have called himself to the Legislative Council had he any ambition that way; whilst his accepting a place in the hew Cabinet was so utterly out of the question that it never could have been dreamed of either by Major Atkinson or himself. The quid nunc* of the Parliamentary lobbies will, however, swallow anything, and are no doubt supplied by facetious individuals with abundant fodder.

At the instance of the Mayor of Dunedin, the Municipal Conference have lujrnt come *° tne ver y w * Be oon " Direction, elusion that the inoidence of the charitable aid rates is inequitable, and should be forthwith readjusted. The Conference declined to endorse the recommendation of the subcommittee appointed to consider the question as to the exact manner in which the readjustment should be effected, and perhaps they exercised a wise discretion. The point Is that the whole charge for hospitals, charitable institutions, and charitable aid now falls on the ratepayers ; whilst all other people escape scot free—are not required, Indeed, to contribute one penny. This is manifestly unjust, and we trust that the Government will take the question up and settle the maintenance on a proper basis, so that the burthen may be fairly distributed. We hope Mr Leary will not let the matter rest.

An English gentleman residing in Borne tells the following amusing story mnvni,! relative to the trickß of the in Italy. "Inoticed," lie says, "some days that my milk was very thin. I had stood by whilst the cow was milked; what then could be

the cause ? Was it that the cow drank too much water ? I would have been compelled to adopt this solution but for a discovery that soon happened. When I came across my cow-man the second or third evening, he was milking for an Italian, rind I was surprised when I saw the latter suddenly step up to the cow-man and squeeze him by the arm. Surprising, however, as was the action, the result was more so—a stream of water was' ejected from the cow-man's sleeve, and I then understood how milk could be watered before one's very eyes without detection." The trick, it appears, is quite common. A bag of water is kept under the coat, with a rubber tube therefrom down the sleeve. When detected, a " Santa Maria, what difference ?" and pure milk for the sharp eyes; and when not detected the milkman laughs in his sleeve as he lets the water down through it and sells it by the quart!

The evolution of court3hip is the theme of a book recently published in ~ ~, London under the title of to.irlsl.ip. , Romantic Love) . and whlch)

despite the sentimental suggestiveness of its name and subject, bids fair to achieve acceptance aB a useful contribution to the literature of social science. The author maintains that that manifestation of huuan affection which, preceding marriage, begins with gallantry and intensifies into courtship was never known until modern times. According to him, there were no "lovers "in the modern acceptation of the word in ancient days, nor was such sweet passion practicable when women had no voice in the bestowal of their hands, or where polygamy was tolerated. The amatory passage in the ancient poets he interprets as having been inspired by entirely different impulses from those in whose behalf they have received the benefit of so many generations of quotations. Dante was the first poet who chanted lays of love, and Romeo was the first hero lover in dramatic literature. Down to Shakespeare's time the poets placed love secondary to friendship, liut with the development of society "sexual specialisation" followed, and "romantic love" resulted. "First maternal lovo, then paternal, filial, and fraternal love were gradually developed, followed by friendship, and finally by love proper." The scheme is worked out with elaborate attention to detail; all literature, all history, all se'ence being brought to bear in its support. The subject is an old one, but from this standpoint is wholly novel; and it is a significant fact that grave scientific authorities are according to it a degree of respectful attention, which must be elicited by its merits, as it certainly is not challenged by the title of the book.