PUBLICATIONS RECEIVE.

Evening Star, Issue 9688, 4 May 1895, Page 1 (Supplement)

PUBLICATIONS RECEIVE.

The ‘Windsor Magazine’ (Ward, Lock, and Bowden, publishers), the latest addition to the ranks of the London sixpenny miscellanies, is a marvel of cheapness. It is large octavo, and is beautifully illustrated ; indeed, every other page—and there are 120 of them—has its scries of illustrations, which are finished in the best style of art. Among its contributors are such well-known names as Louis Wain, (Beeson White, Barry Bain, H. 1). Lowry, Flora Kleckmann, Arthur Morrison, iMortnau Gale, and 11. S. Merriman, one of whose stories is running through our own columns just now. Glecson While is a delightful critic of poetry, and in the present number he thus discusses the new fiction;— “I sent a young married woman to a French dressmaker, and in six months her husband did not know her, ’ says Lady Bracknell. “In nine months nobody knew her,” somebody replies, ami Gleeson AA bite “ wonders if English fiction, dressed of late by most decollete French dressmakers, will be known by decent anybodies much longer! to name the instances recently that have passed the line, where even the more liberalminded person must needs draw it, would,” he proceeds, be to defeat one's end. No matter how you may despise Mrs Grundy, and hate prudery, there are jaundiced and morbid views ot . • .P eßt .,*? e Pt from younger people; the pity is that this rapid descent of fiction to the gutter may provoke another puritanical reaction, which would reject all novels because a very few are unwholesome. A:et in our really popular magazines we find no trace of these neurotic tendencies. Because the editors would not find it include neurotic fiedon, you say ? Exactly I And if that be the whole truth, or only part of it it seems to prove that the so-called middle classes show (as they have often shown before) more healthy taste than the few thousands who rank themselves higher or the mass below. Yet the literature for the lowest classes-full of crime, bad taste, and the impossible generally—rarely, if ever, offends in morality or even in language. Virtue triumphs, and poetical justice is achieved, with no trace of slang or worse.” ‘ Money, the Most Important Question of the Day, formed the subject of a recent address (now issued in pamphlet form by the ‘ AVoodville Examiner ’ office) to the local Knights of Labi r by Mr W. solicitor, of Gisborne. He is an advocate of the Governmental issue of legal - tender money in sufficient quantities “to serve the purposes of internal trade and exchange,” and asserts that if there is provided what he euphemistically calls “a domestic currency” the great questions of land settlement and old-age pensions can be successfully dealt with, and much of the existing restrictive legislation be dispensed with. The money which lie proposes that the State shall issue could he loaned out at a nominal rate of interest sufficient to cover ordinary risks and cost of management, but he prefers to cover other contingencies, and therefore would charge 5 per cent., which, he declares, would leave a fair margin of profit, and the net profit, after deducting expenses of management and creating a reserve fund, would be applied towards providing the old-age pension fund. Mr Sievwright arrives at these conclusions That the State should he authorised to issue, aud should have the entire control and regulation of, a domestic currency; to be declared a legal tender for the payment of all debts and taxes in New Zealand. That this currency should be a paper one of ten-shilling notes and upwards, based and issued to colonists upon specific security of real property and identifiable kind, to an amount not exceeding one-half value.- T hat ono State hank should be formed to carry on these objects, which shall be non-political; its officers to be directly accountable to Parliament, and its business subject to strict audit by the Audit. Office. That the bank shall lend these currency notes on overdraft operative accounts, to be drawn out aud paid in as required, interest at (say) 5 per cent, being charged on the daily debtor balance, but ne interest to be allowed on any creditor balance ; and that the shall cany on, such other business, usually done by private banks, as may be found useful to the community, or necessary. His contention is that no banking business should be carried on for private profit, but that such institutions should exist alone for the advancement of the material interests of the colony. And he claims for his scheme these, among other advantages : That it would save the derangement of our internal trade and exchanges, because wc should not then be dependent on. foreign currencies; that there would no longer be occasion to go to, the London money market, because “ our own credit our own notes—will do for us all that foreign loans can do,” and interest will hereafter be used for public purposes; that in future most, if not all, of our colonial and local public works, together with the materials required, can be paid for in such notes; and that on the issue of these to the people an cxpans’on of trade will result. Verily, it would be a. “ boom ” period. He further expresses tho opinion that, being a piece of purely domestic legislation, there would be no necessity to refer it to Downing street before it came into operation.

‘ Browne’s Newspaper Gazetteer and Directory’ is fast attaining colossal proportions. The volume for 1595 just to hand contains aver 1,000 pages, and is embellished with numerous maps and pictorial advertisements. The present edition is quite remodelled, so that it now constitutes a complete vadc mecum of the Press of the British Empire. No less than 4,161 newspapers in England alone are enumerated. The appendices and tabulated matter are certainly very complete, and it ia palpable that much care in their preparation has been exercised. Since last publication the concern has been thrown into a limited liability company owing to the death of the founder (Mr T. B. Browne), who began the business in a very modest way, and lay untiring energy worked it up into a most flourishing one.

The May number of the ‘ Phonographers* Magazine ’ has a capitally-executed likeness (by Frost) of young Scobie Mackenzie, who has gone to Wellington to enter a lawyer’s office. As a ten weeks’ student of phonography he has made remarkable progress, and his attainment of a speed of seventy words a minute (a fac-simile of his note is furnished) is creditable alike to his industry and to his teacher. The lithographic work is generally of a high order.

On March 14, by a unique application of the telephone, the official chairman of the National Telephone Company’s dinner, invalided at Folkestone, was enabled from his sick couch to respond instantly to the health proposed to him, seventy-one miles away, at the Holborn Restaurant, London, many special wires having been laid on to the festive tables for this purpose. New York florists have a profitable business in caring for the plants of persons temporarily absent from the city. Tha. charge for each plant is small, and as a rule the plants are so much more intelligentlycared fer by the florists than by the servants at home that they are vastly improved by their outing.