WELLINGTON NOTES.

Evening Star, Issue 12396, 9 January 1905, Page 2

WELLINGTON NOTES.

S^-' . A 0% [Special to thk Star.] *?p

WELLINGTON, January 9. In connection with the lamented death of the late Mr Hosking, the cause was described at the inquest' by Dr Henry as heart disease. It relieves the friends to know that death was probably instantaneous, and therefore without suffering, but the puzzling thing is that a man should have been so long as this one evidently must have been the victim of heart disease without any suspicion on the part of himself or his friends, or even his medical adviser. The town is intensely amused by the entry unobserved of a picnic party into the sacred precincts of Port Ballance after the repeated refusal of the Defence authorities to allow the public to have a road round the property, "for reasons of military exigency." The picnickers remained hours in the fort itself, and there was positively not a sign of life, and they only went away because they were bored-to death after their exhaustive look over the defences. They might have photographed, sketched, and measured everything worth a scrap to an enemy. The universal question now is: How oiten have the representatives of foreign Governments photoed everything photoable in the whole round of the sea fortifications of the Empire City? F In the matter of (tie demand for a lifeboat and for the proper inspection of yachts, the crowd of cautious men in search for someone to lock the stable door after the horse has got away are meeting with curious experiences. The Marine DepaKuieiit avers that some years ago it-embarked on a crnsade of this sort entirely on its own, drew up regulations enough to make your hair curl in the wildest, wettest southerly, and got fearfully and wonderfully snubbed by the yachtsmen of the whole colony, who declared that their own- regulations and e'ub authority were quite enough for them. The department made an act of contrition, and retreated in confusion. It evidently does not intend to repeat the experience. Some of the clubmen are inclined to bs now as nasty with the belated shutters of the stable door as they were with the department then. Their impression seems to be that your true yachtsman never capsizes; that death in any form, Id fact, is against the. rules of the club. There are poor creatures (who don't belong to aquatic clubs) who will persist in going to sea and the devil in the most absurd of cockleshells, and for them some regulation ought to be framed. Hang 'em all, if you like, but remember that the eacred arks of the yacht clubs must on no account be touched, not even with tho lightest finger. As to lifeboats," every local expert wants to know how any boat, life or otherwise, is going to live in the break and smother at the Heads in a southerly of the parts we all know so well. But there axe people who acknowledge nothing in the tfhape of facts. They know that the lifeboats of the pld Country are saving life every day in the face of the most tremendous odds in the way of sea and storm. While they throw cold water on the project, chiefly on the ground that there is no place like Wellington (for weather), the Harbor Board and the Marine Department and the other local bodies aire falling over each other in the hope of proving that whenever a lifeboat service comes l (may the day be long delayed is their evident, if silent, prayef) it will be somebody else's business to run it. Tho philanthropy of your ordinary locaj body is much Idee that of your joint stock companv, which has neither soul to be saved nor nody to ( be kicked. If you are thinking of buying up lifeboats with a view to a boom in Wellington, my advice is ''don't yet awhile." Flax-milling circles (we all move nowadays in circles, and some of them are not vicious) are excitedly talking about the invention of a German lady which, by the application of some chemicals, reduces (so it is claimed) the cost of manufacture to £5 per ton from the anything at all of the present between £l6 and £25. If this k» a true bill, it means a vast improvement in the phormium industry—and an improvement made in Germany. By the way, is it lawful to learn even from an enemy? A Palmerston firm has secured the rights for the colony, and we shall hear more about it in tho bnef, sweet by-and-bye. We all feel Warm on reading the evidence of the constable who found the body of poor young Hobday, one of the victims of tho Te Aroha disaster at Pencarrow, to the effect that some qnarrymen Were very kind, even cutting up their tout to make a stretcher for tho remains and carrying the same sit miles. When one thinks of the wild, wet, cold weather of the last few weeks, and of the fact that these men work on piece, one realises what splendid fellows they are. This is clearly not the part of the country in which one can feel tempted to bewail "the rarity of Christian charity under the sun." The search for the other victims.has, I may mention, been carried as far as Cape Palliscr. Labor is looking up decidedly, for I read in a local paper that tho Masterton Conncil's engineer finds the flax-mills, sheds, dairies, and other sources of employment leave him almost nothing for the mending of the roads. In that place there is a cry for more Gothic shipments. Further \.p the coast between here and Tafanaki road prospects are looking better in consequence of the discovery that burning papa clay into bricks for road paving is the best method of securing a cheap and durable road. The conscience of the average legislator is beginning to feel that the time may come when he will be able tovinsist with a little more emphasis upon getting justice for his long-suffering back-block constituents.

TheHawke's Bay A and P. Society are crusading against the Agricultural Department to compel it to reverse the engine and build sterilising works in the colony. Other societies are to be asked to help, and the Union looms large-.as a sup., porting battalionWise men are true-ting the immortal Bumble, declaring tiiat the law which allows a man pleading guilty before a court of preliminary instance to be sent cm to the Bupreme Court for sentenc* if there is a stipendiary, but remands him. to go through the mill if he is only before a J.P., "is a hass," and there is* nobody to say them nay. Although the Professorial Board have not dealt with the applications from Victoria College students, it Id understood that Mr P. W. Robertson, B,A, will be again put forward as the candidate of Victoria Cdl* lege for the Rhodes sdholafsfcip. Mr Ro, bert Son, it wiß be remembnred, was the condidate last year. Thd Canterbury College candidate has riot yet been noftlhiated. hut it is highly probable that Mr Archibald E. Currie, 8.A., who last year stood down in favor of Mr Cook, will hi. chosen. Mr Flrfittnei'B funefal was attended bt the old colonists, but the then df tlni-as days of electric trams and big steamers did hot know* him eridtidi, fbV. hj& best Work woe over twenty yeafs ago" with the fjfarting' of the Manawohi line.