CURRENT TOPICS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXXX, Issue 10099, 26 July 1893, Page 5

CURRENT TOPICS.

The Melbourne Argus sayslt is highly probable that next summer will find, instead of an English eleven in Australia, the well-known Pareee cricketers of Bombay taking a tour through the colonies. Mr M. D. Kan go, from Bombay, who is a member of the eleven, is now on a visit to Melbourne, and has consulted Mr Harry Boylo with the object of having a series of matches arranged in the event of Mr J. M. Pramji Patell, the Parsao captain, who takes a very keen interest in the game, determining to bring a team to Australia. Mr Kan go is strongly of opinion that as soon as the news of the abandonment of the English tour reaches Bombay, a visit from the Paraees will be announced, and in the event of their coming they will no doubt have a very cordial welcome from Australians. The Pa'rsees have twice visited England, and the characteristics of their play are evenness in batting and smart fielding. In bowling, however, one of their team, M. E. Pavvi, also came out well during the last English tour, getting WO wickets at a cost of eleven runs per wicket. During the last English winter Lord Hawke toot a fairly strong amateur eleven out to India, and they twice met the Paraee team, being beaten in the first match by 109 runs, and winning the second by the narrow majority of seven runs.

At a social meeting of the Electric Club of Victoria, Professor Kernot eaid it had lately been impressed upon his mind that electricity was in reality something of a new subject, unlike many supposedly new things, about which we heard a good deal. 'From an old book which had recently come into hia hands he found that some considerable time before Julius Ccesar was born, they knew all about the " penny in the slot ” machine, and the same work contained a full description of the conjurer’s inexhaustible bottle, and various other modern marvels. It also showed that the people of that date had organs just such as we have now, with water-power machinery to blow them; that they did a good many things by means of compressed air, and were able to conduct numberless curious and interesting experiments. The strangest thing about the book, however, was that it made no mention of the incandescent lamp. Julius Ceeaar never had a chance of holding a smoke concert under that light. Electricity alone seemed rather a new thing—a discovery which would make this century notable. As to the progress it had made already, travel in America would show that they were doing there all sorts of things with it in all aorta of places. Electric trams and railways were as common as cable lines were here, and one could not journey even into the wilderness without being brought up standing before an arc lamp set in the most unlikely spot imaginable. Electricity was unmistakably a great thing, and the Electric Club of Victoria existed for the purpose of bringing together those interested in it to exchange ideas, cultivate social friendships, and also, it was hoped, do a good deal of serious useful work.

In the National Review the Hon Harold Fiach-Hatton has a paper, in -which he touches up New South Wales in the following energetic style : “ Par from seeing the error of their ways, the politicians of New South Wales are still pursuing their downward career of shameful folly at a headlong _ rate. _ A revenue of over £10,000,000, including .£990,000 of new taxation, has resulted in a deficit of £770,000, Every sixth man in the Colony is in receipt of State pay, and in every department log-rolling and jobbery reign supreme; and, to crown all, the Government have now introduced a fresh Bill to deprive squatters of a portion of the unresumed half of their runs. In spite of her vast area of country, unsurpassed for pastoral purposes; in spite of her magnificent climate, and her unlimited coal fields and apparently boundless stores of silver ore; in spite of her being inhabited hy a population admirably representative of the greatest colonising nation on earth, New South Wales has been brought, by tbe narrow-minded and sordid policy of a succession of grasping place-hunters to the verge of national bankruptcy. The end cannot be much longer delayed, for, apart from the present banking crisis, which is only a symptom of a disease, the- condition of the Colony is intrinsically rotten. * * * Not until this lesson has been learnt—[the lesson that even Legislative honesty is tue best policy] —will there be any chance of the Colony regaining the position which, by her natural endowments, she ia entitled to hold, and from which che could never have been deposed except by legislation so infamous that the history of the civilised world will be searched in vain for a parallel.”