THE NELSON EXAMINER. Saturday, October 23, 1858.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume XVII, Issue 85, 23 October 1858, Page 2

THE NELSON EXAMINER. Saturday, October 23, 1858.

Journals become more necessary as men become more equal and individualism more to I.c feared. It would be to underrate their importance to suppose that they serve only to lecure liberty: chef maintain civilization. Db Tocqukvillb, Of Democracy m America, vol. T.,p. 230

We return to the subject from which, we were diverted in our last by going after that ignis fatuus, or Will of the Wisp, which unexpectedly started up before us in the shape of an inquiry after the "somebody" who was so much wanted ; the " coming man " who was to assume the leadership, and marshal us in the onward path of orderly progress and real improvement. We are sadly in want of him ; of some efficient man, who, leaving each of us to attend to his own private business, shall take up, think out, and carry into operation all those measures in which we have a common interest, but which our deficient organization, want of leisure, of means, or of public spirit, leave still to be desired. We are, however, happy to chronicle one great step in advance. After a painful gestation during many months, our Government has at last brought forth a measure, has arrived at a resolution ; and it is a great fact that all our dogs have obtained a recognized official existence; and they now walk about like policemen, with collars round their necks, and numbers stamped in brassr; while some Pariahs, some radical curs, who refused to assume the badge of submission to lawful authority, have been taken up, and await their fate in front of the police office, where a goodly provision of clubs is accumulated in public view for knocking them on the head, as examples to all refractory bow-wows. A further advantage will also result from this energetic action of our local authorities. In case of losing one of these interesting creatures, instead of the highly coloured descriptions of Pompey, Carlo, or Juba, which made us exclaim, " Can such dogs be, and not o'erwhelm

us all with special wonder," we may have a brief business notification that Sheep Dog, No. 9(!, is lost, or that Pug, 387, is found, and is ready to be returned to the arms of his disconsolate mistress. Who knows what another session may bring to pass ? Perhaps a kindred measure for cats ; or Cochin China fowls. And then, when all our two-legged and four-footed favourites have been legislated for with that gravity and deliberative caution which their importance to man so imperatively calls for, who knows, we say, whether man himself, his welfare and improvement, may not come iv for some small share of attention ?

To our credit be it spoken, we have got one great measure fairly at work for his intellectual improvement, all the more satisfactory that it has not taken iis place among our established institutions without a sharp struggle and a good fight for it : let us now do something for health and longevity. In most other animals, the duration of life is about five times as long as it takes them to arrive at full growth and maturity. This would give man an average life of from eighty to one hundred years ; and if he fails to reach it, it is chiefly his own fault. In his restless struggle for existence, he neglects the most obvious means of prolonging it. Centuries ago he was told that he was too much disposed " Propter vitam, vivendi perdere causas" for the sake of life, forgetting the causes of living, which alone render it valuable ; so now we, too frequently, in the keen competition for our own full share at least of the world's goods, neglect that which lies at the root of the matter, that health without which we may be stopped in mid career, and which, when they are obtained, is indispensable to the enjoyment of them. "Where men most congregate together, there the opportunities are the greatest, and the instances of success most numerous and striking; but there also the

seeds of death are sown most thickly, the causes of disease accumulate most rapidly, and their operation becomes most intensely energetic. Here in Nelson we are, so to speak, but et the beginning of our troubles. We have two or three thousand people congregated together oa some five-hundred acres. If some fine noses have already detected the first approaches of miasma, it as yet afreets not the generality; if the water in our wells is not quite what it should be, there is the river close by for all fastidious water drinkers to help themselves from ; and all domestic exuvue, washes and slops, go (o the pigs and the cabbages ; or if any superabundance exists, every careful and cleanly housewife will bestow it as far from her own door as possible, not always without some gentle remonstrance from her neighbours. But now let us compare great things with small ; and with our embryo state of uncleanness, contrast its full-blown development elsewhere. If we are to believe the Times, London is in a perfect ferment : both its houses of Parliament, instead of discussing the "state of 1 the nation," are deep in consultation on the " State of the Thames." Noble Dukes, after living on the banks for thirty years, declare they can stand the stench no longer : honourable members of the lower house are told by their purveyor of fresh air, Mr. Garney, that his supply is all used up, and he does not know where to get any more ; the town is getting into bad odour with even its usual acclimated inhabitants, who are leaving for the country ; passengers by the steamers on the river describe it as a fermenting mess of pea-soup consistence, which, stirred up by the paddles, produces retching, nausea, or intense headache ; and a surgeon called to a young girl, who had fallen into the water, attributes the danger of her state to a few teaspoonfuls of Thames water which had found their way into her stomach. There is a good deal of exaggeration in all this, we dare say ; and we and our countrymen are notorious throughout the world for making the worst of everything belongiug to Us ; but there must be some truth in it, when a noble peer invites all unbelievers merely to walk into the library; when the Bar appeals to the Bench, and the Chief Justice, impassive as a senator of ancient Home, announces that he awaits approaching asphyxia in his curule chair, but has no right to demand such a selfsacrifice from others, and that both counsel and jury had better save themselves, whilst they yet have time, from impending suffocation. Burke, in his "Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful," declares that stenches, when they arrive at a certain intensity, have the sublimity required ; and the Thames seems to have arrived at this point, since the very fish are stated to be burying themselves in the mud in order to get out of the water. Mr. Tite says, that four hundred million gallons of water pass daily through Teddington lock, of which London requires one-fourth for its daily supply ; and Lord Portman, before that most decorous body, the House of Peers, follows up this supply through all its uses, and much further than we dare venture to follow him, till, at the close of his investigations, he returns it, loaded with all conceivable abominations, to its parent stream under the very noses of his auditors. A hot and dry fortnight has done all this. It has done more : it threatens to break up the constitution of the country. The speakers in Parliament propose measures which so curiously apply to our own condition that we copy them without changing a word : —

" Let the Government be courageous. There was a great opportunity for any Government to distinguish themselves. Parliament was at their feet, and if the Government would save them, they would be only too happy to be saved. Every step which had been taken had been in the wrong direction. In order to do any good, an arbitrary act would be required. Nothing had been done for the improvement of our sanitary condition without arbitrary powers." We, in Nelson, are not yet quite so badly off as to raise such a cry of distress as this comes to ; but it is amusing to see how, under the pressure of any great emergency, we utterly discard all our fine-spun theories of representative and collective infallibility, and call out for a man to place himself at our head.

The steamer Wonga Wonga, from Wellington via Wanganui, arrived yesterday morning, bringing Wellington papers to tbe 16th instant. She left Wellington on Monday last, at which time the English July mail had not arrived. We are glad to find that the flood at the Hutt, briefly noticed in our last, had not proved to be so serious as was at first reported, and thatsofar as we can learnno lives were lost. The comet is considered by the Wellington savans to be the same that first appeared in August 1 204, and disappeared "on the night of the death of Pope Urban the Fourth." We find also that the report previously published by the Independent, to the effect that the Bishop had suspended the Rev. Mr. Baker, was incorrect, and that it should have merely stated that the Bishop considered that Mr. Baker "had acted very judiciously in suspendr g himself from his duties." There is no other Wellington news of interest.