Clippings.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 248, 10 June 1876, Page 18

Clippings.

SUFFERINGS AT SEA. (From the San Francisco Bulletin, April 13.) The ship Greta sailed from San Francisco for Liverpool on the 25th of November last, with a cargo of wheat. She arrived at her destination on the 16th of last month, with a portion of the shipwrecked crew of the British ship Great Britain on board. A brief statement of the fact was received here by telegraph a day or two after her arrival, and published in the Bulletin, but the horrifying story of the sufferings of the shipwrecked men, consisting of Captain Chilcott, master of the Great Britain, the first mate and eight seamen, has only just come to hand. These men were picked up by the Greta in mid-Atlantic, about 600 miles from Cape Clear, in an emaciated and dying condition. The story of their shipwreck and subsequent sufferings is thus told :—While the Great Britain was on her way from Darien for Liverpool, laden with lumber, she encountered very tempestuous weather, in which she sprung a leak and became waterlogged. The crew remained by her, however, for several days, during which time two sons of Captain Chilcott died from exposure. They hoped that some friendly vessel would heave in sight and rescue them, and were consequently fain to leave the helpless ship. But they were doomed to disappointment; and seeing no hope of rescue by remaining any longer by the ship, Captain Chilcott and his crew, numbering in all thirteen men, abandoned her and took to an open boat. Most of the provisions on board the Great Britain was spoiled by water, and the little left was put into the boat in which they embarked. They then cut loose from the helpless ship and steered for the track of vessels bound to England. Their water and provisions were soon exhausted, and for six days they were enduring the agony of

slow starvation. On the seventh day they sighted a steamer. Their hopes being revived by her appearance, they made frantic efforts to attract the attention of those onboard, but without success, and she soon steamed out of sight. Up to that time the cook had been the most cheerful and sanguine of all, but his spirit broke down under this sore disappointment, and during the night he died of exhaustion. The next day another man died. The remaining eleven having been without food or drink for three days, were driven to the dire extremity of eating the livers of their dead comrades to quench their thirst and appease their hunger. On the ninth day a third man died, and the remainder were so emaciated they could barely crawl about the boat. That day the Greta hove in sight, saw the signals of distress of the unfortunate men, and immediately took them on board. There they were kindly treated by Captain McCredie and his crew. But their privations had been so great and they had been reduced so low that, notwithstanding the careful treatment they had received on board the Greta from the hour in which they were picked up until the time she cast anchor in the River Mersey, the greater number of them were so weak on their arrival in Liverpool that they had to be taken to the hospital. AMERICAN PRONUNCIATION. Bichard Grant White speaks thus plainly, and with a touch of fine incisive humor, upon the subject of American pronunciation of English:— " Moreover, as to pronunciation, the observation of the average American is very untrustworthy ; for it is in that respect that the speech of the average American, however ' polite' and ' intelligent' he may be, is most likely to deviate from the true English standard. As a people we utter our language vilely ; as a people we have a bad tone of voice, and very unpleasant inflections, in great variety of unpleasantness, according to the place of our birth and breeding. It is only in a comparatively small, although actually numerous circle of people of high social culture in New England and New York, and in the latter place among those of New England birth, or very direct descent, that the true standard of English speech is found in this cquntry. And even there we too often find proper pronunciation marred by a bad enunciation — a tone nasal and drawling, united to a disposition to a slovenly dropping or slurring of syllables. The clear, firm, crisp enunciation of "the well-bred Englishman, and particularly of the well-bred English woman is heard, even among our most cultivated people, with comparative rarity. What is it that has bo vitiated the voices of most American men, and still more of most American women ? For there is no doubt that the fair sex are in this respect the least to be admired. Among a hundred men you will find perhaps ten or a dozen who open their mouths and speak clearly and freely ; but among a hundred women, not more than one. You shall see a lovely, bright creature, with all the external evidences of culture about her, a woman who will carry you captive so long as she is silent; but let her open her pretty lips, and she shall pierce your ear with a mean, thin, nasal, rasping tone, which at once diminishes her charm. An English woman, even of the lower classes, will delight you with the rich, sweet, smooth, and yet firm and crisp tones in which she utters what may, perhaps, be very bad 'grammar.' And since I am telling unpleasant truths about ourselves, I may as well say here that there is more of this among both Western men and women than among those in other quarters of the country. I recently went into one of our most frequented theatres to pass an hour. There was a scene in progress, and I remained for the time standing just within the door. A lady was doing some emotional business with a high manifestation of toilet and gesticulation. I listened a few minutes, and then, turning to an appar- \ ently official person, I asked him who she was, for the situations and the personages of the play were unknown to me. ' That,' he replied, in a tone of some awe (for she was the ' leading lady,' and the house was very full), and looking at me much as if I had asked a like question as to General Grant or the statue of Washington in the square —' That is Miss .* naming a Western actress of some celebrity. I listened for a few minutes more, and then fled the house. The tone of her voice propelled me from the door like a pellet from a popgun. All the emotional and sensational convulsions into which she could have fallen would not have allured me to sit under her ministrations of the English language for one quarter of an hour. And her speech betrayed her as if she had been a female Peter ; for I knew before I was told that she must have come from the region west of the Alleghanies. — Galaxy for April. THE EVIDENCE OF "EXPERTS." The Times (March 20), commenting upon the action against Mr. Netherclift tried before Lord Coleridge on Saturday, says it would be sorry to call in question the value of evidence given by experts in legal inquiries; buttherehaye been some signs of late that this useful aid in the work of judicial investigation may be forced out of its own subordinate place into a mischievously dictatorial attitude. There is a real danger that we may become subject to the tyranny of expertise. Experts who are very deeply versed in their peculiar branch of knowledge are apt to fix their attention on that alone, and to disregard all the rest of the worldin which they live, and to which they have, after all, to apply their skill But in judicial inquiries it is impossible to accept with unreasoning faith any man's judgment, however special may be his knowledge. Judges and juries are bound to take into account other things besides the opinions of any experts, however eminent. Moreover, it is not easy to retain a childlike faith in the assertions of experts, when we find th<j most illustrious toxicologists flatly contradicting one another about symptoms of poisoning, or railway engineers conclusively proving that of all con-

ceivable causes for a given accident one after another has been proved not to exist. Until public confidence has been raised to something like the level of undoubting assurance from which each expert now regards his own judgment, it will not be possible to allow these eminent persons to travel the very wide limits of the privilege of a witness. The Morning Post (March 20) observes that the evidence of experts has recently been raised to a degree of importance which may well be deemed extravagant. It unfortunately occurs that men of the highest attainments and unimpeachable character are frequently seen ranged against each other—each witness, as might be expected, supporting the views of the party calling him. It is not very surprising, therefore, that juries have begun to regard the evidence of experts with considerable distrust; and an experienced advocate knows that if he has nothing else than such evidence to rely upon he leans upon a broken reed. There are no doubt numerous instances in which the evidence of experts in handwriting may be of great value; but such evidence ought not only never to be received, but ought never to be tendered alone in direct opposition to positive testimony. PATRIOTISM IN DANBURY. They were going to get up a Lady Washington tea party for the benefit of their society. It was to come off on the night of the 22nd, and of an afternoon a few days before several ladies met at the house of one of the number to perfect the arrangements. It was determined to give a grand affair—something especially designed to transcend the tea party by a rival organisation last year. To this purpose it became necessary to devote the most careful thought to all the details, and this v as done. In fact, it would be difficult to find a more conscientious committee in a hamlet the size of Danbury. When all the particulars were arranged and the various stands and minor offices assigned to the ordinary members of the society—who were not present—the important question as to who should take the leading character was brought up. With a view to do without the delay and feeling of balloting, the President kindly offered to do Lady Washington herself. She said that she felt it was not a favorable selection, but she was willing to take it, so that there need be no discussion or illfeeling. If she thought she had not placed a sufficiently modest estimate upon her qualifications for the post, she was presently set at rest on that head. Her offer was received with silence. "What do you think?" she asked. "I'm willing to do it." " Lady Washington never weighed 250 pounds," ominously hinted a thin lady, with very light eyes. " She had fat enough on her to grease a griddle, which is more'n some folks can claim," retorted the President, with anything but a dreamy expression to her face. The tall lady's eyes grew a shade darker and her lips shaped themselves as if they were saying " huzzy," but it is probable they were not. "As our two friends are so little likely to agree," observed a lady whose face showed that she was about to metamorphose herself into a barrel of prime oil, and precipitate herself on to the troubled waters, " I would suggest that I take the character." " Humph !" ejaculated the President. " Is there any objection to my being Lady Washington ?" said the new party, facing abruptly the President, and emptying out the oil and filling up the barrel immediately with a superior grade of vinegar. "I don't know of any, if some one will demonstrate that Lady Washington had a wart on her nose," replied the President, with unblemished serenity. "Am I to be insulted ?" hotly demanded the proprietor of the wart. " The truth ought not to be insulting," replied the President. " I 'spose our President thinks she would be a perfect Lady Washington," ironically suggested a weak-faced woman, who saw her chances for taking the character dejectedly emerge from the small end of the horn. " I don't know as I would be perfect in that role," replied the President, " but as there will be strangers present at the party, I shouldn't want them to think that the nearest approach Danbury could make to the dignity of '76 was a toothless woman down with the jaundice." And the head officer smiled serenely at the ceiling. " What do you mean, you insinuating thing?" hoarsely demanded the victim of the jaundice. " Keep your mouth shut until you are spoken to, then," severely advised the President. " I'm not to be dictated to by a mountain of tallow," hissed the chromatic delegate, flouncing out of the room. " I think we had better get another President before we go any farther," said a sharp-faced woman very much depressed by the outlook for herself. "It isn't hardly time for you yet," observed the President, with a significant look at the sharp-faced woman, "we will have to arrange for Lady Washington and George Washington before we need the hatchet." The sharp-faced lady snatched up her muff without the faintest hesitation, and rushed out of doors to get her breath. She was immediately followed by the proprietor of the wart, the thin lady disastrously connected with a griddle, and the toothless case of jaundice. This left but the President and a little woman who had yet said nothing. " Has it occurred to you that you would like to be Lady Washington ?" asked the President, concentrating both of her eyes on a wen just under the small woman's left ear. " Oh, no," gasped the small woman, impulsively covering up the excrescence with her hand "Then, I guess we'll adjourn sine die," said the President, and pulling on her gloves, she composedly took her departure. And the tea party became the fragment of a gloomy memory.— Danbury Netvs.

THE SKELETON IN THE CLOSET, (From the New York Tribune.) Crowds of young people in New York hurried through the golden gates of matrimony during the last two weeks of February; for even in churches in which the fast of Lent is not observed there is a prejudice against wedding in so gloomy a season. The columns of society papers, which have been filled with descriptions of bridal receptions, trousseaus, and presents have ceased to glow for a fewweeks, and the newly-married folk have leisure to arrange their possessions, take stock of their capital of youth, fortune, and love,_ and to settle down to make such use of it as seems best to them. The Tribune willingly throws in a word of advice as to the fittest of wedding gifts. It is that they carefully search house, baggage, aud hearts, and see that, as they set out on the long journey together, they take no skeletons along with them. Your novel writer, playwright, and poet find the inevitable ghastly tenant of the closet a mighty useful personage. They could not do without him ; he is made to shoulder and lug in all the tragedy, the dramatic situations, the telling points ; but practical housekeepers or home-makers would do well to begin their spring cleaning and Lenten selfexaminations by ridding themselves of all cadavers or any sorts of secrets which have to be kept out of sight as quickly as possible. The skeleton in the majority of houses ruled after the latest mode is a mean economy where economy is unwise, and lavish display in circumstances where display is vulgar. The young husband and wife, if they venture on housekeeping at all, wish, first of all, to improve their little world with their means and good taste. Parlor and dining-room boast their fine carpets or rugs, pictures and bric-a-brac ; there is a showy set of china " for company ;" but the mean skeleton slinks into upper closets with the scanty stock of linen, or among the cheap thin pillows and hard mattresses, or down to the bare, comfortless kitchen, with its meagre supply of pots and pans. There are mansions by gaping passers-by as palatial, whose drawingrooms and state-chambers are marvels of luxury, but whose kitchens and ordinary sleeping-rooms are scarcely fit to be the habitation of paupers. If our ambitious young housekeeper has any such skeletons as this to hide, or any other result of her own indolence or ignorance, she may be sure her sin will find her out, and that at the least convenient season. Sham magnificence never yet covered up poverty, idleness, or uncleanness with its scanty, gaudy drapery. Your fashionable visitor will some day catch a glimpse of the ragged table cloth, or the creeping horror of the basement —ghost harder to lay than Hamlet's father—will rise from his cavern in the kitchen sink to walk on parlor brocatelle. There was an old custom among our greatgrandmothers which required each girl to weave and spin her chests full of under-cloth-ing, bed and table linen, before she could hope for matrimony. Thousands of honest young couples with this provision, a cow, and a clean feather bed, began life courageously together, and ended it with honor and success. Thousands of their descendants, who are ashamed of them, begin it now with fine furniture and a showy house, and not half the preparation for clean comfort and genuine decency. There are other skeletons which had better be thrown out headlong from the new home : that old love affair which the husband passed through long ago, and which he goes back to mope over when he happens to be dyspeptic or out of humor. It lifts him, he fancies, to quite a poetic height—the possession of this lost love, stored away for melancholy emergencies. The best way for his wife to lay this ghost is to bring him face to face with his ideal dream. Ten chances to one she is fat, middle-aged, and frowzy, but in any case the new man and woman into which both have grown are most likely to repel each other. There are other cadavers buried in almost every home ready to breed malaria ; grudges between husband and wife ; sore old family feuds ; unsettled disputes about money. Many people, too, keep a sort of charnel-house atmosphere about by means of incessant secrets ; they wrap themselves in disagreeable mystery ; manage their children and friends by a system of finesse ; they are apt, too, to possess sensitiveness beyond the comprehension of the STURDY STATESMEN. (From the Baltimore Sun.) There has been no public man in America in our day who in mental and physical stamina, at an advanced age, reminded us so much of some of the sturdy British leaders of State as the late Reverdy Johnson. This reflection is called to mind just now by the facts that we see stated in regard to the late premier of England, Mr. Gladstone, who was born December, 1809, and also in reference to Mr. Disraeli, the present Premier, who was born in 1805. There is a much greater difference, it seems, in the physique of these two than the difference of their ages would appear to warrant. English statesmen generally, like most of their countrymen, remain fresh and vigorous at Mr. Disraeli's age, but according to late accounts his constitution does not bear the inroads of age as well as most of his countrymen. At the same time he is still able to hold his own in the House of Commons. A correspondent of the Liverpool Daily Post, recently, gives his impression from the gallery of the House, and speaks of "how well the two greatest men of the House are up to their work." The occasion was the introduction of the Suez canal debate by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The sketcher says:—" It is quite visible to every one that Mr. Disraeli has to be coached a good deal by the Ministers who sit beside- him, and his voice is apt to seem a a little weak and cavernous ; but once planted on his feet, and having straightened his back, he is altogeth' r himself, and can let anybody have it with all the liberal obligingness of Sam Weller at the Brick-lane Junction temperance meeting. As for Mr. Gladstone, * young blood' is the only ex- /

pression adequate to describe him. Erect, oraceful in speech, mellifluous in tone and overflowing with interest in what is going on, he is now what he was in his Chancellor of the Exchequer days, when Palmerston was hearing the things that really try the temper. After all—and this was the saying that went buzzing round all the galleries after the exleader's animated little speech against forcing on the Suez debate—there is no parliamentary figure of our time to compare with Mr. Gladstone's." The vital energy thus described is so great that it is thought that if a change of political circumstances were to occur Mr. Gladstone would scarcely hesitate to assume office. Had not our distinguished American fellow-citizen, Mr. Johnson, met with the unfortunate accident which ended his life, he might have yet for some years borne in public forums the mastery of debate. MR. GUNN. HOW HE TOOK SMITH'S LIFE. The life insurance agent, Benjamin P. Gunn, the other day heard that old Mr. Smith had no insurance upon his life, so Gunn concluded to drop in to see him. Smith had no acquaintance with Gunn, and when the latter entered the office he introduced himself by saying : " Mr. Smith, I called to see if I could take your life." " Wh —wh—what d'you say ?" exclaimed Smith, in some alarm. "I say that I've come around to take your life. My name is Gunn. As soon as I heard you were unprotected, that you had nothing on your life, I thought I would just run in and settle the thing for you at once." Then Smith got up and went to the other side of the table, and said to himself : " It's a lunatic who has broken out of the asylum. He'll kill me if I holloa or run. I must humor him." Then Gunn, fumbling in his pocket after his mortality tables, followed Smith around the room, and said to him : " You can choose your own plan, you know. It's immaterial to me. Some like one way, and some like another. It's a matter of taste. Which do you prefer ?" " I'd rather not die at all," said Smith, in despair. " But you've got to die, of course," said Gunn, "that's a thing there is no choice about. All 1 can do is to make death easy for you ; to make you feel happy as you go off. Now, which plan will you take ?" " Couldn't you postpone it until to-morrow, so as to give me time to think ?" " No ; I prefer to take you on the spot. I might as well do it now as at any other time. You have a wife and children ?" " Yes, and I think you ought to have some consideration for them and let me off." " Well, that's a curious kind of an argument," said Gunn. " When I take you your family will be perfectly protected, of course, and not otherwise." " But why do you want to murder me ? "Murder you ! Murder you! Who, in thunder is .talking about murdering you ?" "Why, didn't you say " " I called to get you to take out a life insurance policy in our company, and I " " Oh, you did, did you ?" said Smith, suddenly becoming fierce. " Well, I ain't a going to do it, and I want you to skip out of this office, or I'll brain you with the poker. Come now, skip!" Then Mr. Gunn w ithdrew without selling a policy, and Smith is still uninsured. THE PROFITABLE DISPOSAL OF NIGHTSOIL. The question is, and should be, one of great interest in Wellington, as it is of extreme local importance. It occupies a good deal of attention all over the world, and therefore the following from the Melbourne Argus, giving an account of the proceedings of the Collingwood Poudrette and Ammonia Company, should be read carefully, as showing that the question has received apparent solution on this side of the equator : The company above named having at length cmmmenced active operations, some particulars in regard to it and its doings will prove interesting to the public, and all the more that its success will be the solution of a most difficult sanitary problem, and an unquestionable boon to the general community. To begin at the beginning, it may be stated in the first place that the process which the company carries on is one that was devised by Messrs. Hesse and Pummel some years ago. Each of these gentlemen had previously had experience in chemical manufactories in Europe, and when the nightsoil difficulty assumed prominence in Melbourne they set themselves to contrive a mode of dealing with animal excreta in a way that would at once abate the nuisance created by such substances and convert them into merchantable commodities. Having succeeded to their own satisfaction in completing a process by which this could be effected, they put up small experimental works at St. Kilda two years ago, and invited a number of scientific gentlemen, and gentlemen interested in sanitary questions, to witness a trial of their process. Though, owing to defects in the temporary apparatus then employed, the experiments were not entirely successful, they were so nearly so as to justify Dr. McCrea, after witnessing their experiments, to certify that the noxious smells caused by the process were considerably less noticeable in the latter than in the earlier experiments, and that after the completion of the operation the residuum was inoffensive. Another member of the Central Board of Health had no hesitation in saying that the machinery worked by the patentees supplies a want long felt of getting rid of the nightsoil difficulty in relation to the health of towns, and at the same time manufacturing a valuable manure without causing any annoyance or nuisance to those living in the closest proximity to the place where the operations are carried on." Mr. Girdlestone wrote : —" I am quite satisfied that all the nightsoil in Melbourne may be treated

in the manner proposed by Messrs. Hesse and Rummel, without creating any nuisance, as ordinary care and supervision are only necessary for success, the machinery employed being very simple and most efficient." Mr. Sydney Gibbons, after thoroughly examining the process, and analysing the products, said : only is all smell and nuisance entirely removed, but the products are highly encouraging, when considered in their relation to profit." Mr. W. M. Johnson, Government analytical chemist, also examined the artificial guano resulting from the process, and found it to contain 7'6 per cent, of phosphates, chiefly lime, and 77 - 2 per cent, of organic matter, equal to ammonia 7'2. This was the end of the first stage in the history of the enterprise. The next step was to obtain such help or co-operation as would be necessary to the erection of works on a somewhat extensive scale, for, like inventors in general, Messrs. Hesse and Rummel were not able to embody their ideas at their own charges. Overtures were made to this end in different directions, but for some time without success. The City Council, though most directly interested in the success of the new process, did nothing to help it on. The Fitzroy Council was appealed tc, but did nothing. The Collingwood Council took sufficient interest in the matter as to offer a portion of its manure reserve at a moderate rent for the initiation of the process, if a company were formed to carry it on. Ultimately such a, company was formed and registered, the nominal capital being £7OOO. But so far as we can learn the shares were never absorbed, nor were the calls made upon those that were subscribed for well paid. Consequently the company has all along been crippled for want of funds, and the enterprise was near being abandoned more than once. Another serious hindrance arose through some engineering mistake having been committed in the planning of the apparatus, which necessitated the doing of the work over again, causing delay and wearing out the patience of the shareholders. Nevertheless the directors persevered in the face of great difficulties, until—as has been already sa id—the process of manufacture is now in actual operation. The erection of the works was commenced a year ago, and finished two months since, from which time work has been carried unremittingly. We are informed that it will now go on regularly and constantly. The company's works are on the banks of the Merri Creek, just beyond the Corporation stone-breaking works, and are readily accessible from the Heidelberg-road, from which they are about 60 yards distant. About 100 tons of nightsoil a week will be treated, and this is supplied by nightmen, who pay the company 2s. a load to take the stuff off their hands, which it pays them well to do, since otherwise they Avould have to cart it four or five miles further. From the 100 tons there will be obtained 10 tons of solid guano (as the company calls its manure), and this, we are informed, is readily saleable at the rate of £5 per ton. Indeed, we are assured that there are extensive orders on hand which the company will not be able to supply for some time to come, and some of these from farmers who have tried and proved the company's manure. Besides the guano, there is also obtained from the 100 tons of material 1 J.tons of sulphate of ammonia, said to be worth £lB 15s. per ton in England, where it is used as a manure. There is no market for it here at present, but by a slight change of process the company can produce nitrate or carbonate, instead of sulphate, of ammonia, and both of those substances are used in certain of our colonial manufactures. The process of manufacture and the apparatus employed may be described together. In the first place, there is on the works a Cornish boiler of 14ft. by 4ft., which supplies steam to drive a 12 h.p. engine, and performs ether services to be referred to as we go on. When the nightcarts arrive with their loads they are emptied into a brick circular tank, 27ft. in diameter and 7ft. deep, which holds about 120 tons. This reservoir is cemented within and securely roofed with redgum and asphalte. It has trapdoors by which its charge is introduced, and inside these are iron gratings to exclude the dead dogs and cats, sardine tins, and old shoes which often form portions of the contents of the carts. Inside the reservoir there is a kind of puddling apparatus like a revolving harrow, to reduce the contents to a uniform consistency, and prevent the settlement of the more solid portions. From this the stuff is run off into a vessel called a "fire-heater," which is a closed circular iron tank, capable of holding about seven tons. In this there is a coil or worm of iron piping, into which steam is admitted until the contents reach a temperature of 200 deg. Fahr., any gases formed in the process being led into the retorts' to be next described, by means of a pipe provided for that purpose. The retorts are two in number, of boiler plate, and have a capacity of ten tons each. Inside them there are agitators, consisting of vertical iron rods with seven double arms, and chains to rub upon their bottoms and prevent deposition. The agitating apparatus works at a speed of twentytwo revolutions a minute, and while keeping the contents of the retorts at an even consistency, they also prevent their bottoms from being fouled. The material under treatment having been run into the retorts from the " fire-heater," is raised to a temperature of 230 deg. Fahr., when of course vapor is formed. This passes off by still-heads attached to the retorts, and is conducted into, a lead-lined iron tank, open at top, containing a solution of sulphuric acid ; the still-head pipe having by this time branched into two pipes, each 3in. in diameter, which are perforated from the point at which they enter the sulphuric acid bath. As the steam first escapes from the retort it is charged with ammonia, and this is immediately seized by the sulphuric acid in the bath, and liquid sulphate ©f ammonia is formed. After the ammonia-charged steam comes over, there comes steam charged with sulphuretted hydrogen gas. The liquor and gases are next

conveyed to a condenser, fitted with a worm supplied with cold water from the ereek, when the contained sulphate of ammonia is precipitated in the form of beautiful crystals, which would be an ornament to a drawing-room table, and give not the most distant hint as to their origin. The remaining sulphuretted hydrogen gas is then carried through a pipe into the furnace voider the boiler, and there consumed. After about twenty hours' distillation the residual contents of this retort are drawn off by means of a valve in the bottom of the retort, and conveyed through pipes to a kiln. About three tons remain of the original charge of ten tons, and the material is of about the consistency of thin paste. The kiln is floored with tiles, and is heated by means_ of spent steam from the engine. After being twenty hours in the kiln, the material is of a tough, gluey texture, and has to be further dried by exposure on a drying floor. The last process is to reduce it to a coarse powder, which is done in a mill something resembling the "devil" used in flock factories to tear up rags ; to screen it, and then bag it up for market. It has been seen that no portion of the material operated upon is permitted to go to waste. The contained ammonia becomes a highly valuable article of commerce, the phosphates and organic matter other _ than ammonia, and the soluble salts, meet in the resultant manure, and the carburetted hydrogen evolved by the distillation process goes to fire up the boiler and save wood and coal. If the future operations of the company show a profit, or even if they cannot show a very considerable loss, and if it is found that they can really be carried on within a short distance of inhabited houses without causing offence, then unquestionably a most important discovery will have been made, and a most valuable process introduced. In the interests of the public all must desire to see the hopes of the Poudrette Company crowned with success. GOSSIP. (From the Hartford Post.) What is the cure for gossip ? Simply culture. There is a great deal of gossip that has no malignity in it. Good natured people talk about their neighbors because, and only because, they have nothing else to talk about. As we write there comes to us a picture of a family of young ladies. We have seen them at home ; we have met them in galleries of art; we have caught glimpses of them going from a bookstore or library, with a fresh volume in their hands. When we meet them they are full of what they have seen and read. They are brimming with questions. One topic of conversation is dropped only to give place to another in which they are interested. We have left them, after a delightful hour, stimulated and refreshed, and during the whole hour not a neighbor's garment was soiled by so much as a touch. They had something to talk about. They knew something, and wanted to know more. They could listen as well as they could talk. To speak freely of a neighbor's doings and belongings would have seemed an impertinence to them, and, of course, an impropriety. They had no temptation to gossip, because the doings of their neighbors formed* a subject very much less interesting than those which grew out of their knowledge and their culture. And this tells the whole story. The confirmed gossip is always either malicious or ignorant. The one variety needs a change of heart, and the other a change of pasture. Gossip is always a personal confession either of malice or imbecility, and the young should not only shun it, but by the most thorough culture relieve themselves from all temptation to indulge in it. It is a low, frivolous, and too often a dirty business. There are country neighborhoods in which it rages like a pest. Churches are split in pieces by it. Neighbors are made enemies by it for life. In many persons it degenerates into a chronic disease which is practically incurable. Let the young cure it while they may. THE OUTCOME OF DEMOCRACY. (From the New Zealand Times.) CAMiYLE's gravest charge against the democratic tendency of modern institutions is its apparent, if not inevitable, repression of individual greatness. _ He puts it in his usual bizarre but admirably vigorous style. "My friends," we find him. saying, "the follies of liberalism, many and great though they be, are practically summed up in this denial or neglect of the quality and intrinsic value of things. Its rectangular beatitudes and spherical benevolence —theology of universal indulgence and jurisprudence which will hang no rogues —mean one and all of them, iu the root, incapacity of discerning or refusal to discern worth and unworth in anything, and least of all in man; whereas, nature and heaven command you at your peril to discern worth from unworth in everything, and most of all in man If yon refuse such inquiry, and maintain every man for his neighbor's match,—if you give vote to the simple and liberty to the vile, —the powers of those spiritual and material worlds in due time present you inevitably with the same problem, soluble now only wrong side upwards, and your robbery and slaving must then be done to find out « Who is worst man V which in so wide an order of merit is indeed not easy; but a complete Tammany Ring and lowest circle in the Inferno of Worst you are sure to find to be governed by." There is something in this, but not much —not much, at all events, that any democrat need be very careful to put away from him. The worth insisted upon by Carlyle might be regarded as unworth by the democrat, who denies that mere strength of will as exhibited in Frederick or Napoleon is worth at all, but rather essen-

tial devilment. The United States may furnish an illustration, if not a warning, on the point under discussion. There we certainly find an absence of the individualism which more or less prevails in less democratic countries. Even the riches amassed in some of the large cities fail to confer any distinction on' their owners other or better than an ostentatious display of jewellery and equipage. _ There is a monotony of tone and sentiment, whereby Pompey and Cresar become very much alike, specially Pompey. But is this, it may be asked, a state of things to be specially deprecated, considering the advantages which follow in its train 1 Nowhere than in America is there greater general comfort, more mutual toleration, or higher respect for law and order ; and if there chance to be few or no great men in the Carlylean sense, there are also no tyrants. Better, it seems to us, that there should be a hundred men of average stature, than one giant and ninetynine dwarfs bending at the other's nod. A small fly, however, may be discerned in the ointment, and as it is the truth we are seeking after, and not arguments in favor of any special political view, we at once advert to it. With all due respect for American institutions, there is no getting over the fact that such men as the country esteems great fail to obtain any of the chief offices of the State, and notably the chiefest office. Regularly or irregularly the Presidential elections seem to develop a system of which Athenian ostracism was but a faint type. Your fourth and fifth-rate men push themselves forward ; your men of mark require to be pushed by others, and the crowd is too unthinking, save at rare intervals, to perform this service for itself. A clear head and an honest heart will always make respectable work, as was very unequivocally demonstrated in the case of the lamented President Lincoln ; but intellectual culture would give an added o-race and a new force to all other accomplishments, and the fact that it is persistently passed over, strikes us as a weakness in the American system. According to the ancient democratic theory, not only ought gi-eat men to be plentiful in the United States, but they ought almost as a matter of course to rise to the highest offices of trust and influence. The failure of the theory is as decided in the one particular as in the other. America succeeds in rearing many brave and good men —the best of all products ; but her men of political eminence are only "conspicuous by their absence," and those avlio may be ranked as such she thrusts into inferior places. Modern democracy, however, may consider this result as its proper outcome. In a recent work of Hepworth Dixon, descriptive of Switzerland, he introduces his tourist among the hills to an engineer from Bern, and in talk together the latter thus describes the political state of that country : —'' We have no noble class, no pauper class, no standing army, no official church. We have no language of our own. We have no common code. We have no public debt. No man amongst us owns the best part of a canton, as a Russian prince the best part of a province, and an English duke the best part of a shire. Nine men in ten are owners of the soil they graze and plough." This is good enough in its way, but not entirely good. What follows, however, is the piece de resistance. The tourist ventures to say : " You do not want great men in your republic." And here is the answer : "No, we want good men, not great men. In our system what you call great men can have no part ; they would disturb us, perhaps destroy us. A republic is a league of equals, not a company of general officers and men-at-arms. A great man is a monarch. If a Ctesar should arise amongst us we might have to kill him We are a band of brothers, but without an eldest born. Our rule is—All for each, and each for all: the oath of Griitli, our unwritten code. All teaching has with us this end in view, that no one shall grow up into a man until he has learnt to rank the public weal above his private gain. . . . We break the force of our prevailing wind by groynes, by dykes, and by dividingwalls ; that is to say, by giving to each canton and each commune in our country separate and substantial powers ; to every canton equal votes, to every commune local life." Here there is certainly no call for great men, and great men never appear except when they are called. But it must be noted that throughout this discussion the class referred°to is that of great men politically —statesmen, warriors, men of kingly faculty. If we assume that these are not required, not even desirable, under democratic institutions, it does not follow that there should not be men great as rjoets, philosophers, scholars. Moderate means, quiet study, bracing air, and the absence of political excitement should prove congenial elements for the true and the beautiful, and when America has felled her forests and made her prairies vocal with the song of homes and families—- " Cloud, gorse, and whirlwind on the o-orgeous moor" —her great men will come to the front; if not in one capacity, then in another.

A VITAL QUESTION. (From the New Zealand Times.) Hardly have our nerves settled from the thrill of horror after the shock caused by the revelations of the "dynamite fiend," when the world is again startled by another crime of unexampled nature. The telegraph has informed us that the Atlantic cable, the result of so much skill, science, and enterprise, and the source of so much convenience to the commercial and political world, has been deliberately fished up, and wantonly wickedly cut in sunder. The reflections suggested by this crime following so closely after that of the supreme outrage upon humanity and audacious disregard of the moral sense of the Christian world, are indeed momentous. So far as history informs us, we are quite justified in saying that in no age, no period of the human race, had man such power over nature as at present. Never before had wealth reached such a gigantic development, never before was intelligence so widely diffused, never before were the general conveniences of life so great. The school—the manufactory, so to say, of intelligence, the gymnasium of the soul — is now the recognised battle ground of parties and of sects. Now, we ask the question, is the conscience of man_ progressing in vitality and sensitiveness in proportion to the manifest march of his power over natural forces 1 This momentous question is directly suggested by such crimes as those referred to. And while there is no escaping its appalling interrogations, there is just as little chance of evading the other question which is its natural sequence, viz., if this moral progression is not going on, how' is the world to deal with the difficulty J Man, in the infancy of the race, in his ignorance, his utter feebleness to command or understand nature, was awestruck, overwhelmed, in her mighty presence : in the very abjectness of his own littleness he fell down and worshipped her. All the oldest religions bear this mark on their face. But now, aided by the all-powerful economic forces of capital, co-operation, exchange, and invention, he has triumphed over nature—he commands her. By social and mechanical forces, by uniting his intellectual and moral powers, that is, by co-operation, exchange, and capital ; by invention, that is, by using the forces of nature to subdue nature, man has made her his slave. But she is a blind slave. Will he make a beneficent use of her obedience ? His power has increased prodigiously, but has his reverence, his veneration, decreased 1 In the face of these great crimes, crimes of a nature quite novel to human experience, the question has a most unpleasant sound. The greatest living Engligh jurist, Sir Henry Maine says :—" From time to time " we are startled at the spectacle of frauds " unheard of before the period at which "they were observed, and astonishing from " their complication, as well as shocking " from their criminality. . . . The only " form of dishonesty treated of in the most " ancient Roman law is theft. The newest " chapter in English criminal law is one " which attempts to prescribe punishment " for the frauds of trustees. The proper '' inference from this contrast is not that " the primitive Romans practised a higher " morality than ourselves. We should " rather say that, in the interval between " their clays and ours, morality has ad- " vanced from a very rude to a highly " refined conception." We fear much that although this dictum comes from one of the highest living authorities, it is an optimist view of the case. Never before on this earth were the seductions of wealth, the _ enjoyments it brings, the power it confers, so vast as now. Never before were the temptations to acquire its fruits in an unfair way so alluring ; never _ before were the ways and means so multifarious for carrying into practice the devilish enterprises of dishonesty. This is the bane ; once more we ask where is the antidote ? A fiend in human form, a monster on whom was shed the holy influences of home and family relations, of wife and children, apparently in vain, coolly and deliberately during many months devises and with chuckling gleeful satisfaction matures a plan which is in an instant to blow to annihilation many thousands pounds worth of property, and to send to eternity many hundreds of unsuspecting fellow-creatures. And what is the adequate motive 'I That he may put into his pocket a few paltry thousands of gain. And through all the months of devilish contrivance his conscience (if he had one") sleeps : it only appears to awaken to a sense of the nature of his crime when the premature explosion involves himself in the ruin. But now suppose the scheme had succeeded and everything had turned out as he intended, how long would he have gone on in this terrible career ? In how many other cases of ships never heard did the dynamite fiend or some other fiend succeed 1 and iu how many other cases may not the attempt be made and be successful 1 What real guarantee or safeguard have we against such things 'I These questions are appalling, but they must be answered somehow—the danger must be looked in the face. And what

answer at this day are we to make 1 Is it that the highly advanced state of morality, the sensitive, vital condition of the human conscience will be sufficient check ? Is it really so much stronger and more enlightened than it was some centuries or decades back that it will be eqxial to the prodigious strain upon it 1 Will this conscience alone be able to withstand the solicitations to using a power which can be employed in almost perfect secrecy and darkness, and with comparative safety 1 We greatly fear the facts are against such a view. And to this nefarious and wanton act of cutting the Atlantic cable what is the motive ? At present we can only speculate. Gain in some shape or other it is almost certain to be ; and for this some scoundrel or scoundrels, for the time, suspend the humanising influence of nation upon nation the round world over. Truly we begin to feel that our vainglorious boast of the nineteenth century, its intelligence, &c, is premature. Time was when men setting out on a journey made their wills, and with reason. Dick Tukpin, or Tom King, or Claude Duval rode up to the coach, presented his credentials in the shape of a loaded pistol, with " your money or your life." But is ,the race of Kings and Turpins extinct 1 ? They do not do it in that way certainly : that is not a sufficiently refined civilised mode for our day. It is done now scientifically. The form is different, but the essence of the outrage is the same. The men are essentially the same, only less manly, a great deal more cowardly and mean. It is clear that the increased and rapidly diffusing knowledge of natural forces is leading to new forms of crime and fraud, and these are of such a nature that the theatre of their operations is not any one country but the highways of the world. How is the police of the world to be kept ] The nations will have to combine their efforts, and to unite their intelligence in order to defeat the enterprises of these desperadoes. " When bad men combine, good men must associate," says Burke, and truly it is time they set about it. This association of nations for the repression of unprecedented crime will, we doubt not, contribute strongly towards an end to which so many forces of an economic kind are tending. We mean the aggregation of the whole human family in one great whole. Commercial causes have long been powerfully working in that direction, and now moral causes appear certain to add their force. Whatever may be the ultimate result of these measures of international police, the questions we have put lose nothing of their momentous interest for all reflecting people. It is quite certain that the most vigilant and stringent measures of public repression can only be partially effective insuch cases. We are therefore driven back upon the original topic, so suggestive, so far-reaching—"ls the human con*'science really progressing; it it growing'in 1 restraining power in anything like a pro- " portion to the expanding allurements to " dishonesty and crime!" The thoughts of men may be, most likely are, " widen"ing with the process of the suns," but we greatly doubt if their consciences are quickening. AN ANSWER TO THE QUESTION. TO THE EDITOR OP THE NEW ZEALAND TIMES. Sib, —The question asked in your leader of Saturday, June 3, "Is the conscience of man progressing in vitality and sensitiveness in pro. portion to the manifest march of his power over natural forces?" arises so pertinently from the remarks which precede it, and the sequence "If this moral progression is not going on, how is the world to deal with the difficulty ?" comes so forcibly to those who have been trusting that this moral progression has really been going on, that a reply to both from the only reliable source, the Word of God, cannot be impertinent. In the Bible it is written of the whole race, "there is none that doeth good ; no, not one." And accordingly in the details we find crime and wrongdoing iu all times and in all nations down to the end. The heart of man shows no progress, for the " carnal mind is not subject to the law of God ; neither, indeed, can be." This being so, " how is the world to deal with the difficulty ?" It cannot ; for all are in the same state, rulers as well as ruled. There is no hope in man individually or collectively ; but God has prepared a means by which any one may step out of this connection with the race of Adam into a new position and standing, in which there is not only hope but certainty, for the result is already accomplished, and the benefit of what God has done is now offered in the good news about His Son Jesus Christ, who He says has "borne our sins," for "He has made Him to be sin who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him." Here, then, is stated that the opportunity is offered to all to change places—a righteous one treated as if he were unrighteous, that those truly unrighteous might not perish (as they otherwise will do) but have everlasting life. By taking to himself what God says is true, a person is instantly freed from condemnation, and with the remission of sins is given power to overcome sin. This is the set before us in the Gospel. All efforts to improve the race of Adam by restraint or punishment are set aside, and a new creation is effected by receiving Christ. — I am, &c, Wjr. Jno. Gandy. Wellington, June 3.