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New Zealand Mail, Issue 426, 10 April 1880, Page 11

THE appointments gazetted under the Property Assessment Act, however necessary for keeping the machinery of the Act in motion in reality mark the establishment of an additional department of the public service, or at least an extension of the department created under the Land Tax Act. A Chief Commissioner, eleven Deputy-Commissioners, six Clerks, and seven Cadets comprise the permanent staff, and it may be presumed a lesser number would not be suffic ent. It is not a very formidable array when the amount of work in each district is taken into account, but yet in the present state of colonial finance, a decreasing revenue and increasing liabilities, outlay in departmental expenditure will be jealously watched by the public, and in no case more so than in the expenditure incidental to the imposition of a tax which has been to with a bad grace, and to the thought of which the pub'ic are only half reconciled. When the House meets—and the time for the opening of the session is fast approaching—there will be a close enquiry as to the expenses and results of the working of the Property Tax Department, and a demand made that the most stringent economy shall be exercised.

The charge of criminal assault preferred by a woman named Symes against Wm. Bowden, bailiff, fell through on Saturday, in consequence of the prosecutrix failing to put in an appearance. As Mr. Gordon Allan observed, it is very hard that so serious a charge should be laid agrinst a man, and be allowed to fall through, for when once such a charge is made the accuser should be compelled to face the accused in Court. The result of this case is eminently unsatisfactory. The man is placed in the box, and discharged because his accuser does not happen to be present, and after the Court has risen the woman makes her appearance, having, according to her statement, made a mistake in the time through not being the fortunate possessor of a clock. She avers that she is perfectly ready to go on with the case, but the accused hag been set at liberty, and the magistrate (very properly no doubt) declines to issue a fresh warrant for his arrest, unless the police tak* the initiative. The circumstances of the alleged assault are, however, so improbable, that the police do not care to take up the case, consequently the accused is debarred the opportunity of proving his innocence. All this would have been avoided had the usual course been followed of delaying the ca«e in order to compel the attendance of the witness.

■' The following extract from the Sydney Herald will interest many readers in Wellington. It refers to exhibits of bookbinding in the Sydney Garden Palace:—"French and Italian bookbinding frequently approaches the costly and elaborate character of that of Germany, but it is not represented at the Exhibition ; neither is that of England, save as employed for the more expensive descriptions of. ledgers and office books. In the Australasian Courts it is otherwie, for the various displays of colonial bookbinding form, both separately and as a whole, an exhibit not merely of a creditable character, but one of the highest excellence, as combining the best taste with the soundest workmanship, and avoiding the error, so prevalent in Germany, of sacrificing utility to mere ornament. Take, for instance, the New Z aland Court. There we have at least half a dozen different exhibits of colonial bookbinding, each of which shows the high state of perfection already attained by the antipodean workmen. 1 'erhaps the finest collection is that of Mr. George Didsbury, of Wellington. This includes eleven volumes of the ' Transactions of the New Zealand Institute,' plainly but tastefully bound ; a large ledger, bound in russia under bands ; a journal, bound in green vellum with single russia bands, and a cash-book bound in full rough calf with doable russia bands. Although these fail to rival the magnificent display of commercial bookbinding belonging to Messrs. Waterlow and Sons, in the British Court, they appi oach so closely in many respects that the time cannot be far distant when the skill of the English handicraftsman will be found more ' than rivalled by that of the colonial workman. The other New Zealand exhibitors are—Mr. Robert Burrett, Wellington ; Messrs. Ferguson and Mitchell, Dunedin ; Messrs. Lyon and Blair, Wellington ; Messrs. J. T. Smith and Co., Cbristchurch ; Messrs. Tombs and Davis, Christchurch ; and Messrs. Wise and Co., Dunedin ; among whose collective exhibits not a single specimen of inferior bookbinding is to be found."