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New Zealand Mail, Issue 889, 15 March 1889, Page 1

The Company managing J. W- Grayson’s inventions has sold to the French Government for 2,500,000 francs the patent for the cannon throwing with ordinary gunpowder shells charged with dynamite. An American gentleman, the possessor of a wonderfully strong and vigorous electric motor, offers to drive the presses of a London daily newspaper by means of electricity conveyed from New York by cable. Distance in electricity is, of course, a matter of no consequence, but tbe difficulty that presents itself in all electric arrangements, in their present condition, is the possibility of the electric current breaking off at a most inopportune moment.—Court Journal.

In this age a reason for everything is required. A Melbourne lady was asked why her only son, who need never toil for his daily bread, was put as a clerk into a bank instead of being given a profession befitting his station iu life, and this was her answer : “ Well, you see, Tom hasn’t much brains, but he’s gopd looking. Some of these days he’ll have to marry, and the knowledge he’ll gain will save him from a mistake he would regret all his life. Fathers may deceive the world about the state of their" affairs, but they find it very hard to deceive their bankers.”

It was undoubtedly a smart journalistic and telegraphic exploit that the Daily Telegraph containing Mr Burleigh's message, dated Suakim, 8.30 a.m., announcing General Grenfell’s success, was selling in Fleetstreet three-qnarters of an hour earlier, says the World of January 2. But there is on record a much more remarkable instance of how a telegram can overtake time. Sir Sam Brown’s column occupied Ali Musjid in the Khyber Pass about 8 a.m., November 22,1879. A correspondent immediately rode ten miles to the nearest field telegraph office at Jumrood, and his message to his London paper bore date 10.30 am. Newspapers containing it were selling in Fleetstreet beforo 8 am. The message was immediately re-telegraphed to New York, and was in time for the ordinary issues of that city’s morning papers. It was sped on across the American- continent, and appeared in the San Francisco papers published at five o’clock the same morning. Puck professed his ; ability to-put a girdle round the world in 40 minutes ; blit this message darted half rouud the wo. Id ill considerably'less than no time at all I ! - u '' 4 • >*

‘ Referring to the rise of the newspaper enterprise in Nhw Zealand, b Writer iii a recent issue of the" Colonies and India,' says About the same time (1838),‘somb of the Ihefary m’en'of that daypptafefy jSoubjls together" dud got a printing press and sopap type frpm Sydney,' They also persuaded a compositor to emigrate to New Zealand. The paper was accordingly issued in 1839, and was called the Bay o f Islands Observer. This was the first paper issued in New Zealand, In those days everyone knew each other, and local subscribers amused themselves with writing ‘skits ’on their friends. Later in the year strangers began to arrive, and at the beginning of 1840 a man-of-war anchored in the Bay. The editor of the newspaper inserted anything sent to him, and amongst other items published a notice of a sale of broken-down horses, which was to take place at Okniato, the seat of Government at the Bay of Islands. Some of the Government officials imagined they were being lampooned py the notice, and sent threats of action for libel. These spqt a thrill of horror intp all , concerned in the newly-founded newspaper, and the bantling in New Zealand ceased to exist. Thus the first newspaper was frightened to death,”