HERE AND THERE.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1107, 19 May 1893, Page 12

HERE AND THERE.

Marton is to have a Parliamentary Union.

Two well-known Napierites, Messrs F. Smith and F. W. Bear, are off home to England for a trip.

Scene, a Parisian restaurant. Enter a fussy old gentleman, who, after choosing his table, beckons to the waiter and says confidentially, ' I want a really good dinner. Here's your tip beforehand. Now what do recommend ?' Waiter, looking cautiously round and whispering in the client's ear: • Go somewhere else.'

Canon Venables, writing recently to the Speotator, mentions,'that his father, when Alderman of the City of "London, frequently heard George TV. speak'of • -my royal Chy of Lunnon.' The same monarch was corrected by John Kemble for saying 'obleege' instead of 'oblige'; but Canon Venables tells us that his old rector, Julius Charles Hare, would-say,' Obleege me by passing the cowcumber,' while his friend, Walter Savage Landor, always called 'lilacs' 'laylocks,' and 'violets' ' vilets.' Both these pronunciations survive in the speech of the country folk. We all know the story of the huntsman who, hunting late in spring, declared that it was impossible for hounds to pick up scent among ' them stinking vilets.' Canon Venables says that he well remembers the officiating clergyman in St Woolnoth's Church speak sonorously of' a lodge in a garden of cowcumbers!

The Marton Mercury says:—'lt is stated that all the men directly concerned in the recent sly-grog • selling cases at Ohingaiti have been discharged from the co-operative works, and will not henceforth b« eligible for employment under Government.' Quite right, too.

Mrs Sala tells krher husband's paper an interesting anecdote of Lord Beaconsfield, which she lately heard from a friend of that statesman.' One day in a rainy June, her informant, 1 ' Mr C came from the City to the Tethple to visit a legal friend living in chambers, and just as he reached the doorway of the block of chambers wherein his friend resided, he noticed Beaconsfield step from the roadway into the hall door, there to stay until the storm passed. ' Seeing that the exPremier was a little annoyed at the persistent rain, Mr C. boldly approached the great man and invited him to take shelter in his friend's rooms until the rain had ceased, an invitation that was refused. 'I am in a hurry to get home," said Beaconsfield, and as I have come out for a constitutional! shall prefer to walk the distance.' 'May I offer you'• my umbrella, then ?' said Mr C. ' No, rip, no,'was the reply. 'Thank you verj much; you are most kind, but I never in my life carried an umbrella or wore a watch.' What could have been the origin of Beaconsfield' anti. pathy to those two useful articles ?

The Wairarapa Standard, referring to a mistake which occurred in the columns of the N.Z. Times the other day says:—'lt is plain that "handy Andy" still lives, and his home is in the N.Z. Times Office.' But perhaps the Standard will inform us who is ' handy Andy*'

Mr Algernon Taylor, in a privately printed volume,' Memories of a Student,' gives the following'story of John Stuart Mill's tenacious memory : ' Essaying with my tyro pen to give some account of a visit to Lake of Albano, and being at a loss for the sort of trees a wood bordering its banks, close to Castle Gandolfo, consisted of, I thought it worth while asking Mr Mill, who was sitting reading, if he chanced to know and remember the wood in question—in the heart of Italy, be it remembered, and scarcely in itself of extraordinary interest —to which random question the author of ' The Logic,' the ' Political Economy,' and the '' Liberty' replied without a moment's hesitation and almost without lifting his eyes off his book, that it was ilex.'

Master ton journalistic amenities ! The Star editor having referred to the Daily Times man as ' a hard-hearted and fiendish mortal,' the Times 1 ' retaliates with the following :—' We shall take no further notice of him or of anything which he Writes or says, unless he becomes too offensive, and then we shall probably kick the pitiful ex-Salvation Army impostor.' Warm!

Two Maories have been elected on the Mohaka (Hawke's Bay) School Committee.

The invention of a bullet-proof uniform by a Westphalian tailor recalls an anecdote, says the Pall Mall Gaaette, of the great Duke of Wellington. A stranger gained admittance to the War Offico one busy morning and urged the Duke to introduce into the army a bullet-proof jacket which he had invented. He produced a specimen. ' Bullet-proof ?' said the Duke, 1 very good. Put it on, will you ?' The man did so. The Duke rang a bell; an officer appeared. ' Tell Captain so and so to send two of his men here—and letthe'ni load with hajl cargidges,' When the I|uke

looked up from his writing presently the inventor had disappeared.

Mr Bawson, R.M., was very rough on the Invercargill reporters the other day, saying that they ' reported some of the most idiotic things a man could say. Of course the resident magistrate meant to say something very different, and the Southland Times man is not afraid to tell him that magistrates do sometimes say most idiotic things, which, inconveniently, perhaps, find their way into the papers.

j The Lyttelton Times states that an j hotel-keeper in Christchurch was recently j duped to a considerable extent by a couple of sharpers who succeeded in removing a cash-box containing money and cheques to the amount of above A tall, gaudily dressed man, wearing eye-glasses, entered the bar of the hotel, stood treat liberally to the one or two persons who were present, and tendered a five pound note in payment for the drinks. The landlady had to go to the cash-box for the change, and just after she had put the notes inside it, and closed it up, the stranger diverted her attention to some cigars which he had. A confederate then secured the box and levanted, the smartly dressed stranger shortly afterwards following. The next morning the landlord received an envelope containing the cheques, as doubtless the thieves knew better than to attempt to cash them.

It is stated that Dr MacCarthy, of Wellington, has purchased Dr Isdell's practice in Marton.

In Mr Cleveland's Cabinet there is one member who is a humourist of the first water, says the Evening News and Post. Mr Julius S. Morton, the Minister for Agriculture is never at a loss for a story to drive home an idea, and stump oratory knows no more resourceful practitioner. He believes in Free Trade, or tariff reform in the direction of Free Trade, and, addressing a meeting of farmers recently, he told them of a little dream he had the night before. He thought he was in Hades, and that everything about him was burning, except a row of hanging bodies. He ventured to ask the Prince of Evil why these were exempted, and the reply was: ' Oh, they are farmers who did not vote in favour of tariff reform, and they are too green to burn.' It is an old story with a new variation.

That venerable and much-beloved Dunedin minister, Dr Stuart, is still in verv weak health, and on Sunday last had to relinquish tW delivery of his sermon.

A country M.H.8., says a contemporary, while visiting his electorate called at a farmhouse, and asked for the boss, whom he found a little distance away at work. 'Good morning,' he said. ' Mornin',' was the gruff reply. ' Crop looks well,' he ventured. ' Might be wuss,' said the farmer. ' I'm Mr , member for this district,' continued the visitor. ' Yes, I know; I voted for y'.' ' Thanks ; lam just taking a look round.' ' Oh, yes, that's all right—so long as you don't take nothin' else,' said the farmer, as he proceeded with his work, and left the M.H.E. to proceed at his leisure and employ his time in cursing the newspapers which have taught even the simple-minded tillers of the soil to regard legislators, alleged and otherwise, with suspicion.

The Katoomba was eleven days in the Calliope Dock, Auckland. Actual docking charges £Bi. Not much 1

In the March number of Free Eussia is qnaint little story. Some waeks ago, it seems, a St Petersburg magazine published an article on Ibsen. It was simply a piece of literary criticism—not a word did it contain against the Throne, the Church, or law and order; for its author is counted one of the wise in his generation. None the less, when his article appeared the author was promptly summoned before the censor. T do not approve of your article,' said this dignitary, ' and must ask you never to write in that style again.' ' But why ?' protested the writer ; ' there is nothing in my article contrary to law.' ' No,' said the censor,' but your interpretation of Ibsen is quite different from mine. This means that one of us is a fool —either I or you—and I will not stand that.'

Several candidates are mentioned for the Eastern Maori district, and it is probable there will be a keen contest. Major Kemp, Wirihana Hunia, and Edward Sutherland will, it is said, contest the seat with the sitting member, Hoani Taipua.

'" A well-known Palmerston resident, Mr E. J. T. Finnis, died last week after a short illness. Deceased, who was born in Staffordshire on 30th September, 1822, served through the Crimean War and the Indian Mutiny, for which he received medals. In the Mutiny he was wounded in the left shoulder by a bullet. He arrived in New Zealand in 1870, and had resided in Palmerston for the last eighteen years. It would appear that people outside of New Zealand are beginning to have as strong a belief that every man in the Colony is either an 'honourable ' or a ' J.P.' as it is generally allowed that in America every man is either a ' colonel' or a ' general.' Ab anyrate (says the North Otago Times) the secretary to the Oamaru Harbour Board lately received a letter which began To the Honourable Thomas Forrester,'

With reference to the Inangahua seat, Dr Gaze declares his intention of contesting it against all comers at the next general election in November. Mr O'Eegan, who is running against Sir Eobert Stout, is said to be making a good impression, and is likely to poll well.

For refusing to put a motion, of which notice had not been given, the Mayor of South Dunedin was at a recent meeting described by a councillor as ' a numbskull.'

Sir William Vernon Harcourt, who is the author of the Local Option Bill in the Imperial Parliament, had, says the Pall Mall Gazette, a curious experience the other day. Parliament street and all the thoroughfares in the neighbourhood of the House were pervaded by strings of sandwich men, bearing boards with this inscription : ' Who would rob a poor man of his beer ?' 'Sir William Harcourt.' As the Chancellor of the Exchequer was on his way to Westminster he came full tilt upon a line of these pictorial accusations, and with such speed as might be he Crossed the road to avoid them.

' What, asks the Masterton Star, ' constitutes a gentleman ?' A witness in Court to-day (Thursday) stated that he saw one of the ' gentlemen' chewing the other ' gentleman's' ear.

The Napier News states that sweating is prevalent in certain establishments there. We have it on good authority, says the News that girls have to take home work at night and finish the same, bring it back the following morning, but receiving no extra pay for the long hours worked. In other cases, a half-holiday is given on the Wednesday afternoon, but the girls and women have to return to the shops on other occasions and make up the 'lost time.' There are boys who are kept working from 12 to 14 hours per day, and this for a mere pittance.

' Monte Carlo' Wells and his punishment have afforded the English papers plenty of scope for satirical writing. One paper says:—' The man that broke the bank at Monte Carlo' will perhaps hardly agree with the other poet, that 'Mr Justice 'Awkins is a fust-class name.' Any time during the next eight vears he will have comparative leisure to reflect on the ' fust-classedness ' and exemplary nature of his own punishment, and many a weary hour will he be wishing himself back at the board of green cloth, openly pitting his wealth against the successors of Monsieur Blanc, rather than wheedling the Phillimores and Trenches out of their few beggarly thousands, in the meaner character of a patentee or inventor.

But our ' Charley Wells ' was emphatically a fisher of men and women. All was grist that came to his mill; and he was a bold player. Who would have thought there were any greenhorns who would be tickled or landed by the promise of £IOO,OOO in four months' time time down, and a large yearly income to follow, on the mere payment of fifteen hundred pounds.

We have no pity for such gamblers. Serve them right! < The Hon. W. Cosby Trench, perhaps wishing to act up to his family motto, 'Virtutis fortuna comes,' also took the bait, but not quite so voraciously as Miss Phillimore. He had at least made some pretence at investigating, but as he did not know the difference between a marine engine and a traction engine, it was easy for Convict Wells to allay any doubts that might have arisen in what he ' pleased to call' his mind. Fortunately, or unfortunately, for Wells, none arose until his pigeon had parted with some nine thousand pounds. Then it was too late for anything but vengeance.

Mr F. C. Selous, the African traveller and hunter, with all his wanderings in Africa has never taken with him (says the Eeview of Eeviews) even a medicinebottle of brandy or of other spirits. From his youth up he never tasted beer or wine or any other intoxicant. If to-day he deigns to sip the wine-glass which is filled at his right hand during a dinnor-party, he does so merely because to refuse so trifling a homage to the customs of society would occasion inconvenience and provoke remark; but when Mr Selous caters for himself he drinks nothing but tea, and tea he will drink at every meal. He is a standing example of the absurdity of the popular fallacy that tea has an injurious effect upon the nerves ; for forty years Mr Selous has been an inveterate tea drinker, drinking it morning, noon, and night, with the result that his nerves are like steel, and he can face the charge of a trumpeting elephant with imperturbable sang froid. The anti-tobacconists will be delighted to know that Mr Selous is also proof against the temptations of the insidious weed. As a boy, tobacco never had charms for him,, and to this day he is free from all taint of nicotine. No cigarette, cigar, or pipe has lured him from the strait and narrow path of rigid abstinence. The natives with whom he spent most of his life in Africa never smoked tobacco, although they did occasionally intoxicate themselves by smoking Indian hemp.

Lord Gormanston, who has been for some years Governor and Commander-in-Chief of British Guiana, is to be the new Governor of Tasmania, where (says Modern Society) be will get less money

than he got at Georgetown, for there, besides £SOOO a year, he has had £IOOO a year as an allowance for At Hobart he-will get £SOOO a year and no allowances ; but what a nice change of climate from a nasty, unhealthy, yellowfever country to the fine salubrious climate of Tasmania, the healthiest of the Australasian group.

Viscount Gormanston is a thorough Irishman, and that is probably the explanation of his successfully negotiating the said climate. 'To send men to Guiana 's a sin, for one comes out for ten that go in '—and the survivor is sure to be a son of the Emerald Isle. Lord Gormanston is connected by marriage with most of the old Eoman Catholic families of England.

It is a curious fact that many leading people are afflicted with deafness. Mr Gladstone is sufficiently deaf to derive far more pleasure from speaking than listening. Lord Eandolph Churchill is slightly affected in the same way. The conclusion would seem to be that too much talking affects the hearing, and as the tendency to talk rather than listen is decidedly on the increase, we may look forward to a future generation who will all be able to talk at once if they choose without inconveniencing one another.

Count Leo Tolstoi has divided his numerous estates and the whole of hi 3 fortune among his four children. ' His contempt for money and land, which he has expressed so openly in his latest works, has led him to take this step; he belongs now, as he says with great satisfaction to the poorer classes, and intends to live in strict retirement for the remainder of his life. The Count is a good old man, if eccentric, and one hopes this will not prove a parallel case to that of King Lear.

Says a London paper:—An alderman of Leeds was walking by the seashore at Bridlington, communing with himself on such matters as claim the attention of aldermen, when he perceived a package coming ashore. It was carefully tied up ; it also bore the unmistakeable, if metaphorical, cachet which traditionally attaches to mysterious packets washed up by the deep. The alderman opened it and found a promissory note for £3198 and cheques for about as much again, drawn in 1835 on a local banker. At first sight it seemed a little indiscriminating on the part of the ocean to have bestowed its treasure on an alderman rather than on a pauper, but on reflection the poor do not seem to have lost much after all. To begin with, the promissor is sure to be dead by now; secondly, the Statute of Limitations bars a note bearing date of 1835; and thirdly, even if it were not so, who could steel himself to bring down grey hairs in sorrow by presenting it ? And the cheques—it is a hundred to one that the bank stopped payment fifty years ago. Even so does the fashion of this world pass away. It will be perhaps some i small consolation to the finder that the water-marks are singularly clear. Apart from this it will require stoutness even of an aldermanic heart to contemplate without emotion such a hope and such a disappointment.

The Napier Telegraph, which is a pronounced Opposition paper, commences a leading article as follows :—' The position of the Liberal Government has undoubtedly been strengthened by the selection of the Hon E. T. Seddon as its leader.'

The omnivorous World's Fair is to have yet another ' big thing ' from Britain. This time it is ' the largest English locomotive ever seen,' which has just been built by Messrs Hawthorn, of Newcastle. Iron gives a description of the leviathan engine. It runs upon a four-wheeled leading bogie and two pairs of independent driving-wheels of 7 feet 6 inches diameter, and it has four high-pressure cylinders, a noteworthy fact. Two cylinders placed inside under the smokebox are 17 inches by 22 inches, and they actuate the first pair of driving-wheels. Twa outside cylinders are placed behind the bogie-wheeis ; they are 16J-inches by 22 inches, and they work the second or trailing pair of driving-wheels. The total tractive force exerted by the four cylinders upon the four driving-wheels is therefore 1431 b for each pound of effective pressure. The boiler works at a pressure of 1751 b, but it is constructed to carry 2001 bif necessary, and it is of oval section, in order that it may be placed between the tops of the driving-wheels. The number of tubes is 189 ; their diameter is 2sin; their length is 16ft; their heating surface is 1880 square feet; the heating surface of the firebox is 138 square feet; the total heating surface 2018 square • feet. The area of fire-grate is 28 square feet; the weight of the engine in working order, 60 tons ; and the tender, when loaded, is fully 45 tons; so that the engine and tender complete weigh about 105 tons.

The London correspondent of the Manchester Courier writes :-—' Eeaders of books about Russia are familiar with the Press censorship, but it will be news to most people that the Nihilists have discovered how to evade its influence. A gentleman who has recently returned from St. Petersburg informs me that an ingenious compositor has invented the device. The censorship, as everyone knows, biota out obnoxious passages in

papers and books with a broad band of printer's ink. However, the revolutionary type-setter discovered that by damping the band and then passing a very light roller over it a portion would come off and the words beneath would be made perfectly legible.

The Young Man About Town of the day may have his faults, but he is at least less rowdy and noisy in his amusements than his amusements than his father before him. So Mr G. A. Sala points out in the amusing article on ' Fast Life in the Past and Present,' which be communicates to the Daily Telegraph. The masher ' up-to-date ' would seem a sad milksop to the beau of the thirties and forties. When Mr Sala was young, and Dickens was writing ' Nicholas Nickleby,' a gay young gentle* I man of the highest fashion would spend the evening fighting with the police in the streets and pulling off door-knockers and ; bell-handles, and would be thought none the worse of for going roaring and raving drunk to bed five nights a week. There was one particularly dashing blade, the Honourable Billy Dash, who kept quite a museum of curiosities which 'he had acquired in his nocturnal depredationsbrass door plates, knockers, tradesmen's* signs, and the like—all looted vi et armis in the public thoroughfares. Nowadays (says the St. James' Gazette) the Honourable Billy would not be a hero, but, in all probability, a convict. Yes, certainly we have softened our manners even if we have not greatly amended our morals.

The Oamaru Mail says:—We have received a number of January exchanges from the Thames Star. They have been wandering around trying to find the Mail at Omahu!

Gourmets, says a London paper, will be I interested to learn that a fish salad in J which anchovies greatly predominated was a very much praised dish at a luncheon ' party recently given by Lord Alington, at which tne Prince of Wales was present, and it may be presumed that the same will become fashionable this season. The merits of anchovies are as yet hardly perhaps thoroughly appreciated in this country, but they are old favourites abroad. The Eoman s. not only ate anchovies in brine, but consumed them fresh, either fried or roasted. Those salted anchovies were preferred which new, firm, white outside, vermilion inside, and free from any strong odour. They were served with a sauce composed of oil, vinegar, whole pepper, eschalots, olives and hard-boiled eggs, the anchovies themselves having the backbones taken out, and being shredded into narrow strips; and this dainty, which possibly made a frequent appearance at the tables of Apicius and Lucullus, is precisely the same anchovy salad which is served in every Italian restaurant with the addition of oil and vinegar, and which the French have appropriated as ' salade d'anchois,' and coolly claim as their own.

A series of lectures on theosophy are being delivered in Auckland by Mrs Cooper-Oakley.

During the recent elections in South Australia, the daily papers declined to report any candidate who refused to pay L 4 4s a column for the insertion of his speech,

In the Sunderland Police Court on March 20 a sailor claimed LlB 108 6d for wages. He was engaged as an able-bodied seaman, and signed articles at L 4 per month. Last August he shipped on board the Deepdale, which made a voyage to the East Indies, returning to Sunderland on the 13th March. Defendant did not dispute that plaintiff had a claim for wages, but there was a difference as to a deduction which defendant claimed to be entitled to make. While on board, in December last, plaintiff was ordered to reef a rope on the topmast. He declined to do this as there were no ratlins. In consequence of this his wages were reduced to L 3 a month, on the ground of incompetency. For the plaintiff it was urged that one act of incompetency was not sufficient to justify the reduction of an able seaman to an ordinary seaman, especially as this task was unusual and dangerous. It was true another man performed the duty, but he may have been more active; plaintiff, though not so active, was no less an able-bodied seaman. Defendant said every crew knew there were difficult and dangerous duties to be performed, and it was necessary that every man should do his share, otherwise there might be a mutiny. It was usual to disrate a man who did, not know how to steer, go aloft, &c. The Bench, in the result, found for the claimant for Ll 6 Is 2d, but no order was made as to costs.

At least twelve nations will be represented at the International Social Working Men's Congress.

Speaking of the late Premier, the Sydney Worker says:—ln all his actions he was honourable and kingly and true. He is dead, and the Democracy of Australasia mourns for his death. In Maoriland he fought not alone, and there are other men over there ready to pick up his mantle and wear it, ' '

The Manchester Ship Canal Company have launched from their shipbuilding yard at Buncorn the first of a fl-eet of flat-bottomed barges intended for use on the canal. The vessel is 60ft long, with a 14ft 2in beam, the ends being semi-circular and the sides almost porpen* dicular. She possesses great carrying capacity, and is fitted with apparatus for connecting a number of barges together, forming one long train. By this fleet of barges large ships, when necessary, can be unloaded in the lower portion of the ship canal, and the cargo despatched expeditiously on to its destination even if on smaller canals, the barges being con« otruoted ta draw only 4ft when loaded.

Two Mormon preachers, after being re« peatedly warned to leave a Tennesseewere ehoS dead by a band of masked men,