HERE AND THERE.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1212, 24 May 1895, Page 11

HERE AND THERE.

CLIPPINGS, CONDENSATIONS, AND i COMMENTS. Mb William Fbancis Finlason, barrister, who died in March, was the chief law reporter for The Times. In the course of ] his journalistic work ho j had acquired extraordinary facility in writing' longhand. Mr Frederick Wicks, writing to The Times on this subject, says : —“ Your reference to the extreme rapidity with which Mr Fmlason transcribed his notes was strikingly illustrated in the case of his report of the charge by Lord Chief Justice Cockburn in the Eyre case. The speech occupied the entire day, and the report filled a page of The Times, yet it .vas on the printer’s desk at 6 o’clock. As a member of your Parliamentary staff at the time I wa3 so struck with the performance that I was curious to ascertain how it could be done, and imagined Mr Finlason had been assisted. I found that he had written the report in longhand as the speech was made, and dropped into marginal shorthand notes whenever a passage of unusual importance occurred. These marginal notos he transcribed in the brief space of time that elapsed from the rising of the court until he handed in the report. This extraordinary manual dexterity marks Mr Finlason as perhaps the most rapid longhand writer that has ever lived or ever will live.”

LAW REPORTING FOR The Times

Among the anecdotes in Captain Donovan s “ With Wilson in Matabeleland,” is this one : —“ After describing the death of one of his horses from “ that terrible scourge to the whole of South Africa, ‘ horse-sickness,’ ” the writer further tell 3 us that a horse which has once recovered from-an attack of thi3 malady is considered safe from it in future, and is said to be “ saltedand he continues “There is a story told of a certain paymaster who, after the Zulu war, rendered his accounts to the War Office, and in them was an entry anent a ‘ salted horse.’ Some officious and ignorant young clerk queried the item, saying, ‘ Surely this should be included in the Supply accounts ?’ ”,

A “SALTED ” HORSE.

Dean Fbemantee, who died in March, lived so long (says the Illustrated London News) that his active labours were pretty generally forgotten, but it was he who, during the controversy -about “Essays and 'Reviews/’ brought certain extracts from the book before the Bishops, and it was to him that the Bishops’ answer was addressed, and after the exculpatory judgment of the Privy Council, it was hei who gathered the eleven thousand signatures to the declaration affirming the doctrines of inspiration and eternal punishment. One of his books was “ The Life of Spencer Thornton, Yicar of Wendover,” which was published in 1851, and was reviewed by the late Mr Couybeare in the celebrated Edinburgh Revievj article on Church Parties, which first gave nicknames to the various sections of the Church.

DEAN Premantle.

If what the people of this colony some-

AN

IDEAIi PLAYGROUND.

what off-handediy denominate “tourist traffic” is of

any value, a writer in the last number of the Westminster Review has done us

a good turn. Writing of New Zealand, he says:—“The essentials of an ideal playground for grown-up children of AngloSaxon parentage would appear to be four in number—(l) It must be blessed with what is known as a f healthy 5 climate ; (2) its scenery must be picturesque; (3) it must provide within its boundaries outdoor sports both British and novel 5 and (4) it must possess special attraction for the curious and the dilettante. All those conditions New Zealand fulfils in a marked degree. Here in this little colony we have at once the chosen home of the invalid, the joy of the searcher after the beautiful in nature, the happy hunting-ground of the sportsman and the haunt of the naturalist and the ethnologist.” This eulogy ought to result in a big influx of tourists.

Mb Louis Becke, the well-known author

of “ By Reef and Palm,” who has been on a trip to New Zealand, has left for Sydney

LOUIS BECKE.

by the Mararoa to resume his journalistic duties. During his stay in Auckland he visited the Native Kingite settlement at Maungakawa, near Cambridge, where he spent a couple of days, and was received by Henare Kaipau Ti Heuheu and other chiefs assembled there. About 400 Natives are at present at Maungakawa for the annual Native “parliament/’ which takes place this month, and a continent from Tauranga arrived as Mr Becke was leaving. Mr Becke has new works “on the stocks,” one being another of “South Sea Island Sketches,” and a boys’ book of adventure to be published next season.

One day Mr Tyson, the squatter millionaire, was travelling along a

THE MILLIONAIRE AND THE CARRIER.

Queensland track on a shaggy pony, when the man of millions overtook a young teamster, with whom he camped for dinner. The

road was heavy, and the carrier’s horses fagged. The loading was for two stations, the first being one of Tyson’s, a circumstance the carrier lamented. Had it been the other way, he’d have borrowed fresh horses before pushing on, but he wouldn’t think of asking Tyson a favour of that kind. Thereupon the stranger remarked that he had never heard anyone spealc well of Tyson. “ Oh, but I have,” responded the carrier. “ My father always spoke well of him. He was a mate of Tyson’s years ago, and he wouldn’t hear a word said

against him. He always said that people who always spoke of him in that way did not know the man, and it would be wiser for them to restrain their idle gossip.” Before parting Tyson ascertained his companion’s name, and the following day, when he arrived at the station, there was ready in the yard a splendid team of horses which Tyson gave is a present to the son of the man who wouldn’t hear a word said against his old mate.

Pearl of wisdom by J. Hogue, M.P. (New South Wales) :—“ If ire

mother in- (Dean) had attempted' to

law. poison the mother-in-law

we could have understood it, and there would have been some rational theory to base his guilt upon. But that he should poison his own wife. . . A man, adds the Bulletin, ought usually to begin with his mother-in-law, anyhow, though there may sometimes be arguments in favour of practising on your wife so as to make quite sure ot' her ma afterwards.

A Melbourne firm lately sent a trusted agent to Europe to look out

“SPRECKEN ZE ENGLISH ?”

for some good ice-making machines, and for a month or so he wandered through

Germany making heroic efforts to understand machines, the merits of which were volubly described in German —a language literally Dutch to him. He heard of one man who had a very good machine, but broke down badly in trying to make the inventor understand what he wanted to see. “ Kauid wasser, kauld wasser;” he yelled, assuming, as many people do, that foreigners can’t understand their own language unless it’s spoken loudly. Failing in this, he tried pantomime by wrapping the collar of his coat close about his neck and shuddering violently. The considerate foreigner brought hi m a glass of brandy—very good in its way, but not exactly what he wanted. He must see that machine, so started on a tour round the city, asking every man he met whether he coaid “ Sprecken ze English lengvich long-a this one fellow; you savee?” and getting only the invariable “ Mein ”in reply. Meeting two strangers, he put the usual question, got the usual reply, and was turning away when one of them remarked, “If the blasted fool could only speak a little English we might guess what he’s driving at.” The Melbourne traveller almost fell upon his neck, and so utterly confused were his notions of his own language that he could only gasp, “ Wil you a drink come and have ?”

We get an idea of the difficulties of cable

“ DEAD EARTH.”

work from recent trouble in Ceylon. The Times of India says that “ both cables have

parted, or nearly so, and the strongest current gives what telegraphists call ‘ dead earth.’ By means, however of a very sensitive instrument invented by Mr Cardew, an officer of the Koyal Engineers, the indications are passed over the wire by means of the telephone, the ticks and dashes of the indicator being just beard through a loud humming noise. Needless to say, this causes great, fatigue to the operators, and the strain of those stationed at Mannar in carrying on the heavy telegraphic traffic with India is very great.”

On the bimetallic assumption that scarcity

of gold is responsible for the woes of the last two decades the Sydney Daily Telegraph says:—“ The over-

A BIMETALLIC FALLACY.

powering reasons for the fall in prices iu the past twenty years have certainly been the opening up of new lands, the increase in production, the vast extension of railways and shipping, the late serious collapse of credit from which Europe and America are only in 1895 beginning to emerge, and lastly the American currency troubles which have tended to unsettle credit in the greatest producing country in the world. Hence to contrast 1873 with 1894 is, we maintain, utterly one-sided, and arguments based upon such comparisons are valueless., It is inevitable that in the next year or so there will be a substantial recovery in prices—a recovery not due to gold depreciation, but to an expansion of credit.

Lord Kelvin, in an. article in Nature, on

OP THE EARTH.

the age of the earth, after referring to the experimental researches of Mr

Clarence King, of the United States Geological Survey, says:— “By the solution of the conductivity problem to which I have referred above, with specific heat increasing up to the melting point, as found by Rucker and Roberts-Austen and by Barus, but with the conductivity assumed constant, and by taking into account the augmentation of melting temperature with pressure in a somewhat more complete manner than that adopted by Mr Clarence King, I am not led to differ much from his estimate of twenty-four million years. But until we know something more than we know at present as to the probable diminution, or still conceivably possible augmentation, of thermal conductivity with increasing temperature, it would be quite uninteresting to publish any closer estimate.” This is still far from satisfying the time requirements of the geologists.

The new regulations of the Union S.S.

THE RIGHT OF PROTEST.

Co. c i Maoriland provide—- “ That first and second officers are to be provided

with charts at the company’s expense, that the captains’ charts are to be open to their inspection, and that they are to have the right, if they think that the vessel is not keeping to her proper course, to point out the presumed error. If the captain disregards their representations, they are, it is stated, to put in a protest in writing, and to report the matter at the next port of call. The circular also contains regulations as to the sale of drink to officers on board the

stehrtiersi It is provided that,- other things ' being equal, those officers who ate total abstainers will be preferred in reference to promotion.” And just here a new difficulty turns up. The Wairarapa smash happened because the captain refused to listen to the officers’ protests. Therefore, for a time, there will be a tendency to sit down hard upon any captain who doesn’t attend to such protests, and the captain will

probably give way on this account. Then by-and-bye some captain, who is taking the right course on a murky night, will give way once too often; and the result will be unutterable ruin, and after that it will be necessary to fix up some new regulation. Accidents will happen, so long as man is what he is, even if the right of protest is given to everybody, right down to the stowaway and the cook’s cat. — Sydney Bulletin.

Bishop Thornton, whilst preaching at

Talbot the other Sunday, had to make an interval in his discourse in order to assist the incumbent to

“ as IT will be written.”

turn a cow out of the vestry. A shipwrecked mariner who ate his boots (an old pair) explained that he liked the holes best* Bishop Thornton’s sermons are good, but I am quite sure the congregation enjoyed the interlude most. I venture to supply beforehand the version of this story which will appear in the English press. “ Bishop Thornton, of Talbot, South A ustralia, finds his early training as an athlete and pugilist useful.” (I never knew an Australian bishop who had not pummelled a London bargee and converted him afterwards.) “The story of how he punched grace into Long Larry of the Limehouse is a household word. In Australia a bishop never goes to preach without a stockwhip and a waddy in order to protect himself and his flock from the attacks of wild cattle, which abound on the vast tracts of Queensland and Tasmania, which are included in the diocese of Talbot. On a recent occasion one infuriated animal actually forced its way into the vestry attached to a church. The bishop unwound his immense stockwhip, which was hanging on the communion rail, and handing the waddy to the incumbent, these two muscular Christians charged boldly into the vestry. For ten minutes the crack of the stockwhip and the thud of the waddy, mingled with the bellowings of the maddened animal, were the only sounds that reached the congregation. Then the bishop and incumbent returned, and the former, dropping his trusty stockwhip at the foot of the pulpit stairs, resumed, ‘ I pass on to observe in the next place,’ as if nothing had happened. No explanation was necessary. The congregation knew that the beaten and baffled intruder, driven from its prey, was once more seeking the pathless forests of the wild Barcoo.”

Theodore Yoorhees publishes in the Engineering Magazine for

THE railroad OF THE FUTURE.

February a review of coming improvements in railroads. . They chiefly have to do with the United States, but some of his

suggestions may be of interest to English and colonial readers. He says that in the permanent way before many years the wooden tie and short spike 'will disappear from our tracks. It goes without saying that, in the construction of the railway of the future, wooden structures, such as culverts, trestles and bridges, will not be permitted. Openings of any sort in the surface* of the roadbed ought not to exist. When the permanent way is improved, locomotives will be built and trains put together so as to offer the least resistance to the wind. When this is done he anticipates a speed of 100 miles an hour will not be unusual. An engine is running to-day that has moved a train a mile in thirty-six seconds—a rate of 100 miles an hour. With improved track, no obstructions, no possibility of collision, and an alignment free from sharp curves, one hundred miles an hour ought to be as easy of accomplishment as sixty is to-day. The chief revolution to which he looks forward to will be the utilisation of the sun’s rays. Possibly the future may develop some plan of drawing power directly from the rays of the sun. If, then, this power can be transferred into electricity and stored, there will ensue a revolution . aft great as when Watt first discovered steam. Then power will be limited, not by the cost and production of coal, but by the number of days of sunshine each year, and transportation will be brought within the means of all.

At last the secret is out. The New Woman

the “ NEW WOMAN” AND THE “ LODGE.”

is after the very thing that the' old woman has been striving for for generations —she wants to be admitted to the “ Lodge.” For all

her rational dress, and her vague yearnings, her culture, and her bicycle she is simply a modern Mrs Caudle, and her manoeuvres with regard to the suffrage are just another and more insidious attack upon the password and the latchkey. To the Grand Master of the Oddfellows a deep debt of gratitude is due for the noble stand he has taken upon this question. Speaking at Warrnambool, he has struck a chord which will, I know, find an echo in every manly breast. He sees the danger, and he confronts it in a masterly—a grandmasterly manner. Never, he cries, will he submit to see the sacred precincts of the lodge invaded by women. To this clarion peal of defiance I would join my modest penny whistle of entreaty. You see, ladies, it’s this way. It’s bad enough to meet you when we’ve come home from the lodge, but to have you there —hang it all; no. Leave us some decent excuses. Don’t deprive us of the fiction of the special meeting and the late sitting. Owing to the way our railways are managed it is very difficult for a man to catch his last train, but if you deprive us of our lodge how shall we ever explain it ? Let us have one plausible lie upon which we can depend. Don’t make

things harder for us. Take the Church, take the Income Tax—take anything we cherish* but leave us, O, leave us, the lodge.-

The House of Commons is probably the best place in the world i£2

POLITICAL AMENITIES.

which to make a joke, however poor (writes Mr H. W.

Lucy in the Strand Magazine). It is so profoundly bored with much talking that it clutches with fefetish haste at anything that will permit it to laugh. An impassioned orator who concludes his speech by sitting on his hat is regarded as a bonefactor of his species. Another who with sweep of his right hand knocks over a glass of Water instantly becomes a popular personage. To this day tender memories linger round a genial Q.C., long severed from Parliamentary life# who once in the course of a single speech

twice knocked off the same member’s hat. Of all men in the House the sufferer was Mr Campbell-Bannerman, a circumstance that added greatly to the subtle enjoyment of the scene. It was in the Parliament of 1880, and the question of the hour related to Mr Bradlaugh’s status. “It is essential,” said the hon. and learned gentleman, “ that this question should be treated in a calm and judicial manner.” Instinctively sweeping out his right hand, by way of illustrating the idea of breadth of view, the learned Q.C. smote the crown of the hat of Mr Campbell-Bannerman, who sat on the Treasury Bench below him. The future Secretary for War, at that time Financial Secretary, i 3 a man of dauntless courage and imperturbable humour. To a senator sitting with arms folded, head bent down, and mind intent on following the argument of an esteemed friend behind, nothing is more disconcerting than to have his hat ' suddenly swept off his head. Mr Campbell Bannerman was equal to the occasion. The House tittered with laughter. He picked up his hat, as if that were his ordinary way of having it taken off, replaced it on his head, and returned to the consideration of the points of the argument he had been considering. Ten minutes later, another wave of emotion overcoming the orator, the hat of the Financial Secretary to the War Office was once more trundling along the floor. Then, it is true, Mr Campbell-Bannerman cautiously moved along the bench out of range of fire, whilst the House gave itself up to uncontrolled laughter.

A Vienna telegram of March 20th says:— “ The hard life which is the

A PENNY AN HOUR.

fate of thousands in this big city, where their years

flow unseen, is sometimes revealed as by a flash of lightning when

the circumstances that lead to crime are exposed in a court of justice. Thus on Thurday a young seamstress, Paula Christ, appeared before the judge to answer to the charge of having pawned linen worth 150 florins, belonging to her employers. For four years she had supported her old parents by the work of her needle, and this cold winter the need of fuel prevented her from saving enough to pay the small rent. Her father and mother would have been turned out of doors, so she pawned the shirts she had been working upon to pay the sum owing. During all the bitter winter this girl had been paid at the rate of a shilling for each dozen shirts made. The judge asked her how long she took to make them, and she said that she had to work hard to finish them in twelve hours. One penny for an hour’s hard work, and three people to keep out of it! The court considered the theft to have been committed under very hard circumstances, aud sentenced the girl to only a week’s detention.

A rare combination of faculties, each goc d in itself—courage, resource.

A REALLY GREAT LIAR.

imagination, above all, force—is required for the

making 1 of a really great liar (writes Professor Huxley in the Nineteenth Century). No one attains that high position until he has reached the point of being able to believe his own fictions for so long as his interests require that prodigious effort. A good story (reports the London Standard) is told of Tnackeray, who

A THACKERAY STORY.

was always at one time a welcome visitor at the house of Lady Ashburton, who was somewhat free with

her tongue, and in offering an opinion of others. Something that the saucy hostess said offended her guest, and he not only declined her invitations, but spoke of her with discourtesy. Some months afterwards, when his angry feelings had died out, he received from Lady Ashburton a card of invitation to dinner. He returned it with a pen-and-ink drawing on the back, representing himself kneeling at her feet, with his hair all aflame from the hot coals she was vigorously pouring on his head out of an ornamental brazier. The humorous expression of contrition was followed by a complete reconciliation, and thenceforward the satirist and the lady continued a warm friendship.

The queerest duel, as regards its “ free and easy '* character, says Mr

A CURIOUS DUEL.

James Payn in the Illustrated London News, was that between Jeffrey and Moore.

The little poet had called ont the little critic for describing his works asimmoral. Perhaps he repented of it afterwards, for his behaviour “ on the ground ” was extremely conciliatory. While the seconds had retired to load the pistols, the two principals entered into conversation. “ What a beautiful morning it ir, observed Jeffrey. “ Yes,” replied Moore, t: a morning made for better purposes.” And then, .ve arc told, they both sighed. As the seconds, who knew as little of the business in hand as they did, were a long time in loading, the combatants, who were walking up and down together, came in sight of them, which caused Moore to tell au amusing story apropos to

the subject :• —“ Billy Egan, the Irish barrister, had sauntered on a similar occasion too near the seconds, and his adversary called out to him, with irritation', to keep his ground. ‘ Don't make yourself unaisy, my dear fellow/ he said, ‘sure isn’t it bad enough to take the dose, without being at the mixing of it?’” Jeffrey had scarcely done laughing at this story when the duel was pub a stop to by the intervention of the police. The whole affair sounds rather like a “ putup job,’’ and it is no wonder that the principals were angry when they read Lord Byron’s contemptuous account of it, and of the “ leadloss/*;

At Pekin Mr Henry Norman, author of “ The Peoples and Politics of the

AN ADVENTURE AT PEKIN.

Far East, 1 ' raised a small tumult by attempting with a companion to enter the Great

Lama Temple, which is ruled by a “Living Buddha.” “ A young brute of a monk,' 1 he writes, “ had approached his companion from behind and suddenly and violently kicked him. In return he had received a good cut across the face from a riding whip. The monk was foaming with rage, and rapidly stripping off all his upper clothing with a most unmistakeable intention. Already he was nearly half-naked,, and, although perhaps a trifle fat, still ant ugly customer to handle. ‘He struck me with his whip!’ he exclaimed, pointing to the mark on his face, and then followed a string of remarks levelled at us. ‘ Whab does he say ?’ 1 asked. ‘He says we sha’n’t get out alive.’ Just then a monk shouted something which the others eagerly echoed, and a dozen of them instantly ran and shut the great gates of the courtyard. r There was no doubt whatever that we were in a very tight place. We were in the centre of probably the most dangerous place in Pekin, on. the outskirts of the city, a quarter of a mile from the street, with half a dozen closed gates between us and it, and completely at the mercy of two hundred savage Mongols and Thibetans, who had vowed to have our lives. There were a thousand of them within call, they acknowledge no Chinese authority whatever ; the Chinese Government would be extremely loth to interfere with them for fear of provoking trouble in Thibet; and if they had just knocked us on the head and hid our bodies in one of their temple dens, we should very probably never have been heard of again. Clearly the only thing to do was to get out of the place at any cost.” They got out atlart, but only on the intervention of a high official.

The followii g clever verses, entitled “ The Reflections of a Silent Mem-

THE SILENT MEMBER.

ber,” and attributed to a smart young Tory member of the House of Commons,

appear in a recent issue of the St. James' Gazette : From infancy’s earliest stage, Whatever diseases were rife, Right up to a ripe middle age, I have caught them in turn all my life; From cholera down to catarrh, From typhoid to dic-doloreux, All microbes and germs that there are I have caught on the wing as they flew. All fish that are found in the lake, In ocean, or river, or stream — Soles, salmon, cod, flounder, or hake, Trout, perch, gudgeon, barbel, or bream, ‘ With others whose names I forget, With rod, or with spear, or with trawl, With fingers, fly, live bait, or net, I have caught not a few of them all. As for trains, whether early or late, To catch them I never have failed ; My fingers I’ve caught in a gate, My thumb, as a board, I have nailed. I have caught up my man m a race, My wife, so they say, was a catch; I have caught, by a miracle, Grace When fielding mid off in a match., I can catch any tune that I hear, And play it again from my head ; In the House, too, so quick is my ear, I can catch every word that is said. But one thing I’ve never caught yet, And I seem more reluctant to try To catch it, the older I get— The Speaker ! I’ve ne’er caught his eye. Perhaps he may be luckier now there is a change of Speaker. A minister's wife has been reading a paper in London lately which gives

THE MINISTERS WIFE’S VIEW OF LIFE.

a few wrinkles to young ladies thinking of becoming helpers in the Church through the matrimonial door. Among other things the lady dis-

cusses “ how to keep the house of a gentleman and scholar on the wages of an artisan ; how to dress like a lady on nothing a year ; how, out of three pounds a week, to subscribe to the charities and always have something for the relief of distress ; how to prevent bores from entering her husband's s<udy in the morning ; how to smooth down the ruffled feathers of the ladies of the congregation who fancy they have been socially slighted by other ladies of the congregation ; how to smile on people who tell her they don’t approve of her husband’s sirmons; howto do the work of acurateandbe, at the same time, a model wife and mother.” The Commander-in-Oaief of the Japanese army, Count Yamagata, who

A JAPANESE GKNERAL.

has proved such a brilliant leader, sprang (says the Court Journal) from very humble origin. He is the son of a

working man, and the fact that he has risen from the rank of a private soldier to his present position is all the more remarkable when the exclusiveness of Japanese society is considered. A s a soldier Count Yamaga'a has displayed the highest qualities. He knows the exact strength of his own men, and can form a pretty, correct estimate of the weakness of his opponents. He does not strike until he knows the blow will tell, and though he does not lose time he is never in a hurry. And this is the secret of his successes. He cannot, however, be said by any means to rank as a soldier with such great generals as Napoleon, Wellington, or Moltke. Field Marshal Yamagata is afar from showy man in society ; he is a decidedly poor linguist, and his scholarly attainments are noil very high.