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New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4183, 17 August 1874, Page 2

It is probable that the Governments of tho Colonies more directly interested in the establishment of submarine telegraphic communication, will have by this time received a record of the results of the survey made by H.M.S. Challenger between New South Wales and tho shores of New Zealand. Meantime, the public are only in possession of some meagre particulars; and they will, no doubt, gladly peruse any addition to our present information. Of the Challenger’s discoveries in the extreme South Seas, an interesting account reaches us by a roundabout way from New York, and in a somewhat similar way, though not from such a distance, we have a few additional details as to the survey in which Now Zealand is more immediately interested. These are furnished in a letter which we find in a Sydney journal, and which was written by Professor Liversidge, on board the Challenger, to Dr. Von Willemoso-Suhm, a naturalist resident in that city. Greater part of the letter is devoted to a description of tho results of the dredging in tho discovery of the strange inhabitants of the deep seas ; but we quote only the figures relating to tho soundings taken in connection with tho important project of laying a submarine cable to this Colony. First wo are told that tho coast of Australia falls off very rapidly. Going out thirty miles, tho Challenger mot successively with depths of 80, 270, 600, and 1000 fathoms. On the 13th of June, she returned quite close to tho coast of New South Wales, in the neighborhood of Woollongong, where 410 fathoms were found. On the 14th, 2000 fathoms were found, and on the 17th, in latitude 34‘50 S., longitude 155’28 E,, a depth of 2600 fathoms was reached. The succeeding soundings are thus stated by tho Professor: fathoms ; 19th, 720 miles north-west of Cape Farewell, 2600 fathoms ; 20th, latitude, 37T5 S., longitude 163'39 E,, 2000 fathoms ; 22nd, latitude, 37’58 S., longitude 106T9 E,, 1100 fathoms ; 23rd, latitude 88 '52 S., longitude 169’20 E., 275 fathoms. Wo were very much astonished to find' shallow water so very far from the land. . Evidently New Zealand ascends very slowly. But on tho 23rd, however, wo were only on a bank, for thirty miles further on wo found 300 fathoms, and thirty miles still further, 400 fathoms, while

on the’'24th June, latitude 39'32 S„ longitude 171-48 E., we had 150 fathoms, being now rather close to the land/’ On the 25th of June, and off Cape' Farewell, only 39 fathoms were found. To the scientific staff on board the Challenger the results of the dredging operations were not altogether satisfactory, the weather during the trip across having been unusually severe, but the soundings had been carried out with stations sufficiently near together, and'they was supposed to be the case when the ship left Sydney, viz., that the depths on the east coast of New South Wales are nearly as great as those found off the south coast of Australia (2800 fathoins)rthat a deep ridge separates New Zealand from New South Wales, and that New ’ Zealand rises with a very gradual ascent.

Dn. Bakewell, of Dunedin, has interested very much the members of the Otago Institute, and the public generally, by reading recently a highly practical treatise on a painful subject—the proved prevalence of pulmonary consumption in some parts of the Colony. Restricting his observations to Otago, he has found that consumption, though not nearly so common as in many parts of the Home country, is very much more prevalent than it ought to be, and greatly more so than he was led to expect from what he had read and heard as to the healthiness of the climate of New Zealand. He finds that in the Dunedin district there have been registered from January 1, 1870, to July 31, 1871, a total of 1566 deaths, of which 193 were from consumption ; that is, 12*4 per cent. In England and Wales there were registered in the ten years 1851 to 1860 a total of 4,210,715 deaths, of which 508,923 were from consumption, or 12'09 per cent., rather less than the percentage in Dunedin. The object of Dr. Bakewell’s paper was, however, rather to discuss the causes contributing to the existence of the disease than to make comparisons between countries, and in doing so he attributed the prevalence of consumption in the Province of which he speaks, first and chiefly, to foul air in bed-rooms, schools, and houses ; secondly, amongst women, to depression of spirits, nostalgia or home sickness, caused by the extreme dulness and monotony of the life they lead ; and thirdly, to the cramming process which is inflicted on the children at school. As to the first and last-mentioned causes, many will probably agree with Dr. Bakewell. In fact, he places his assertions on the subject of defective ventilation beyond question, by quoting facts in his own professional experience, which go far to show how much the consumptive suffers from that cause, and how much it contributes also to injure the healthy. Condemning strongly the svstem of house-building too common iu the Colony—the system of making sleepingapartments the smallest and meanest of all—he continued by illustrating its evil effects by saying : —“ I was called ou Saturday to a case iu the country, and I found six persons sleeping, with closed door and window, in a room about 10 feet by 12 feet square. In many of the Scotch houses, the beds are let iuto a kind of cupboard, and shut up all day. Generally, the disregard of all sanitary laws exceeds anything I have ever seen in the course of a somewhat varied experience. The lowest lodginghouses in the lowest alums of Loudon are better ventilated and more wholesome than the bedrooms of many well-to-do people in Dunedin. The hotels and lodging-houses of the second and third-class are simply frightful. I have been called in to see many patients sleeping in rooms wholly destitute of means of ventilation, iu which there were not more than 200 cubic feet to each inmate. The astonishing thing is that anyone can sleep in such rooms. In every case of pulmonary consumption I have treated here, the patient has been iu the habit of sleeping iu one of these unventilated bedrooms.” Of the state of the public schools, he gives an equally unsatisfactory account. With the exception of the High School, he describes them as being as bad as the bedrooms. “The atmosphere of the Middle District School, after the children had been in any time, was terrible,” and to a similar condition of things in other schools he had distinctly traced many cases of illness. When to this prevalence of atmospheric poison, there is added a system of “cramming” or overexertion on the part of pupils during school hours and the hours of evening which should be devoted to rest or play, he thinks it no wonder that parents see their children fading before them in a country where, under fair treatment, they should enjoy more than average health. The suggestions which Dr. Bakewell makes as to the causes contributive to consumption among women are scarcely so tenable, and among members of his own profession may probably provoke a smile, but they may be worth quoting for the information and consideration of fathers and husbands. “The second of the causes enumerated,” he says, “excites some surprise, yet it is certain that few of us men sufficiently appreciate the dull leaden monotony of the lives passed by the majority of women in these Colonies. We are occupied all day with our business; we can go out iu the evening for amusement if wo like. Tire women arc at home all day occupied in household pursuits. If, as is mostly the case, they have no servants, their children are not off their hands until 8 o’clock in the evening, and even then they can seldom be left, for there is generally a baby in hand, and tire other children are too young to be left in charge ; so that evening amusements arc almost out of the question, or are at least very rare. Beyond business there is nothing of interest to women. There is hardly ever oven a murder to enliven them, and the local news is of the most twaddling description. There is nothing whatever iu this Province to satisfy that poetic element which exists somewhere and to some extent in even the most commonplace and ill-educated women ; there are no traditions, no history, no romance, no artistic beauty, not oven a superstition. Few women can put into words the yearning and longing they feel for something more than a more material well-being ; but yet they all have this longing, and if unsatisfied it has a deleterious effect on their health. Of course if a woman is not inclined to be consumptive mere lowness of spirits will not make her so ; but if she be, it will have a very serious effect.”

Tasmania seems to have escaped at last from the doldrums in which the progress of tho State vessel has been so long delayed, and to have begun to share tho prosperity of Victoria and New Zealand. We see that the Treasurer, in his late financial speech—in the delivery of which, by the way, he occupied not less than three hours and a-half of the' time of Parliament—stated that while the estimated revenue for the year 1873 was £252,000, the actual receipts had been £283,000. The estimate for 1874 was £265,000, and it was expected, when all the accounts were closed, to reach £313,000. This, when wo consider the limited resources of the island and the comparative smallness of tho total revenue, was a prodigious increase. Tho expenditure in the same period was £300,000 ; thus the year 1875 was begun with a surplus of £13,000, the usual experience of Treasurers in Hobart Town being to begin their account iu debt, and to resort to such means as Treasury bills to raise the wherewithal to make the mare go. Encouraged by thesp increases, the Treasurer raised his expectations for 1875 to £311,000, and estimated his expenditure at £295,000. He, too, had resolved on a policy of works,-proposing to expend £160,000 iu that direction without any increase of taxation.

We learn from Hobart Town that the idea of opening up direct communication by steam between Dunedin and Adelaide, by way of Hobart Town and the south coast of Tasmania, has been mooted in tho capital of Otago. Early in July the. Colonial Secretary of Tasmania was communicated with by a company in Dunedin whose object was to ascertain whether tho Government of that Colony would subsidise a line of steamers plying between Port Chalmers and Adelaide monthly, in connexion with the Suez mail, the steamers to go up the Derwent to Hobart Town on both the outward and the inward voyage. The Mercury urges upon the Government the propriety and advantage of favorably considering the project, and sees in it a very important advance in tho direction of free-trade between tho Colonies. Our Tasmanian contemporary observes : —“ We are prepared-to bo told that there is not trade between either this and Adelaide, or this and

Dunedin, to employ steam power. Admitted. But the supply would, create the demand. The steamers would encourage reciprocity of trade, and reciprocity of trade would encourage steamers, and this without interfering with the traffic iu bulky goods, except to increase it, now earned on in sailing vessels. We trust, therefore, that altogether independent of mail considerations, the Government, the Parliament, and tlie public of Tasmania will see their way to encourage an enterprise that must be fraught with so much benefit to Tasmania.” We hope the Tasmanian (projectors have not allowed the matter to drop.

The vital statistics of the seven principal towns in the Colony, for the month of July last, have been published by the RegistrarGeneral. They show, as statistics previously published have done, that Nelson is by many degrees the healthiest part of the whole Colony. There, at least, the death-rate is lowest, while it is highest in Dunedin and Christchurch. The facts recorded are that in Auckland borough there were forty-three births and seventeen deaths iu a population of 12,775 ; at the Thames nineteen births and seventeen deaths in 8073 ; in Wellington forty-five births and eleven deaths in 10,547 ; in Nelson sixteen births and two deaths in 5662, one of the deaths resulting from violence ; in Christchurch forty-five births and twenty-six deaths in 10,294 ; in Dunedin eighty-four births and thirty-five deaths iu 18,499 ; and iu Hokitika seventeen births and six deaths iu 3352. The Auckland and Hokitika hospitals, it is stated, are outside the boundaries of the respective boroughs. In all the boroughs mentioned the births were 269 in July, as against 246 in June. The deaths were six in number fewer than in June. Of the deaths, males contributed fifty-eight ; females, forty-six ; forty-six of the deaths were of children under five years of age, being 44'23 of the whole number ; twenty-nine of these wore of children under one year of ago. The deaths of children under five years of age exceeded those iu June by four. One female of seventy-five years of age died in Wellington. The House of Representatives meets this afternoon at half-past two o’clock. The adjourned debate on Mr. Vogel’s resolutions on the North Island Provinces will be resumed by Mr. Reeves, who, it understood, will move the previous question. It is anticipated that the debate will occupy more than one evening, a large number of members being expected to speak for the purpose of having their opinions on the subject reported officially. There is no other business on the paper for this evening. The steamer Alhambra is expected to leave the Bluff at 11 a.m. to-day. Telegrams for the Australian Colonies or Europe via Java cable, will be received at the Post Office, Wellington, for transmission to Melbourne, up till 9.30 a.m. We are informed that, in consequence of the increased supply of labor, a number of our local contractors intend following the example of those of Otago by reducing the rate of wages from Ss. to 7s. per day. The business at tbe Resident Magistrate’s Court ou Saturday was of an altogether unimportant nature. A series of interesting views of the scenery of the West Coast mining districts, nicely executed by Mr. W. M. Cooper, surveyor, has been kindly lent by that gentleman to the Colonial Museum, where they will remain for a few days. They will well repay inspection, for, though they are the unfinished and rough sketches made on the spot, they convey a more truthful impression of the scenery than is often found in more highly finished drawings. The s.s. Tartar is advertised to leave Port Chalmers on Tuesday, the 25th August, with the outward San Francisco mail, via Kaudavaii and Honolulu. Though the Tartar comes direct from San Francisco to Auckland it is doubtful whether she can reach New Zealand waters iu time to permit of the despatch of the outward mail ou the proper date. The Tartar is now sixteen days out from Sau Francisco, and the contract time from that port to Kandavau is seventeen days. The Grif Company performed at the Theatre Royal on Saturday evening for the last time, when “The Waif of the Streets” was played. There was a good house, and the drama went, as it always does, well. Little Miss Rosa was as arch and apt as usual. “ Props” was the occasion of great merriment. The ladies of the company deserve a special compliment for the excellence with which their parts were sustained. Mr. Burford was, as usual, careful and true to life iu this representation of the part of the villain of the play. The company are now about to visit the towns in the Wairarapa district, where Miss Rosa is sure to be a favorite. This evening, in the Theatre Royal, the Loyal Company of gymnasts, dancers, and vocalists will make their first appearance. They bring with them a very high character for ability. The two ladies are Mademoiselle Zuila, who is said to fairly rival “Lottie” and Miss Gregory in her trapeze performances, and Miss Shapter, a character and step - dancer of no common order. Mr. Loyal himself has been known throughout Australia for some years as one of the most fearless and able of all the performers yet seen iu the Colonies, while Verletti is a skilful trapezist, and in conjunction with Zuila does some wonderful things. In McLean the company have an unsurpassed dancer, and in Turner- a singer with a remarkable voice. As the company will only perform for one week, those who wish to enjoy a treat should not postpone their visit to the Theatre, but should be present to welcome this clever baud of performers on the opening night., We hear from Dunedin that His Honor the Superintendent, Mr. Macandrew, has recommended the appointment of Mr. J. L. Gillies, M.H.R., to the office of Secretary to Harbor Board, at a salary of £SOO. The carpet bag said to contain £74, left behind on board tho Cyphrenes by a passenger from Wellington to Napier, has been forwarded to Napier from Auckland by tho agents of the vessel, and has been handed over to the owner. The bag had no name or address on it, and was not locked. An unusually largo quantity of powder was lately used in one blast at the harbor works at Lyttelton. It consisted of not less than 300 kegs, each containing 251bs. of powder. They were placed in two chambers, and fired simultaneously. Seventy thousand tons of stone were displaced, and the explosion made scarcely any noise. “A lawyer,” says the Otago Daily Times, is amongst the “queer importations” the Colony has received through Dr. Featherston, on tho free system. * Of course, nobody would “ nominate ” a lawyer 1 This gentleman brings here a family, all imported at the same cheap rate as paterfamilias. The Times adds ;—“ The gentleman comes from Oxford, but whether from tho University we know not." Allusion was made in a telegram a few days ago to an accident that had occurred in Christchurch to Aireo, tho “ King of the Air," of Mr. John Smith’s Combination Troupe, but the nature of the accident itself was not reported. We now see from the Christchurch papers that the accident occurred on Monday last, when Aireo fell from the suspended bar, high iu the air, into the stalls. Ho struck one of the seats iu his fall, but not heavily, and afterwards went through his performances. That the life of a trapezist is a very dangerous one is but too evident. “ Nellie Forrester,” the -wife of Airec, is also a performer on the trapeze, and when exhibiting in Melbourne fell from the bar and sustained such injuries that she has not since been able to resume her profession. Among the passengers by the s.s. Phoebe, which arrived on Saturday, were his Honor Judge Chapman and Mr. Macasaey. We presume they have come up from Dunedin in response to invitations from the Ward-Chap-man Committee, and for the purpose of throwing any light they can on tho second branch of the Committee’s inquiries,—as to how the telegrams found their way to the office of tho Otago Daily Tims.

The Hawke’s Bay papers anticipate that the Opera Company will be well patronised in Napier, many season tickets having been sold. Among the unemployed who still remain in the Immigrants’ Barracks at Dunedin, it appears, there are a number of Germans and Italians. They are reputed to be good workmen, but unfortunately they are unacquainted with the English language, and, therefore, have more than usual difficulty in finding employers. It is suggested that some of their countrymen, in business in other parts of the Colony, might interest themselves in them so far as to give them or find them employment. The Wellington correspondent of the Dunedin Star makes complaint as to the maimer in which information relating to Parliamentary business is in some instances obtained. He says;—“ I can instance three cases within the last week in which information has been obtained, in ivhat I do not hesitate to call an improper and disreputable manner. lam not about to say that any officials are tampered with; but I will affirm what I am about to complain of, is, and can only be done with their cognizance, if not by their actual assistance. If it will be attempted to be said that the information about the latest despatches on immigration, the despatches themselves, the mining report, or the proceedings before the Committee which is investigating the Ward-Chapman scandal came through an ordinary channel, I am prepared to meet the assertion with a flat contradiction, and to prove, if necessary its absolute falsity. In two of the cases I have referred to, certain persons were enabled,- days before the papers were circulated, to inform their constituents in the North, and in the South, of the entire matters dealt with in those papers; and I am not travelling beyond the limit of the fact when I say that in one instance, persons in the South were able to discuss important information before even those on the spot for whom information was obtained.” “ Making the most of it” may be well applied to the following literary effort of a reporter for theilnirc Herald. It is the description of a simple street incident inTokomairiro : —“ Yesterday forenoon there was a pleasant break to the prevailing monotony by a sound of rushing wheels, clattering hoofs, and cries of ‘runaway horse.’ The compositors left their frames, and came out with fragments of precious literary matter in their sticks. The editor left off writing leading articles with a scissors and a bottle of gum mucilage. The thirsty soul at the hotel bar paused in the act of saying ‘here’s luck,’ put down bis glass, and ran to the door ; a select knot of politicians, who were arguing the State Forests and Water Supply questions in the middle of the road, adjourned hastily without declaring that Mr. Vogel was betraying his country and Mr. Goodall his town ; a servant maid turned a perambulator, with two vising colonists, into a gorse hedge, and said ‘ lor’ ; a gentleman carrying a hod of bricks deposited them temporarily on the foot of a personal friend, and gazed after the runaway ; and finally the horse, after a career down the Main South Road, turned into the yard of his owners, Messrs. Soutter, Hislop, and Gray, and took the cart along with him.” The Wairarapa Standard reports that last week Constable Hargood, of Featherston, arrested and took down to town a man named Fitzgibbon, formerly an inmate of the Asylum at Wellington, from which some time ago he escaped. He has latterly been working for C. R. Bid well, Esq., where he was discovered to be suffering from mental aberration, and was forwarded to Featherston to the authorities there. At Carterton on Tuesday, a man named Hartley was observed to fall in getting over a fence, and it was rumored that he had in so doing injured his spine, and that his death, which occurred the following morning, was the result of the fall. The Wairarapa Standard hears, however, that Dr. Smith, who attended him the same evening, and remained in attendance on him till he died, states that the cause of death was epilepsy, and that the deceased was seized with an attack of the same when he was attempting to cross the fence. Captain Flinn, formerly of the ship William Tapscott, arrived in Melbourne on the 24th ultimo, in command of the fine Liverpool ship Eskdale. The ship's voyage out appears to have been an unusually stormy one. Letters from Captain Flinn state that his health has been completely restored Although several of the crew became incapacitated, for work on the latter part of the passage, through the severity of the exertions entailed upon them by the severe weather to which they were exposed, Captain Flinn writes to say that they all behaved extremely well, and he had not the slightest disagreement with any of them. The Eskdale is a vessel of 1270 tons. She made the run out in eighty-one days. A contemporary extracts the following from the Bazaar , a paper which devotes its columns solely to the chronicling of articles for exchange. Is it libellous ?—Under the head of “Ecclesiastical,” and sub-head of “Various,” is offered a “great bargain,” which is described as a “Highland minister’s complete vade mecum." It consists of “ miniature Testament, very large silver-mounted spirit flask, and strong serviceable corkscrew, fitted in superfine Russia leather case.” The Malborough whalers have at length met' udth sufficient success to induce them to continue the fishing with a prospect that they will be well repaid for tbeir labors at the end of the season. On Monday last, says the Press, two “ right ” whales were captured near Tawhaite, which ai-e calculated to give upwards of twenty tuns of oil, besides a quantity of bone. OTAGO. House accommodation is so difficult to be got in Dunedin that several persons have resorted to tents in the vicinity of the town. The Australian and New Zealand Land Company are at present, according to the Southland Times, carrying on extensive operations on their property at Mataura. From thirty-five to forty double-furrow ploughs are constantly at work, and each day, when the weather is at all favorable, from seventy to eighty acres of virgin soil are broken up. It is calculated that, at the end of the season, some eleven miles of country will have been operated upon by the plough. A Bluff correspondent writes to a Southland contemporary ; —“ I have to record the death of one of the oldest residents of the Bluff— Mrs. McGregor, commonly known as ‘Granny.’ She lived at the Green Hills in the year 1858, and then removed to the Bluff. She lived in the old thatched hut so well known to visitors to this port, and so prominent in entering the harbor. The old lady passed her 80th year last March, and up to within a few months of her death, was able to earn her own living. Her fame is widespread, as the peculiarities of her dwellinghouse often induced strangers iu passing this way to enter.” A man named Eason, a workman on the Winton Railway Works, had his right arm and hip injured a day or two ago by an explosion of lithofracteur. It appeal’s that the lithofractour had been left iu a blacksmith’s shop, and one of the men, upon leaving work, threw his hammer down close to it. The concussion is supposed to have caused the explosion. One side of the shed was blown out, and tho roof damaged, while the men who were standing near Eason were severely shaken. The inhabitants of Port Chalmers are agitating for the re-appointment of a Resident Magistrate in that town. The Southland Times reports that tho Mabel Jane, iu which Dr. Monckton’s expedition sailed, was never able, iu nautical parlance, to “ fetch ” the Auckland Islands, and that the stock on board were landed at Port Pegasus, Stewart’s Island. Mr. James Evans, of the Red Lion Hotel, Hokitika, is stated to be the discoverer of a new pass through tho ranges between Westland and Canterbury. Considerable prominence is given to the name of Mr. Evans in ono of the local papers, but nothing is said as to whether his. discovery is fact or fiction.