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New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4205, 11 September 1874, Page 2

There has been some discussion lately in Dunedin and elsewhere as to things that are proper to do on a Sunday, and it has not been without difficulty that public reading-rooms, , and other conveniences for self-instruction, or the innocent amusement and recreation of reading, have been opened to the public for certain hours on the first day of the week. In Glasgow, not long ago, there was rather a famous trial in the Church Courts, arising out of the dread of “ the unca guid ” of the evil effects of Sunday work in cases in which necessity or mercy could nob be literally established as regards the individual. A poor printer, on • a morning paper, was of a religious turn of mind and had been properly brought up—according to the Scottish view. But a trick of fortune had thrown him upon a newspaper which required Sunday work for its Monday morning’s issue ; and because the poor fellow found himself forced, for the sake of his wife and children, to keep to his “ frame,” at the peril of the displeasure of “the elders,” he was deprived of “church privileges.” He could not see the justice of being thus thrown out, like a Pariah, because accident had made him a compositor on a morning newspaper, but the saints prevailed, and the printer lost his “church privileges.” So much for “puir auld Scotland.”' They manage matters, perhaps not wisely, but in a very different way, in New York. We may mention what the Herald there does, while we express a hope, as devout as a printer’s devil can make it, that the same highpressure system will never be introduced in England, or any of her. Colonies. The New Yoo'k Herald has for some time been published “all the year round”—that is to say, every day of the week, Saturday and Sunday—weekday and holiday. On Sunday it announces the names of all the preachers who are to occupy the pulpit or the platform that day, where and when they are to “perform,” and, if possible, they indicate the subject of the discourse. On Monday it fills the greater portion of its large space with reports or condensations of the sermons on the Sunday. Its latest announcement is that it “ will run a special train between New York, Saratoga, and Bake George, leaving New. York every Sunday during the season at half-past three o’clock a.jl, and arriving at Saratoga at nine o’clock A.sr., for the purpose of supplying the Sunday Herald along the lino. Newsdealers and others are notified to send in their orders to the Herald office as early as possible.” What would be said in Dunedin to the introduction of such a system, and such a train arrangement, with all that, follows in the dissemination of the newspaper, there ! Wis have before us, in a late Fiji Government Gazette , the balance-sheet of the Treasury of the islands for the quarter ending June last. It is a curiosity in its way. The receipts are stated at £11,400. The first item of income is set down thus—“To Customs duties (£1789 2h. 6d. Treasury notes), £8309 16s, 4d.”~an item that is unintelligible without a Fijian interpreter; Native taxes, £1703 17s. Id.; fees and fines, £IBB ,12s. Id.; wine and spirit licenses, £152 10s. (of which not less than £l5O was due to the Municipality of Lcvuka); convict labor fees, £B7 125.; sheriff's fees, £4 25.; postal and stamp duties, &c.. £44- lls. 7d. The expenditure was recorded as £10,531 14s. 2d,, leaving a balance of cash in hand of £BIB 14s. sd. , This expenditure included the following items;—Privy purse, for three months, £225; Chief Justice, £150; Native Judge, £3O; printing, £74 55.; Native revenue collector, £l2s Bs.; armed constabulary, £482 13s. 4d.; Treasury notes cancelled (received as revenue), £1789 2s. 6d.; old overdraft, King’s Privy purse, £207 , promissory notes, &c., dishonored, £304 3s. 2d. By the “ Outstanding Liabilities Account ” it would appear that the Government owed to their officers for salaries, and for stores, &c.j on the 31st of March,, a sum of £8486 165.; for which certificates of indebtedness had been issued for £5866 Bs. Bd. at four mouths’* date, £825 lls. lOd. at six months, and £1794 15a. 6d. at twelve months. Altogether, the balance-sheet is a curiosity.

Mania in Man is difficult enough to account for sometimes, but mania in dogs, while it seems to be as positive, is still more hard to. understand. In this Colony, happily, madness in the canine followers of man has never made its appearance, and “ the dog days” have no moaning. In England and the South of Scotland the hot months, Juno and July, are supposed, and possibly are, those in which the minds of dogs go most astray, and it is at those seasons that the walls arc covered with placards commanding the lieges to “ muzzle your dogs ;” and—according to the usual unthinking habits of the average Englishman—do the very thing you ought not to do, for perhaps nothing is more conducive to rabidness in a dog than being subjected in tho hottest of weather to the torture of the unaccustomed muzzle. Persons who have been for a season in the North of Scotland, have had occasion to notice that the snows of December are quite as induedve to madness in dogs as the heats of June. More sheep-dogs, in short, go mentally astray when the snows are on -the ground, and hail and ico are common, than in the months when “the com is springing green” and the song of the lark is in the ear. In New York, however, an extraordinarily severe ■winter season has been followed by a more than usually enjoyable summer, and it has been accompanied by a singular outbreak of “the rabbles” on the part of tho dogs, and some fatal results to the humans that came in contact with them. The New York papers appear to have caught this unpleasant species of “ midsummer ■ madness," for they

burst out into special columns, with big sensational headings on the subject. We read the following, for , example ; —“ The Cura “ Thirty Mad Dogs Killed this Month”—and then we have a history of how the dogs were shot or clubbed, and who by ; “ Failure of Prussic Acid” —for dogs poisoned with Prussic acid and thrown at once into water have been known to recover instantly, and swim out as if they had taken nothing stronger than a lap or two from a pure crystal brook; <: EightHundred Slain “Mr, Marriott thinks there are twelve thousand yet to kill,” &c. Altogether this story of dog-madness in the State of New York in June-July last is a curious one, and the manner in which it is recorded adds another to the many eccentric and curious chapters of American journalism. Means of communication by telegraph between Europe and America are increasing considerably. It was mentioned a few days ago that the Brazilian cable, passing from Lisbon by way of Maderia to Brazil, had been completed*, and was in working order. We now learn, by way of New York, that the Atlantic cable, laid in 1866, which had become unworkable, lias been repaired, and is again in a condition to trana mit messages as perfectly as on the first day on which it was submerged eight years ago. The new cable has also been successfully deposited in its ocean bed by the cable steamer Faraday, and the shore-end. has been landed by the tender at Bye Beach, in New Hampshire, where the event was celebrated by the people with the greatest marks of rejoicing. A salute of a hundred guns was fired by them, and skyrockets and other fireworks were the order of the night. A hope is expressed that as the cable business is evidently profitable, the multiplication of cables will lead to a reduction in the rate of charges for messages, so as to “ promote trade and the diffusion of intelligence between America and Europe.”