THE Otago Daily Times. TUESDAY, JUNE 29, 1875.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 4169, 29 June 1875, Page 2

THE Otago Daily Times. TUESDAY, JUNE 29, 1875.

It requires not a little care and attention to set on foot an institution such as the new Medical School of Otago. Although the University as at present constituted is a much more important thing than any one school or department of it, yet the method adopted for imparting a generally liberal education was not so strictly bounded by certain well-defined rules and laws as this school must necessarily be. After its fashion, the education of our University was complete in itself. Students submitted themselves to its teachings, and qualified themselves for its requirements, and needed to be concerned with nothing more. Of course, now that all teaching bodies of the same standing are affiliated to the University of New Zealand, it is necessary that undergraduates should be trained with a special eye to the examination which they will be required to pass by that institution. The terms of that examination are matters of arranoement, and there is a very great difference between arranging matters within the Colony, and being obliged to accept a standard decided upon in Edinburgh or London, and work up to it. There are two other essential points of difference between the medical and other parts of the University. First, we do not at present profess, or intend to give, more than a part of the training required before a student can obtain a diploma—say, in Edinburgh. Again, in medicine alone is that purely technical teaching given at the University which is sufficient f..r the requirements of professional life. The medical training of a University School is supposed to give, not merely the liberal, but the special or technical elements of professional training. In other cases men receive that special training elsewhere, and after they have graduated at a University. In. medicine alone of all the professions the two things are united. For these reasons the establishment of the only Medical School in New Zealand in connection with the University of Otago becomes a matter requiring most careful and attentive management. If it is not really of more importance than the other departments, at any rate, mistakes in its organisation may be more easily gauged and detected in it, because its work is necessarily submitted almost at once to an independant central authority, viz., the General Medical Council of Great Britain. Four years of study are required by the University of Edinburgh, to take one instance, from every student before he receives his license to kill or cure as a duly authorised practitioner. The University of Otago proposes to give two years of this training, leaving students at the end of these two years to go home and finish

their course and graduate. ; The ;adr vantages of such a proposal are obvioiis, and the practical gain apparent to every father of a family who desires to make one son a doctor. FuUr years of compete expati-iation is agreeable neither to the pm we nor the affections of most paren-s. Four years at the age of eighteen or twenty means the sundering of household tit-s, and the" expenditure of a large sum of money. Two years of the more elementary training here, and then two more years of finished teaching at home. Such an arrangement will suit many a struggling man, who could never dream of risking the former plan. It must be thoroughly understood that the University of Otago is not proposing to give medical degrees at present,; such degiees would —in the eyes of the world at least—be of infinit-ly inferior value to those of the British Universities. All that our Medical School proposes is to shorten the sojourn of Colonia.l students at home, cheapen the cost by one-half, enable youths to test their fitness for a medical career at a reasonable cost, and then fco send them home to win their certificate of qualification from old authorised bodies of repute. In order, however, that this may be successfully accomplish id, it is necessary that a good deal more should be d<>ne for our Medical School. We must obtain recognition fr..ra the General Medical Council of Great Britain, so that a two years' course under tuition here may be reckoned as two of the four anni medici required from students at home. We propose to insist upon the special requirements of th • Medical Council in a future article. It is evident that a good deal more remains to be done here to fulfil their demands. Just now we want to draw attention to the very great importance of login t/ no tune in equipping this school with those things neces-ary to enable it to train medical students. Ur Cougutrey, the new Professor of Anatomy, will find that his time is to a great extent wasted, and that his pupils will one by one drop off, unless he is supported by the co-operation of our political rulers, as well as by the University Council. We have no reason to suppose that the Government of Mr Donald Reid is hostile in any way to the University. Unless, however, the work which has to be done is done quickly, and the medical arrangements of the Hospital ate altered without delay, a great waste of time aud energy will take place. The first demand of the General Council at home, viz., that the standard of matriculation should be raised, h:.s been already complied with. In doing this the University Council have done their part for the pi-, sent. It remains for the Provincial Council to employ, say Dis Hul-me, Buuxs, Hocken, and Bkown, as clinical or surgical teachers in the Provincial Hospital. We do not name these gentlemen as the only medical men capable of undertaking the work, but simply as being the more prominent members of tlie profession practising h°re. Dr Borrows ou Dr Ferguson : we have an ample choice of ] good men, some of whom might doubt-! less be induced to undertake the work, \ and we do not profe.-s to choose between * them. Then again, it will be necessary ' to appoint a lecturer on Botany, and to release Capt Hotton from lecturing on Geology, so that he may be able to give all his time to lectures on Zoology. These are the main points to which immediate attention should be given. Unless the work is done, our previous expenditure will be altogether thrown away, and we might as well have taken no steps at all to found a School of Medicine in Ota»o. Lee it be remembered that the plea of i-aising the standard of liberal education ( ever so little cannot be allowed with regard to the Medical School. This is fair enough concerning less technical departments. With medical matters it is diff. rent—it is all or nothing. Unless we supply a teaching power that will obtain recognition at home, we might just as well have never begun the work And the worst of it is, time Ls pressing.

We are inclined to think that Mr Bradshaw has done a wise thing (for himself) in consulting his constituents about the Abolition Resolutions. At the same time, we should have liked to hear a more decided expression of his own opinion on the matter. We fear that it will be impossible for him to maintain his present attitude of hesitation through the perils that will beset him during another session and another election. What he terms his opinions were the recital of certain facts which nobody can deny. We do not blame him for giving to his constituents certain data not easity accessible, but we have the right to ask that he should have summed up a little more distinctly. An avowed centralLt, who objects even to the delegation of power* vested in the Governor to the Superintendents, who still believes that Provincialism is a good thing, who voted for the abolition of Provinces last 3'ear, being well assured that the Colonial Parliament had no right to abolish the Provinces, who thinks that the Southern Provinces must be abolished if the Northern ones are rolled up, on the principle, we suppose, that two wrongs make a right; this is a novelty in political developments. We cannot wonder that he thanked his audience for their patient hearing, indeed they well deserved his thanks. It seems, at any rate, that the minds of the Roxburgh electors were not, to any great extent, enlightened by the instructive address of their member, aud with much sound sense, they passed a resolution that it would be better to defer allconsidt ration of the matter until another Parliament had been elected If they had voted in favour of abolishing the Provinces, it j would have been tantamount to a vote of j want of confidence in their member, because he had just assured them that he held Provinces to be good things, and Parliament had no constitutional right to sweep them away. On the other hand, if they had voted for the retention of the Provinces, that again would have been all the same as a vote of want of confidence, because their member was an avowed centralist, had voted for the Abolition Resolutions, and thought that, if the Northern Provinces disappeared, the Southern ought also to amalgamate. We have not the slightest doubt that Mr Bradsiiaw has got some opinions of his own upon the subject, but we are equally sure that his constituents never found out what those opinions really were. Is the Member for Waikaia going to vote in the Assembly for the aboliiion of all the Provinces in New Zealand i We should guess that he will probably do so, but we have a shrewd suspicion that he has hot altogether made up his own nrii.d. While admitting that the "country was not aware of the co itenis of the measure to be submitted, he thought the question should be submitted to the constituencies.'" That is, that the people should be asked to commit themselves on a subject on which they were entirely ignorant, while their representative preserved a judicious reti- j cence. This may be policy ; it is not'

much like statesmanship. We cannot congratulate Mr Bradshaw upon havitg thrown much light upon an intricate question.

Year after year do the representatives of the people, in Parliament assembled, seek to devise means for the better protection of the birds and game which, have been introduced into the Colony by the various Acclimatisation Societies. But notwithstanding all the Acts, Amendment Acts, and total repeals that have been brought about,there can be no doubt that something yet remains to be done by the Legislature with the view of preventing the destruction of imported birds and game, in some parts of the Colony at least. That something is the imposition of a gun tax, which description of tax, we observe, the Acclimatisation Society of Victoria has recently decided to recommend the Government of that Colony to impose. Twenty, or even ten, years ago, to have compelled every man within the Province who used a gun, to pay a pound or two for the privilege of doing so, would hive been deemed a hardship. In those days the gun often provided a material portion of the daily meals in the outlying districts, and there were ho imported birds to protect. But things are changed. Native game during the open season is not so easily obtained, and those who proceed on a duck-shooting expedition go for the sake of the sport, and would not think it hard if they had to pay a trifling tax for the right to use a gun. Nor would anyone holding a license to shoot pheasants object to a gun tax. The class to which such a tax would be obnoxious includes the Dunedin larrikins, who infest the bush near the city *ith single-barrelled guns ; and the immigrants who, upon arrival, mark their advent to a free country by blazing away at everything feathered that they come across. Of late we have heard of the wanton destruction of starlings at Caversham, of quail on the Peninsula, of partridges at Green Island, a id of sundry small birds in the North East Valley bush, but in no instance has it been found possible to bring home a case against the offenders. It is exceedingly difficult to obtain convictions in such cases. The offences are committed outside the beats of the police. Honorary rangers cannot be expected to do much towards the detection of them, and to support a paid ranger or rangers is, we presume, beyond the means of our local Acclimatisation Society. The best remedy for the evil is the imposition of a gun tax. Let every lad found roaming through the bush with, a fowling-piece in his possession on a Sunday—for that is the day usually selected for the so-called, sport—be held liable to punishment if he cannot produce a gun license, and we shall hear very little more about slaughtered thrushes, tuis, and linnets. We commend the subject especially to the attention of the Provincial Treasurer, as the tax, if levied, would form a by no means unimportant item of Provincial revenue. Mails for Australian Colonies via Melbourne, per Otago, close at Hokitika, at 3 p.m. to-morrow. Telegrams will be received at the Dunedin office till I p.m. Our Wellington correspondent telegraphs last evening as follows :—My telegram in. your issue of the 24th, with reference to the Hutt railway, reads thus—" The line has not paid interest as well as working expenses ; it is entirely owing to the mismanagement of the Provincial Government." It should be mismanagement of the General Government. The Piovincial Government never had anything to do with the management. No answer has yet beenm;:de to the Superintendent's formal protest against the stoppage of the capitation money as illegal. Sir George Grey is very anxious that Wellington should join in trying the case before the Supreme Court. His Hononr Mr Justice Johnston delivered a short sermon yesterday, which ought to JJ taken to heart by certain people whose ambition to be ranked as " contractors " very frequently runs them into difficulties and into the Insolvent Court. One of this numerous class made his appearance in the Bankruptcy Court yesterday morning, and explained his difficulty by stating that he had forsaken his ordinary work at the carpenters' bench to launch into a contract which ultimately ruined him. His Honour condemned in forcible terms the pernicious habit which was growing \ip here of men with no capital, and with no knowledge of the cost of material or labour, entering recklessly into small contracts, thus inflict ing upon themselves and everybody else a great deal of harm. It was a practice that he felt bound to discourage in every way. We are requested to say that through the kindness of Sir John Richardson, the Chancellor of the University, Mr Raworth will be enabled to exhibit his water-colour sketches of Lake scenery, already noticed in our columns, in the large hall of the University Building. Nominations for 144 souls were transmitted from the Immigration Office by the outgoing mail yesterday. Advices have been received per San Francisco mail of the sailing of the ship Aldergrove, on the 30th April, from Glasgow, with a very heavy complement of passengers, equal to 301) adults. The exact number is not stated. They comprise a very useful class, chiefly mechanics and farm labourers. The business of the District Court scarcely occupied five minutes yesterday. On the application of Mr Sinclair, the case of MVV. Hawkins v. Gregg, complaint and request to strike name off the registry of Shotover Terrace Gold Mining Company, was continued till Monday, 12th July. The following cases were adjourned till Friday next : — Benjamin Christie v. Alexauder M'Kenzie, claim of £200 ; James Macandrew v. Charles Clark, claim of £ 16*2 14s. We are sorry to have to state that the light-fingered gentry have again commenced operations in Dunedin. We are informed that on Sunday afternoon, taking advantage of the crush at the railway booking office Mr Fred. Lewis, wine merchant, was eased of a valuable and favourite pipe, and also a silk pocket-haukercLief. To obtain these articles they had to pick both pockets. It appears that Mr Lewis, finding that some one taking a deeper interest in his pockets than he thought a casual acquaintance at a ticket window would warrant, looked round for his man, but owing to the crush the rascal was able to get clear away. It would not be out of place here, perhaps, to suggest that both ticket windows at the booking office should be open when such a crush takes place as occurred last Sunday. At the Resident Magistrate's Court yesterday, judgment went by default for the plain tiff, with costs, in the following cases : M. W. Hawkins v. A. B. Campbell and George Woodrough, calls in Shotover Terrace Gold Mining Company, each £1 ss. Mr Sinclair j appeared for the plaintiff. Two suits, in which married women, residing at Queenstown and the Forbury, had beui entered in the registry by a former legal manager, were adj urned, His Worship expressing the opinion that according to law they could not register a married woman. The only case heard at the Port Chalmers Police Court, yesterday, was a charge of drukenness against W. Millan. He pleaded guilty, end as it was a first offence, he was discharged with a caution. Theadjournedmeetiiigof the KanieriWate r Race Company was held in Messrs Webb and Fulton's Offiiaes yesterday afternoon. Mr E. Quick occupied the chair, and there was a good attendance of shareholders. The Hon.

J. A. Bonar, of Hokitika, was present, and gave an extensive report on various matters connected with the Company. The report was deemed highly satisfactory, and after some discussion the following motion was carried unanimously :—" That the meeting '.vill gladly assist to carry out any reasonable proposition submitted to them by the Directors calculated to supply the additional capital required (about £3000), and they now adjourn till further communications are received from Hokitika." The fire-bell was rung most vigorously last evening, and Princes street was soon crowded. The signal indicated a fire in High Ward, but no sign of one was seen from Princes street and neighbourhood. The numerous citizens who had turned out to see a blaze went back disappointed, and some gave it as their opinion that it was a false alarm got up by the Brigade in order to give their new hook and ladder carriage an evening airing. This, however, was not the case; a chimney, or part of a shanty, took fire somewhere about Smith street, aud was soon extinguished. There was much noise and little fire. A match has been made between Edwards the pedestrian and M'Gregor, of Oamaru, to walk seven miles for £25 aside M'Greger will receive four hundred yards start, and the match is arranged to come off at Oamaru on Saturday, July 10th. We have received the July number of the Illustrated New Zealand News. It is quite up to the average in point of illustrations. The view of Duuedin is very fair indeed, and though the artist has drawn slightly on his imagination, with regard to Messrs Sargood's buildings, and the new Knox Church, still, on the whole, the picture has a very creditable appearance. Perhaps the proprietors would not be offended if we suggest to them the advisability of not usingthe blocksof other Australian Illustrateds, until their New Zealand readers have pretty well forgotten haying seen them before. We refer more particularly to the woodcuts of the " Western Port Coal Mining C 0.," and "Leaves from a New- Zealand Sketch Book." We remember these two weeks ago, in the other illustrated papers, one of them was the Illustrated Australian News. We merely throw out the hint, because it has occurred to us that probably persons will object to buy these pictorial papers and find the same woodcuts in all three. We have to record a wonderful cure effected by the use of Slesinger's Rheumatic Balsam. The patient had been suffering severely, and after trying numerous supposed remedies, at last resorted to the Rheumatic Balsam. We cannot compliment Mr Slesinger quite so cordially as we should wish from the fact that the gentleman he has cured was a person who, up to his recent attack, used to worry us with a long letter on some uninteresting subject every day. While he was laid up we enjoyed almost comparative repose, but, unfortunately, the balsam has cured him, and now he has commenced jerking out -his effusions with more zeat than ever. In all other respects we can recommend Mr Slesinger's medicine, especially when not administered to nervous sufferers from caaethe.a wil/endi. The chairman of Messrs Moody and Sankey's committee writes to the Times to say that neither of these gentlemen receives any money from the London committee, and that the royalty upon the sale of hymn and tune books (1575) is, by their request, to be paid to a trustee (a London merchant), to be devoted to Christian work when they shall have returned to America. The Tuapeka Times humorously observes: —A man suffering from rheunia,tism lately took a passage by the Dunstau coach for Dunedin, intending to enter the Hospital there. Soon after starting on the frosty road the poor fellow was pitched about the coach in all directions, from under the seat to the roof, a feat common to all travellers on. that road in the winter time. Such was the shaking the patient suffered that by the time the coach reached Lawrence the rheumatics had totally ltft him, and, instead of going to he Hospital, he returned to his work. We would therefore recommend Hugh Craig to advertise in the Tuapeka Times as follows : —" A complete cure for rheumatism, price £2—a journey on Cobb's coach from Clyde to Lawrence." It is impossible, so the reporters pay, to convey an adequate idea of the impression produced by the speech ef the Lord Chief Justice of England at the Drapers' Hall banquet on April 21, when he declared it to be his one aim, in common with the whole Bench of Judges, to do his duty—"honestly, fearlessly, and faithfully;" The strong emotion under which he hinted at present signi. ficant circumstances and his reputation of twenty years, and the enthusiasm awakened in his listeners, was something long to be remembered. It is said that Sir Alexander Uockburu is tormented out of his life .by the daily receipt of offensive and irritating letters, many of them from persons connected with the late trial, who make no secret of their determination to do their beat to drive from the Bench the Judges who exercised so much patience and forbearance in the desire to sift finally the Claimant's claim. There is not a Judge on the Bench who commands more admiration in Court than t ve Lord Chief Justice. To hear once a summing up from him is one of those intellectual treats the impression of which is never lost. The Duustan Times, in referring to the statement in the English telegraphic news that the Yankees ar». about to start a paper in London to run the Times, says : "There is no more dreary reading than a Dunedin daily paper; except a few reports of meetings, or perhaps a little shipping, police, or law intelligence, the matter is as dry as a stick, and the principal portions of Hews are ex'racted from other papers, while, invariably any witty or racy paragraph is a clipping from some country journal. Our Dunedin morning contemporaries without a doubt require Americanising, or they must gradually become unreadable and' pass out of existence, from sheer dreariness aud lack of merit." Now it is quite evident that the writer of the above is oue of the men a San Francisco paper spoke of, who would not become a subscriber to the News L-.tser unless it contained, ou a weekly average, a good murder, a disgraceful breach of°pro mise, three suici.les (two of them to be by poison), and a first-class elopement in high life. Our Duustan contemporary doesn't want news at all; he requires good startling, makeyohr-hair-stand-on-end sort cf articles, with lots of black letter head lines. Well, perhaps this style of thing pays, but it certainly won't go down in Dunedin. The Evening News says-.—"Mr Jacob Audefc, well known in many parts of the' j Colony as a photographer, lost one-half of a five-pound Union Bauk note about sixteen years ago, in Bathurst. He had one half in his possession, which he got £2 10s from the Bank, for on making the necessary affidavit. Some four or five months ago a woman died in Bathurst, and in an old drawer or box was found, by the deceased woman's nurse, the second half of the long-lost note. It bore Mr Audet's endorsement, and was forwarded to him on its being ascertained that he was the lawful owner. Mr Audet went to the Union Bank, Sydney, armed with the required affidavit, and came away a richer man by £2 10s." The Chatham correspondeudent of the Pall Mall Gazette writes :—Some interesting relics have just been brought to light at Chatham dockyard, where the discvery lias been made of a, portion of the sails of Lord

Nelson's flagship, the Victory. They were taken from that vessel immediately after the battle of Trafalgar, and have since lain lihthoughtof in the sail-loft in the Chatham dockyard. The mcst interesting of the relics discovered is the foretopsail, which is in a good state of preservation. The sail is riddled with shot-holes, there being as many as ninety holes made by the shot. Another of the sails—the maintopsail—which is hardly complete, has still the label attached to it when the sail was stowed away; and this states that when the maintopsail was removed from the Victory there were as many as sixty holes made by the shot to be counted in it. On the sails may still be seen painted the maker's name—" Miller, contractor, Portsmouth, 1505." The New Zealand Times of the 23 rd inst. says :—" The first locomotive manufactured ia New Zealand—that is to say, constructed upon the principles of the railway engine proper—was completed and set in motion at the Lion Foundry yesterday. Locomotives of a nondescript sort—a combination of tie donkey-engine and the travelling crane— have been manufactured in various foundries in the Colony, but the article under notice is similar, and in all respects equal, to the best locomotives of English manufacture." After referring to similar undertakings in Victoria, the Times goes on to say that : " The completion of this engine proves that we have the ability to construct, and the energy to complete, all similar undertakings of the kind, and the first deduction to be drawn from these premises ia that the Government should retain for expenditure within the Colony those large sums which are sent out of it annually for railway rolling stock." | There are various ways (says the New ! Zealand Times) of passing comment upon the actions of those whose supreme privilege it !Js to impose rates upon their fellow-citizens. The body politic in public meeting assembled is extravagantly clamorous in denouncing its municipal representatives, individual mem- | bers of the community. Sometimes they mildly expostulate with the collector ; and others, stern of will, ejaculate mentally that they won't pay—and they don't, until they are taken into Court and payment becomes compulsory. A waggish ratepayer, mere philosophic than the rest, yesterday made an original and forcible commentary upon the excessive rating of the city. A neatly-pre. pared parcel, addressed " VV. Hester, Esq.,'' awaited the arrival of the Town Clerk at his office yesterday. Upon opening it a piece of paper, upon which was the following inscription, met his gaze :—" My rates nave ex hausted my cash. Here's the coat off my back." The sagacious ratepayer was not a greater loser than the City Council was a gaiuer by the present, for the garment had seen a tolerable amount of service. But the point of the joke was there all the same. "Previous to the departure of Mdlle. Jenny Claus for Brisbane by the Leichardt yesterday afternoon," says the Sydney Morning Herald of June §, "a deputation of ladies and gentlemen waited upon her for the purpose of presenting her with a handsome gold locket and necklet, given by some of her many admiring friends as a slight token of their personal esteem, and as a souvenir of her visit to Sydney. la presentiug the ornament, Mr Windeyer, who was , spokesman on the occasion, said he had much pleasure in asking Miss Woolley to hand it to a lady whose musical talents had commanded the admiration of the public, whilst her private worth had won her the esteem of all haviug the privilege of her acquaintance. Wherever she went he was suie she would have the sympathy of those who honoured the pure and noble in art, and who appreciated genius capable of giving it expression. Mdlla. Claus briefly returned thanks, saying she would always value the gift as a memento of her visit to Sydney, and the kindness of her friends there. The locket, which was ornamented with, rubies, emeralds, and diamonds, in the form of a, wreath, bore the inscription, 'To Mademoiselle Jenny Claus, from charmed and de lghted friends in Sydney, admirers of genius. Jane 7, 1575.' " We are pleased to learn from the Tuapeka Times that "The M'lton Dramatic Club have elected Mr F. Nichols stage manager, in lieu of Mr Perrier. and Mr Bastings assistant manager. The Club intend giving an entertainment in Milton in a few weeks, and it is probable they will visit Lawrence as soon as the winter is over." The second concert of the Dunedin Harmonic Society is to be given at the Temperance Hall, this evening. The programme comprises many charming mu/cvaux, noticeably "Sweet and Low," by Barnby; fcke new song, " Cleansing Fires," by Virginia Gabriel; and the pianoforte solo, "Mose in Egitto." We hope to see a crowded audience. "Fanchon, the Cricket," a charming domestic drama, attracted a numerous audience to the Princess Theatre last evening, and gave general satisfaction, Mr and. Mrs Bates appearing to great advantage. The drama will be repeated this evening. j The Duuedin Harmonic Society will give their second concert this evening iv the Temperance Hall. We would refer our readers to a copy of the Corporation Bye-law, No. 5, relating to the cleansing of footpaths, which appears in our advertising columns.