PERIODICALS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 4629, 16 December 1876, Page 2 (Supplement)

PERIODICALS.

BLACKWOOO Has awoke, as it seems, to the necessities of the times, and every month now gives us a something of great popular interest to all classes of readers. In the September number, we have a paper on "Speculative Investments," which ought to bo widely read here, where people are prone to risk their moneys easily enough. The writer deals thus kindly with the wants that make people invest.in speculative securities :

To drop metaphor, we can easily conceive of instances where some amount of calculated im-' prudence may appear a duty. Take a mother who has been left a widow with £5000 aiid a rising family. " Put your money safely away in the funds ; it would be sheer insanity to do anything else with it," says one friend of the i family whom she asks for advice as to its dis posal; and he steps complacently into his carriage and is driven smilingly away. Another gentleman, a shade less scrupulous, is disposed to admit of first-class railway debentures, although he takes care to dwell on possible fluctuations to the extent of 2 to 3 per cent. Very good ! The lady acts on the advice of one or the other. But she finds that with her Ll5O to L2OO she is not only enibarassed as to providing food, clothing, and houseroom for her growing fareily, but that she is compromising their future beyond remedy, from better fortunes. She is falling out of the circle of family acquaintance where her boys would bo liktly to find helpful friends and her girls to make hapt>y msiviages. She is unable to give them thi education indispensable to their taking advantage of future opportunities. It she is to persevere in pinching she condemns them to sink to an inferior grade of life, unless something in the nature of c, miracle cornea to gave thsat,

So, ■floreJy-a.gftinslr-tfle grain, and at firgt jn : J mortal apprehension; she has recourse to feme of those more highly-priced stocks which arijlthe ' refuge of the widow, the clergyman, andI'the reckless. Ten to one she acts thus with her eyes open; perhaps she may morbidly ex- ~ aggorate the risks she runs, and it is not the fault of her family advisers if she does not. •' But the clouds that hang over the futjire I begin to dissipate as the shadows are lifjetl : i I from her everyday life. Cheerfulness ma ; ? seremty are restored to the little heusehewi, now that the heart of its mistress does not j"flg into her mouth at each rattle of the knockon** .each peal of the belL Now that she can affojl theiii occasionally a fly, or a dress, or a bitjp ribbon, the girls can be indulged in a little 3f nocent gaiety; she sees them merry and ligh^- ' hearted once more, instead of being insensiblyf imbittereu with the life that had scarcely begun!; for them. The boys are . sent to a decent'! ■ school, with a fair chance of gaining exhibitions, J. and are getting on so as to be able to retrieve j ■: their position and lend a helping hand to their j, sisters. She may have been foolish in changing ' her investments. She may even feel bitter re- 'fi proach and remorse when she is caught insome :.,! panic that suspends her interest and dissipates : £ her principal. Yet she may be excused for |? haying congratulated herself on her wisdom;; during those critical years of sunshine, when ai i; doubled income brought her unspeakable re-^: lief."/ ' ■ ' : ■ .. , ,■ ■ ■•■&: "After dealing in-a very masterly .fashion;,; with the various classes of investments thaty|; have tempted the wary Britisher to Lisr^iin,vS;; the writer concludes thus: : \. X' Plow it may all end it is worse than idl^to.'C^. surmise. We presume that Time may ue'Ttij trusted to openxtp new fields of investment, and >>» it is certain that he will not want any assistance . j;« that can be given him by the interested in-.;? genuity of professional financiers. In the', '. mean time, the moral of the situation seems to : be that wary investors should hold more closely ; than ever by the good old-fashioned maxim that' ; great interest means bad security. If they are ,:j hesitating between low and high dividends.they ■ will do well to remember that although in the ', one case they may have to put up v/ith dis-. . agreeable privations, in the other they may be inviting irremediable ruin. "The Strathmore, Mr and Mrs Wordsworth's narrative," is told in an artless and. pleasant way, which will commend itself to all readers. Never, we tluiik, was a more .;> touching tale of privation and suffering told " } in a more affecting way. Everyone should | really read it. The Btory of the rescue iB - thus put :—" In the meantime the sailors were' doing f everything to have the boat ready, en the very h slight hope of her floating clear of the ship, which we thought then was rapidly settling down.;-- We.sat awaiting our fate. A few fare- I wells were exchanged. I said good-bye to my I dear boy, and a pang of anguish went through i me for his young life, so soon to ba taken. It j passed in a moment, and we were preparing ourselves as well as we could to meet our God |. when, wonderful to relate, a heavy sea came I sweeping along over the poop, carrying every- } thing with it to destruction; but instead of ■ dasting our boat to pieces, or tumbling it from j ' the beams on which it stood down to the deck, \ ' it caught it up and miraculously floated us j between the main and mizzen rigging into the | sea. I thought at the time we were going [ quietly into eternity. I felt Charlie's grasp j : [ tighten, and with a prayer on my lips ■ I.think I I almost was gone. We Lad hardly breathed I when Charlie suddenly almost threw me from ■ him, and wrenching an oar out, shouted, "Saved! saved! by a miracle. Up, lads, and keep her off the ship !" It was pitch-dark, ,in the dead of a winter night.- vVe had_ few • clothes, and the boat having been stove in on : its passage across the deck, W3 were sitting almost up to our waists in water. Huge sprays ! washed over our shoulders; and so, surrounded \ by breakers and sharp rocks, we did not know '. which way to turn for safety, By dint of hard ■ labour, and great caution, we managed to keep ■ clear of every obstacle, and the boat was constantly babd to lighten her. We beat about all night, not knowing where i ye went, afraid of being drifted out to sea ', without food or water. Breakers ahead ! and r Land, oh! was the cry all night. Once, in s the gny of the morning, we got a glimpse of the ship, She was leaning over a good I deal, aud looked very helpless and forlorn, I and so sad. A little after day broke I-was the I fir3t to see another' boat. I gave a joyful E scream, and the second matei Mr Peters, with i some passengers and sailors, came to us and j towed us to land. When we came to tho landl ing-place I gaye up in despair, for I saw • nothing but a high perpendicular rock before s me, impossible almost for a goat to find footing s on. You know lam not very clever at climb- - ing at the best of times, but weak and ill, stiff - with cold, and dripping wet, I felt" I had no • life in me, and could not do it. I said, i "Chariio, I can't do it; you must leave me." L "Nonsense," he said; and one of the seamen ! —Jack Wilson—added, "If there is anybody i to be saved you will be." The sailors, who had L already mounted the rock, soon managed to lower a rope with a loop in it, in which I sat, and was pulled up, assisted by Charlie aridI*'"1 *'" ■■ young Mr Keith on either side. . ' ' A. J.W., in . : " .- t 1 ERASER, ' Tell 3 us.the story of British trade after a j fashion which will commend itself to' the E common seuae of all rsaders, though it'is a i wee bit too crowded with statistics to be 1 interesting to everyone. This is how he seta 1 out this problem :—

We are ppssing through a commercial crisis of a very peculiar and complicated kind. It differs superficially from previous crises with which the present generation is .familiar in being less sharp, but more prolonged. It. is in some case« concurrent with, in others supplementary to, similar crises in other important nations with which we have intimate trade relations, and has been accompanied by remarkable collapses of national credit, all of which combine to render the prospect of a speedy trade-recovery still dim, and to make any estimate of the actual position of this country difficult. During all tinies of:mercantile trouble, when credit suffers painful contraction and business recedes in volume", the popular mind is ready to accept the gloomiest views on the position of the country.. The common cry is that other nations are beating us in the race for wealth; that our manufactures no longer hold their own against those of foreign nations ; that people abroad are learning to do without our iron and coal, and growing able to make their own machinery; so that, if we might beliave the general outcry, the fate of this country is sealed. The present crisis or period of trade recoil shows little exception to the rule in this respect. Once more the croakers have obtained the ear ot the nation, and any piece of news likely to bear out the worst views of tils future is eagerly seized upon and its scope stretched to the utmost. Thus lately we have been entertained with descriptions ?f the mivnner in which the United States is distancing us in the making of iron and steol; we have been told that our railway companies are actually buying foreign coal and foreign locomotives to bum it in ; foreign tariffs are flung in our faces ; and ive have been over and over again told that free trade will prove the ruin of the nation, because we give everything and get nothing—unfetter every nation, whether they free us in return or not. Eussia, for instance,. we are informed, is deliberately shutting out our iron by a protective duty, although we let her corn and oil seeds, her hides and tallow, in here free of duty. These and many other facts, notions, and arguments find widespread acceptance at a time like the present, and even when not accepted in their entirety they colour men's minds with despondent ideas.

After traoing with1 much skill and obvioua learning the changes that have led *to the present state of prosperity, cr, we fear we must call it, the late state of prosperity, that is, for the last thirty years, he Bays :— All these economic changes and forces, involving the continuously augmenting demands of the population at Home, and the continued " improvement" of countries abroad, have redounded, so far, to the advantage of England, She has been the pioneer in the march of material progress, and has furnished the means by which that progress could be attained by others as well as herself. Possessed of enormous mineral rcsourses, which modern discoveries have called into manifold new uses, she has employed them in, ko a certain extent, fittiug cut the'world to be her rival She has built steamships and railways for the great powers on the Continent, and lavished her substance, as it were, to bring them up to her level. Tor a time "progress" might be almost said to be synonymous with the growth of English business and manufactures; and, whatever comes, a great deal of the ground we have thus occupied muß*, we believe, fora time remain to us, solely because there is no ene else to take it up. But here another question starts up. "What has been the actual net result to England and her customers of this enormous increase of business within the past 25 or 30 years ? We have seen that everything has been done to encourage trade, and that, all over the world, England has possessed herself of markets for her productions ; but we have not yet seen how far this enormous increase in buying and selling has been placed on a sound footing. Have we, in ether words, been growing richer proportionately with our increased business, and liave other nations benefited by their dealings with us to the extent that their heavy payments to us every year might lead us to believe ? The answer which sweh questions require is a very long one, involving, a3 it does, tha whole subject of international credit and wealth; and we can here deal with but a small section of it.

The ot^er papers in this number are unin. teresting.