HOME-THOUGHTS FEOM SAMOA.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 10267, 26 January 1895, Page 2

HOME-THOUGHTS FEOM SAMOA.

the Sportsman's Cup, and according to the conditions under which that cup is given its holder must accept any challenge giveu to him and must row in any water chosen by hiß challenger, under penalty of forfeiting the cup in oase of refusal.

So Sullivau will pull the match on the Tyne, and will pull it off, too, in all probability. By the bye, I mentioned recently that he had entered into the holy state of matrimony. Mrs Sullivan is not only charming, she is :\\m a very accomplished woman and an admirable artist. Quite a large New Zealand party assembled the other day at Sullivan's invitation. Among those present were Messrs Clark (of Auckland), Johnson, Ramsay, and Cornish (of Wellington), and others interested in boating aud sporting matters. From what I hear I do not anticipate that anything definite will be settled with regard to the Nelson-Valentine Co-operative Colonial Produce Distribution Company until after the Christmas and New Year holidays. Business —except at the shops where Christmas cheer and Christmas gifts are vended—will be virtually closed for the next three weeks or more, and little progress can be mads at such a time with the work of floating a new commercial enterprise. But there jeeps good reason to believe that th.B affair will be successfully floated.

The new plan of bringing Home New Zealand butter fully frozen iniitead of merely chilled seems to be giving excellent results, and there is little doubt that this method will be the regular practice henceforth. A good example in the way of enterprise is being set to New Zealand by Australia. Not content with sending Home lire cattle, and new-laid eggs, Australia is now sending to England live horses, fresh vegetable?, and frozen turkeys. The horses have turned out excellently, and will fetch good remunerative prices as hunters. The fresh vegetables went. bad. and had all to .be condemned. But the shipment of turkeys, expected this week, will, if in good order, fetch capital prices for Christmas consumption.

Snrely New Zealand could do something in this' way. Of course it would nob do to rash at it in the usual unealculating bull-at-a-gate fashion, regardless of suitable times and favourable seasons. Bat if the New Zealand producers would inquire and caloulate carefully at what periods of the yea/ their produce would find the best market in London and ship accordingly, I am convinced they wenld find there is " money in it." Last Friday evening the second smoking concert of the London Australasian Club took place. It passed off very successfully. Sa did the second annual concert of the Australian and New Zealand shippers, at which the Now Zealand Shipping Company, the Shaw, Savill, and Albion Company, and Dalgety and Co. were among the New Zealand shipping firms represented. The Agents-general will meet the Interdepartmental Postal Committee on Thursday

accounted, for that remarkable non-productive-ness of the colonies in respect of works of art and literature. Hoalfrouaid," Out there —i.e., in Australia and Now Zealand—an English folk arc trying to do their great task without the Sunday and without the sermon."

The Rev. W. Bedell Stanford, late canou of Christchurch Cathedral, New Zealand, inoignantly and foroibly retnted these missUtenieuts, showing from his own personal knowledge and experience their entire gronndlessness. Canon Scott-Holland hr.B since written a somewhat vague and rather foolish letter, in which he endeavours to explain away some of bis statements, but he madu no absolute retractation.

In most quartern the fall in colonial stocks is attributed partly to the Bank of New Zealand call and partly to the Newfoundland crisis.

Serious apprehensions have been excited ia regard to colonial stability by the unprecedently disastrous character of the Newfoundland smash. So utter a state of insolvency ag that to which Newfoundland now pleads guilty has never before been even imagined, much less experienced, by any British community. The stoppage of the Savings Bank, the threatened default in interest en public debt,, aud the almost total lack of hard cash throughout the country, form a condition of affairs quite without parallel, and people are beginning to speculate very disagreeably as to what may happen in other colonies if reckless and spendthrift administration and excessive borrowing become a rule of practice. Assuredly the disaster ia one which ought to furnish a wholesome moral leison to New Zealand.

1 did not see auy New Zoalandera at the cattle show, though I believe two or threw visited it among the daily 17,000 or 18,000 admissions. There are very few in town just now to go.

Mrs Fercival Johnston has almost recovered from her recent illness and has gone to Matlock to try Sraedley's hydropathic treatment. Mr Cornish (Wellington) is still in town, but starts on a round of country visits among friends and relatives after the New Year. He looks well and seems to be thoroughly enjoying himself.

The latest arrival from New Zealand is Mr J. H. Witheford, from Auckland, who has come via America. He writes to me this morning from the Grand Hotel:—

" I should have arrived two months ago, but was detained in America that length of time, and was handsomely treated by the Americans. Newspaper men seemed to approve my •entinients, and also of the beneficial laws coming into force in New Zealand, aud they accorded me considerable notice as a New Zealander. I introduced the subject of America subsidising the San Francisco mail service to Australia and New Zealand, and advocated the Pacific line being placed on the same basis as the Atlantic.

"I wag invited" (he continues) "by the builders to. the launch of the St. Louis at Philadelphia, the new American 20-knot Atlantic liner. I saw the leading Cabinet Ministers at

The following lines by Robert Louis Stevenson, which appeared in the Pall, Mall Gazette on the 12th of December—they had been some months in the editor's hands for publication— and are printed in the new edition of Mr S. R. Crockett's " Stickit Minister," poessss a pathetic interest sow that the writer has passed away: —

Blows the wind to-day, and the sun and the rain are flying, Blows the wind on the moors to-day and now, Where aboutthe graves of the martyrathe whaups are crying, My heart remembers how !

Grey recumbent tombs of the dead in desert places, Standing stones on the vacant wine-red moor, Hills of sheep, and the homes of the silent vanished races, And winds, austere and pure. Be it granted me to behold you again in dying, Hills of home ! and to hear again the call, Hear about the groves of the martyrs the peewees crying, And hear no more at all.