OUR AUSTRALIAN LETTER.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 10619, 14 March 1896, Page 2

OUR AUSTRALIAN LETTER.

(Fnoif Omt Own Corhesfondent.)

ATelbourne, March 5,

THE RAILWAY LIBELS.

Mr Allison Smith has lost his appeal against the Age. The judges of the Fall Court complimented him upon the fairness with which he conducted his own case before them. It was about the only comfort they could gire him. For though he conducted it with fairness he did not conduct it with ability^ He laboured hard to prove to their Honors bbafc tho balance of evidence was in his favour. But their Honors could not override tb.9 conclusions of the jury on that point. What he should have laboured to prove to thorn was that tha jury were glaringly wrong m their1 concliiiions. Tbeir Honors inferoutially admitted that the jury's verdicts (on some of the counts a,t auy rale) would not have been their verdicts. Some of the findings, they said, were unquestionably inconsistent. But thera was nothing to justify them in upsetting the (ladings. Poor Mr j Allison Smith, therefore, has but the sole consolation that he fought a gallant fight. Mr Speight has to deposit £3000 before the court will allow him to go to the Privy Council. He will soon have to declare his intentions. JUSTICE—DEAF AND BtIND. Mr Lormer's Board of Inquiry into the doings and mis;loi»g3 of J.P.s is not unlikely to hityo the effect of abolishing the unpaid magistracy. Mr Bird, of Eichmoud, haa received almost the wovet showing up. He owns to sundry female frisnds who3e character is shady and whenever and wherever they had to make their bow to a bench he was one of the beach's occupants and did his best to geb them let off. "She sfems to lean to you, Bird; stick to her, old ran.ii," was the ccimmeiit of a brother justice ;ittec one of the faireab and frailest of these female friends had been adjudicated upon; and the "old man" acted upon the advice. Mr Justice Williams, the chairman of tho board, was aghast at these exposures of how justice is administered in the lower courts. "Is thora any occasion to proceed further ?" he asked. The suggestion that the justice and the prisoner left the court to meet again was more than his' Honor could stand. ■. But Mr Bird ia only accused of a susceptibility to female blandishments; he did not descend to the accepting of bribes, aa some of his precious colleagues seem to have done. A host of the unpaid magistrates are merely accused of going on the. bench to do their best for their lrisuds. Several of them unblushingly admit the soft impeachment. Sir Beunett, M.L.A., does, Mr H. M. Gooch, Mr W. H. Wilson, and others. Mr Wilkhis, M.L.A., admits that, he' suit iv a case in whioh one of the parties was joinl; maker with him of a proinisfory note^Eor £200, and over portion of whose goods he had a contract of sale. The Mayor of Melbourne (Mr Strong) puts forward au extraordinary excuse for taking a seat on the Coburg bench for the first scd only tima. It was a ease where the son of a clergyman was charged with an assault on a girl. Mr Strong is ah Orangeman and the clergyman was an Orangeman. But this is not Mr Strong's excuee. His son is a medical student, and he attended to help forward a request that whoever else might bo turned out of court medical students should not, for their lecturer had. advised thera to attend a« they might heur details which would b9 of service to them. Medical students were not allowed to remain iv court, and Mr Strong assisted to acquit the clergyman's son. Mr Gillies's favourite interjection in Parliament was " Too thin." Mr Strong's exense has a like flavour. The labour J.P's. have no symptoms of compunction in admitting that. they "sat when labuar cases were up " to see justice done" to the labour causo. Whatever else Mr Lormer's board does, it will at least clear the air. As Mr Bennett was constrained to admit, " I will bis rather careful what I do on the bench after this." . THE CYCLE. Lord Brassey has succumbed to the seductive influence of the bicyole and abjured the tricycle. The Govarameut House party paid a visit in the moonlight the other evening to the Metropolitan Fire Station, mid (says the reporter) " the majority of the party proisaeded to the station on bicycles." Two of the "kuicker" lady riders of Melbourne are bitter rivals-(though of course the sweetest of friends) in long distance records. Mra N. rode 100 miles ia a day of 12 hour?. Mrß M. rose at 4 o'clock one morning snd strode her wheel till 8 that night, and did 120 miles. But Mrs N. rose at 1 a.m. and strode her wheel till 9 p.m. and " pat up " 176 aiiiea, and so far. she holds the bait. THE NEW PHOTOGRAPHY. Professor Lyle, of tho Melbourne University, has been remarkably successful in experimentiug with Professor Rontgen's new photographic process. The work is emiductad in a darkened room. Professor Lyle attached a Crookes'a vacuum tube to an ordinary induction coil, and upon a table about one foot below the lower end of the tuba placed an ordinary wooden plate case, inside which there was a photographic plate. Spreading his left hand on the top of the wooden case, he switched on the current with his right, and at once the interior of the vacuum tube was illuminated with a bright greenish violet light. As the extremely high-tension current of electricity entered the vacuum a fountain-like appearance was presented, and the tiny particles of air which still remained in the tube were prectpitatad in the shape of line spray, forming feru-like patterns on the interior surface of the tube. The professor explained that the visible light had nothing to do with the mysterious ''x rays," which were possibly produced by the violent impinging of the particles of air upou the glass under the influence of tbe electric current. These invisible " x rays," passing from tha tube, went through the hand lying below it and through the wooden box, finally producing a remarkably distinct shadow photograph on the plata. After an exposure of 20 miuntes tbe plat 9 was developed, and a clear imago was obtained of the bones of the hand, which from their greater density had resisted the action of the rays that readily passed through the flesh tissues and the wood. A perfect skeleton hand was displayed on the plate, and the gold ring which th« professor wore on hia little finger, and whioh also resisted the penetrating power of the rays, was pictured with telling effect. Photographs of small iron weights, rings, keys, and other metal objects were taken with" equal clearness under the same conditions. Professor Lyle explained that hs had already learned from hie experiments that the newly-discovered rays would pass through bone and metal, as well as wood, if the exposure wa3 made loDger.. Their effect was reguiated apparently by the comparative density of the material to which they were opposed. While possessing some of tbe properties of ordinary light, the "x rays" were not subject to the laws of reflection or refraction, and passed through a glass prism without bsing deflected in the slightest.