Passing Notes.

Otago Witness, Issue 1189, 12 September 1874, Page 13

Passing Notes.

During the trial of Admiral Eyde Burton, a veteran of 80 years, for libel, the following incident occurred : — The defendant was accused of having written a number of anonymous letters reflecting on the prosecutor. The letters were undoubtedly libellous, and the main question was whether or not the defendant wrote them. Tn order to make a comparison with his real handwriting, it was necessary to produce some specimens of his caligraphy. For this purpose his step-daughter, a titled lady, was called. The counsel for the prosecution proceeded to ask her what her opinion was as to the handwriting of the libellous letters, when the following colloquy ensued :—: — The Lord Chief Justice suggested that, considering the connection of the lady with the defendant, it would be very painful to her to be asked such a question : it should be waived. Mr G-iffard said he was apprehensive that if he did not ask it, it might be suggested that he shrank from doing so. Mr Serjeant Ballantine said he should make no such observation. The Lord Chief Justice then repeated his suggestion that the lady should be spared the question. Mr Griffard at once yielded to his Lordship's suggestion aud waived the question. The Lord Chief Justice was the Judge who tried the Tichborne claimant, the counsel named were his counsel at the civil trial, so all had practised in a somewhat contaminating school. This very proper piece of delicacy contrasts favourably with a scene lately figuring in the legal annals of a neighbouring Colony, and may be read with profit. The telegram that Mr Stafford was going to join the Ministry was, of course, false. Telegrams generally are in these days, But there was a happy air about the proposal that Mr Vogel should go home as Agent-General, which has often j struck me. Having set a big thing fairly [going, Mr Vogel can go home when he i likes (for nobody dare say nay), and watch i the progress of events. If all goes well he can say, ' ' Ah ! see my great scheme. I told you it would succeed ! " If the j whole thing comes to grief he can, with equal justice say, "Ah ! my scheme, my scheme, it was working beautifully, and ' you have ruined it ! " Then he can come back and build more mud-pies, and unfold a new scheme for inducing the men of Polynesia to wear top-boots, and the women to ride on side-saddles instead of continuing their present unfeminine practice. Even in England he will in reality be the ruling power of New Zealand— for the Government of the day will always be in fear lest he should come back. The ! truth of the statement contained in the ■ teJegr»i» vim 9t course 4snied, ftn 4 Vjßr jr j

properly ; but our irrepressible " Own " didn't lose the scent —hydra-like, he has come up again. Mr Vogels journey is not to be to England but to Australia, to arrange about the red herr 1 mean the mail ; and of course, as he ia going to Australia, he cannot possibly be going to England too. DrKenealy's publication , ' ' The Englishman," a copy of which has come into my hands, shows to what extraordinary lengths fanaticism will go. The mania called Tichborne on the brain is the more extraordinary because utterly profitless. I can easily understand a man going half crazy over anything in which there is money, or when there is a chance of salvation at the end ; but where the devotee earns nothing but ridicule, it is passing strange^ At the end of the publication— which is a very silly one, without any sort of literary merit — is a list of subscribers to the Kenealy Testimonial Fund, which seems to be the main object of the paper. The first few— but very few — names have handsome sums set against them. The rest are awfully sir, all. Here are a few culled from a long list : — A Fool and a Fanatic, according to the Judge ; but Ido not agree with him, for he was Prosecuting Counsel, 132 New Kent road ... £5 0 0 A Hater of Oppression 5 0 0 Lover of Viitue ..040 Wooden Snuff-box 0 2 9 Three Misses Hunts, Alresford ... 1 10 0 Lover of Justice 0 5 0 Three Edinburgh Ladies (sisters) 3 3 0 Rev. Alexander Urquhart, D.D.... 10 0 One who has ploughed 0 1 0 A Cheshire Admirer of Dr Kenealey 0 3 0 Old Colonist... .. ... ... 0 1 3 Believer in Claimant 0 4 0 By Good-will from 35 Men who differed from the verdict, S.R.M. 17 0 From one who loves the Despised 0 3 0 Servants at Southampton 0 8 6 Three Lads who disdain all Cowards and Hypocrites 0 3 0 York— 9s Subscribers, Workmen of Messrs Freak e, Brompton, ... 2 8 9 The total sum acknowledged is not large, as I suppose the defence fund mopped up the surplus cash of the believers. The paper is mainly devoted to Dr Kenealey's wrongs. I believe no less than five newspapers have from time to time arisen out of the Tichborne case. Most of them have died young. Somebody ought to die — somebody big enough or rich enough to make us weep — or commit murder, or rob a Bank on a very large scale, or go bankrupt to the tune of a few hundred thousands, or, better still, assault a Bishop. If something of this kind is not done, we shall have to be constantly reading telegrams of Mr Luckie's speeches, occupying a column and a quarter of a newspaper. Since the termination of the session things have rapidly sub i led into dulness, so that a very favourable time for speechmaking is coming. These dull seasons are fit times, too, for scientific discussions and humanitarian pursuits. An article on the rearing of large gooseberries would be highly appreciated and doubtless handsomely remunerated at this moment. We have had enough of quarrelling, or that might be a fertile source of excitement ; so we must submit to the speeches of the honourable member for Yawningham, or stroll on to the Ocean Beach, to die, perhaps of ennui or spent bullets. A very sad and romantic story, taken from the English papers, is repeated under the head of "Mail News" for our edification. Mr and Mrs L., a newly married couple determined to mount the highest point in Europe, and accordingly started for the su mnit of Mont Blanc. After a time they felt cold, so the guides "advised on returning" Very fortunately, but very unpoetically, the bride was "leaning on the arm of a guide." I think, if I had composed the story I should have made her "lean on the arm of her young and handsome spouse," or, perhaps, I should have put his arm lovingly round her waist, and had her eyes gazing sweetly into his. But, after all, this would not have done so well, as it is "agonised grief of the distracted husband " that the true penny-a-liner enjoys, and under the suggested arrangement this would not have been supplied. The story is very circumstantially told; for, "hardly had they taken 100 paces, when Mrs L and her companion disappeared down a crevasse," &c. The catastrophe was very terrible, and, of course, everything was done, "but the bodies could not be recovered, and are probably some thousand feet down in the mountain." There I can imagine them sitting, frozen and enchanted, like Barbaroasa of old, until something happens — say until a railway tunnel passes that way and sets them free. Now, all this is very shocking ; and it is still more shocking that I should appear to be gay under these distressing circumstances, but 1 happen this month to have read my "files" more carefully than some of my neighbours, and the following telegram, dated a few days after the supposed accident, may serve to explain my levity, and my genuine feeling of relief. I clip it from the Mail of June 8th :— The rumoured death on Mont Blanc. — By Telegraph. —From a correspondent. Geneva, June 7. — There is no truth whatever in the reported fatal accident on Mont Blanc. "We little know with whom we brush shoulders daily in the streets," is a very common saying. By the same token we little know what ha» been going on these two ye&tß within a comparatively /short distance of our shores, Aft account; of

the sufferings of the communist prisoners in ISew Caledonia has lately boon published in the London Times, of which it occupied six columns. Six cnluirns oc cupied "summarily surveying the field of sufferings, miseries, infamies, and abuses, of authority, in sparing many occupations—Jicfos/—too well founded— in leaving untold a thousand monstrous facts." How far the account is accurate, o how far exaggerated, I am unable to judge ; but making every possible allowance for bitterness of feoling on the one side, and on the other for the great difficulties under which officials labour in undertaking, probably for the first time, the charge of a vast crowd of turbulent rebels, for, putting the very best construction upon the motives of these people, it nnit-t be admitted that they are not the passive pnrt of the population— still the French Government has a feaiful accusau. n to answer. It is impossible to suppose that the story told in the Times is a pure fabrication. In the description of the voyage out of the families of the prisoners who followed some of them to the colony, the following passage occurs: "'l he hygienic conditions were so deplorable that nine children perished during the voyage, la ting three months." Evidently the writer does not know the nature of a Public Works and Iminiyr<i;ion Policy. We exptesa the same thin«? in this way— sp aking of Iho Tweed, not our nio-t fatal ship by any mea> £ " It was scarcely to be hoped that s.. many human beings cooped up together should escape a visitation from King Douli. That potentate levied tribute by the way, and carried off 13— the causes of ckaih being diarrhoea, mesenteric diseases, convulsions, and consumption. Not one case of serious disease had oconm-d amongst the immigrants above the agu of two years." We have a pleasantex way of talking of these things than our French neighbours.

It is curious how sometimes an absurd notion will root itself in the public mind, and remain there despite all reason. iSuch an idea is that which prevails hero in a vague way, but which gains strength "by reason of its baselessness — that Captain Cook sailed into Otago Harbour through a channel now filled up, crossing the present Ocean Beach. A sufficient refutation may be found in the fact that when the Forbury was laid out large totara stumps were dug out of the ground, which must have been there for centuries— and of course before these centuries began they must have formed forests centuries old. A still more conclusive refutation is the fact that sand worn stones are found on the sand hills — worn *>y countless ages of conflicting winds. Indeed, the sand hills themselves, and the beach bulow them, are a silent but irresistible answer to the hypothesis. But lest this should still bo deemed insufficient, I liuve had the curiosity to see what Captain Cook says of it. The great navigator passed down from the Worth, and the weather being hazy, he could see nothing but a high point. He kept well off the land, as a siale was blowing, and lay-to for the nighs five miles west of the point, which he named Cape Saundew. At daybreak the Cape bore north. He makes ie a landmark, _ noting his course carefully, and, lest it should be missed, ho says " There is, however, about three or four leagues to the S.W. of it, and very near the shore, a remarkable saddle-hill, which is a good direction to it on that quarter." He mentions two or threo bays just north of Cape Saunders which would afford shelter, but remarks — "My desire of getting to the southward, in order to ascertain whether this country was an island or a continent, prevented my putting into any of them." This surely ought to dispose of the question. He then continues the description of his voyage southward, giving the most minutu description of his position several times each day, so that his course may be m n-kud accurately on any chart until he re.ich.js the southern extremity of tht- isltinl. So long as Cape Saunders is in sight he gives its bearings, making it the point by which he determines lus position, thus absolutely excluding th« hypothesis of his having entered Otago ITanour. Tlvs, unless I am greatly mistaken, is the only occasion on which he passed alo'iy; 'he eastern shore of the country u<>w cnLed Otago.