PASSING NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 1932, 30 November 1888, Page 21

PASSING NOTES.

A pleasant thing it is to watch from the shore the distress of some fellow mortal tempest-tossed on the waves,— -sweet and comforting is it to behold in others an example of t sufferings from which we ourselves are exempt. So at any rate says Lucretius, the philosophical poet whose doctrines Mr A. Wilson has recently been expounding to us. Rochefoucauld goes "one better " : There is something not altogether unpleasant to us in the misfortunes of even our best 'friends. Both sentiments sound heathenish, but they are disagreeably near to the truth of universal human nature. Take as an example our feeling about this week's news from Australia. First, the Melbourne land boom is collapsing. Well, we always said it would collapse ; virtuously incapable ourselves of any sort of booming, we have been shaking our heads for months past over this mad and wicked gambling in land ; it would end in a smash, we said— an awful smash ; and we have been looking out daily for the fulfilment of our prediction — partly in envy, partly in moral indignation. Does- this week's news distress us 1 Not a bit I The Melbourne people are our very good friends, but they have been altogether too prosperous of late; decidedly a little snubbing will do them good. That is how we feel about it, I fancy. As for a boom of the same sort in New Zealand — why, the possibility seeming remote, we repel the temptation with ease. Our virtue on that point may be considered impregnable as long as it is not assailed.

Then there is the Australian drought. With us, "the lain it raineth everyday"; with our dear friends over there the flocks and herds are dying and the hope of the harvest is perishing for want of water. It would be inhuman to rejoice over this ; yet, on the other hand, shall it be forbidden us to reflect with satisfaction that Australia's difficulty is New Zealand's opportunity? Has not the Australian drought already sent up New Zealand oats eighteen pence. a bushel? If Lucretius had been a grain speculator in a time of scarcity, if he held a "corner" in wheat and had a fleet of corn ships to arrive from Alexandria, we should have no difficulty in understanding the inspiration of his famous suave onari magno passage. New Zealand has just now' a "corner" in oats, and will have shortly in some other things beside— a result strictly due to the Australian drought. We don't rejoice over the, drought, of course ; that would be wicked ; we rejoice in being the agents of Providence to mitigate (at a satisfactory rate, of remuneration) some of its evils. During the " depression "—of which we now speak only in the past tense — we chiefly needed to pray '• Lord, gie us a gude conceit o' oursels." The cure has come spite of our unbelief, but it would have come earlier by faith. Australia hardly looks just now the land flowing with milk and honey that for a year or two past we have been tempted to think it. A good conceit of ourselves and the land we live in ought to come easier to us in future.

"Such stuff as booms are made of" is likely to become a stock quotation in commercial circles. Colonial experience goes to show that they are made of very poor stuff indeed. The silver boom expanded to gigantic proportions, only to vanish in an instant like a pricked bubble, and now the Melbourne land boom has followed suit. The general exclamation will no doubt be that everyone ought to have seen long ago that this must be the end of the land gamble. Most probably everyone did see it, but hoped that they individually would not be the luckless wights left, as the Daily Times correspondent happily puts it, to "carry the baby." The principle of the gamble just concluded is easily understood, and the affair could be worked just as well with any article or any commodity by passing it rapidly from hand to hand at fictitious values. Say half a dozen speculators like to pass a copper coin around their circle, one purchasing it at twopence, the next at threepence, the next at fourpence, and so on. The interesting game may proceed merrily until the penny is selling for a thousand pounds or so. Each man knows its real value, but each continues buying it at an advance in the hope that lie will not have to " carry the baby." Only one will be left that honour, and all the other five speculators will win from him. The game might easily be adapted for household use, and played in the parlour as well as on the Stock Exchange. We can readily understand the anxiety of the Melbourne people for secrecy as to the collapse. Holders of land would like a moment's respite to pass their burden on just once more. But the signal has been given, and this baby will make no further rounds.

It is rather a startling fact, when one thiuks of it, that Mr C. R. Chapman's attempt to buy his way into municipal office does not appear to 'have greatly scandalised anybody. His terms have been discussed, and the nature of the "consideration" he offered has been canvassed, very much as though the purchase and sale of the chief magistracy were an everyday transaction of commerce. The excuse of the public is, I suppose, that they looked upon Mr Chapman's candidature as a sort of joke. Even then, it was a joke in very bad taste, and oughttohave been resented. Part of the "consideration " offered us for making Mr Chapman mayor was a £500 subscription by some person, name unknown, to the Exhibition fund. Now ifc would have been cruel hard if, after bartering our political virtue for a stipulated price, that price had not been paid. Our torpid sense of honour and the fitness of things would have been touched up then, I fancy. We should have got Mr C. R. Chapman, and we should not have got the £500. And this is exactly what was going to happen. The mysterious donor (who turns out to be Mr Robert Chapman, the candidate's father,) informs the public that his intended donation is cancelled because .his son

has had the indiscretion to mention it. This ,< is unlucky every way, certainly. Apparently the Exhibition fund loses £500. Mr Robert Chapman, who seems to be one of those modest benefactors who Do good by stealth and blush to find ib fame, is offended by publicity. Let us hope devoutly that he will yet find some way of carrying his generous intentions into effect without attracting the public notice. The thing is surely possible. Five subscriptions of £100 each in the unobtrusive names of Brown, Jones, Smith, and Robinson would manage it. It was six or seven years ago that, amidst gnashing of teeth by the faithful and much heathen jubilation, the • Freethinkers, the Agnostics, the Materialists et Iwo genus oinne, reared an unhallowed temple on the old site of Dr Burns' First Church. The whirligig of time has brought in its revenges, and to-day the Lyceum paases into the hands of Mr-D. O. Cameron, a true-blue Presbyterian and a pillar of the temperance pause. This is only the last — or perhaps it is not the last — of a series of misfortunes that have waited upon this devoted band of the unorthodox. First, the Echo pined, sickened, and yielded up the ghost, after a brief but gallant struggle for the truth. Then the vice-president of the Freethought Association crossed at one step from infidelity to ritualism, a transition not at all so illogical as it looked. Extremes meet. And now the Lyceum, which has cost its unlucky founders a pretty penny from first to last, must go too. With it, perhaps, will go that most curious item in New Zealand literature, the Lyceum Guide ; for what is the use of a Lyceum Guide without a Lyceum 7 The infant sceptics who were wont to vary their Sunday afternoon doses of morality by a "walk round" must now stretch their unorthodox little legs over a smaller area. The Lyceum prophets, if there are any left, must hold their peace or uplift their testimony in comparative privacy. It has been a bold attempt by an enlightened few to direct the masses. John P. Robinson, he Sez the world'll go right if' Eg hollers out •'gee." _.....- i The little army of Lyceumites have " hollered gee " vigorously enough, but the world has not' budged an inch from its old groove. Nor will it at any such- invitation. Your modern sceptic reasons faultlessly about everything except the human heart, which by some oversight he leaves out of account. Deplorable 1 for it is just upon this very rock j that he splits and goes to pieces. ] Nothing is easier than to tilt at a creed and upset it to one's own satisfaction, be it the creed of Christianity, Mohammedanism, j Buddhism, or what not. The pastime is piquant, yet ridiculously simple— as the' Yankees would say, " like rolling off a log." The practical difficulty begins afterwards; Creeds having been successfully floored, flattened out, and jumped upon, the secularist champions find themselves confronted by the force that brought the said creeds into existence. A religious sentiment of some kind is about as necessary to humanity as the victuals and drink that Dr Belcher dropped into poetry about the other evening. Man was made to mourn, said- Burns. , No ! doubt. And he was just as truly made to laugh, to talk, to eat, to drink— and to worship, either on his knees or off them, but to worship somehow. The Choctaws and the Hottentots are made that way, so are the gopd folk we send to proselytise on Greenland's icy mountains and India's coral strand. Therefore it is that the people who build Lyceums to diffuse the seductive gospel of Agnosticism find the order they have undertaken too large, and their schemes for setting mankind on a new and improved basis perish from sheer inanition. The Lyceum, be ( ifc remarked, was not carried by direct assault. The clergy of the various denominations did noc invade it and put its votaries to confusion, as did Elijah with the prophets of , Baal. Sir Robert Stout was once tackled by a bishop, but no one quite knew the upshot of that struggle, which was so long drattn_out that the parties had to be left fighting. No ; the Lyceum, like many a better institution, 4ies from being let too severely alone. •

I have received from a correspondent a printed sheet" headed " Result of (the Sydney Turf Club's Annual Melbourne Cup Consultation, closed with 40,020, October 31st, 1888 ;" underneath are columns of figures, the numbers of prize winners. Accompanying this sheet is a ticket receipt for £1, No. 14,254. These documents are sent to me, I suppose, because of no further use or interest to the owner. I infer that 14,254 was not a winning number, an inference strengthened by the following remarks written on the margin of the sheet of "results ":—

The Melbourne papers has published this as a swindle, and I now belive them. Anyhow the odds are about a 1000 to 1 that you don't get another £1 from me. Whafc have you to say about if; Mr Civis ? Well, a swindle it may have bejen, for anything I know, but the writer's reason for thinking that it was a swindle seems to be merely the fact that No. 14,254 did not v/in a prize. Supposing it had won a prize — £1000, £500, £300, £100orsomeother— where would the money have come from *but out of the pockets of subscribers who won none! If nono of the 40,000 subscribers lost their money how could there be any prizes at all ? Thik disgusted tioketholder must have overlooked these very elementary questions. He does not seem to have remembered that in subscribing to a " consultation " he was joining a society in which the many were to be plundered that a few might be enriched, and that he hoped to be one of the plunderers. Let him be ashamed of his greed, and stick to his wholesome resolution to make no more vain attempts to get other people's money without earning it. Consultations are illegal in New Zealand, and it is much to be regretted that Australian operators in ,'this wasteful vanity are able to use for their purposes the New Zealand Post Office.

A bare inch or two of space is all that I can afford to the squirrel problem, which, I find, is still exercising some of my correspondents, and respecting which " Sivic ". of Oamaru affirms that " Civis "of Dunedin is

(as usual, on such, subjects) hopelessly, ip. the dark. Does a man who walks round a tree containing a squirrel— who rotates on bis own axis, always keeping his face towards • the man — walk round the squirrel ? 'It must have been in a moment of weakness' that I admitted this imbecile question into Passing Motes. Why did I not reserve it for one of Mr 0. E. Chapman's election meetings 1 The one necessary thing now is -to get rid of it promptly., Briefly, then, in the case supposed, though the man walks round the space, containing the squirrel, he does not walk round the squirrel itself. " Sivic" and his friends affirm that he does; and write me pages upon pages to i prove it. Very well; so let it be; I can do no > more for them.' Except perhaps this: Let them imagine a house spinning* 1 like a teetotum, and a maii running in 'parallel motion yet never able to get round , to the backd oor; does the man "ran round -the house? I1I 1 recommend that the further, discussion,; of thequestion be remitted to, the old men of the 1 Benevolent Asylum, and the ;Tpbaccq, Parliament there presided over ,by Jock Graham. OIVIS.

A murderous assault with firearms was perpetrated in the Sydney Domain shortly before 11 o'clock on the night of the 14th inst., when a labourer named Charles Cassidy, aged ,23, residiog near the -'railway station, was severely 1 wounded by a man who shot him in the face while he was walking through the domain. He states that he was proceeding alone when an unknown man approached, and suddenly drawing a revolver, fired it in his face. Hi 3 left cheek was wounded and blackened with powder. The bullet entered th&leffc side of his nose, and, taking an inward course, became deeply embedded in the cavity of !that organ. His assailant then left, and Cassidy, whose wound was bleeding profusely, sought the aid of the nearest constable. He wad taken to the hospital. From the nature of' the wound Dr Fisher does not think that it was self-inflicted, and there is no reason to doubt the map's story. He knows of no reason for the attack, and entertains no suspicions of anyone. The injured man is in a critical condition.'

It appears from the figures for the fiscal year 1887, which have lately been published (says' & London paper), that 717,748,754 gal of rcalt liquor were consumed in the United States during the year. Nearly all this immense quantity was prqduced in America, only 2,300,000 gal _ being imported. The per capita consumption nqw reaches ll'9Bgal, or nearly eight times whaji it was in 1860. The consumption of "hard liquors," on the contrary, has steadily decreased. Of distilled spirits, 71,064,733 gal were used, in 1887 less than in. 1860, whea the 'population was only half as large. It is stated that American beer has now almost completely taken the place of Medford rum, and Kentucky whisky. - The annual art union in connection with the Otago Art Society's exhibition was drawn on Tuesday afternoon, and resulted as follows :— First prize, Mr J. T. Dunn, value £25 ; second prijze, Professor Salmond, £15 ; third prize, Mr J. Rattray, £10; fourth prize, Mr E. H. Carew, £l 6; fifth prizes Mr J. T. Mackerras, £10: sixth prize, Mr Sinclair Thomson, £8 ; seventh prize, Mr Mackenzie, £6 ; eighth prixe, Mr E. B. O. Quick, £6 ; ninth prize, Profesßor Sale, £5; tenth prize, Mr Jame^'Mills, £5; eleventh prize, Mr James Park, £5; twelfth prize, Dr Scptt, £5 ; thirteenth 'prize, Mr W. Wilson, £4 ; fourteenth prize, Dr Brown, £4 ; fifteenth prize, Mr, Finkeiy£4 ; sixteenth prize, Mr G. L. Sise, £4; seventeenth prize, Mr J V M. ; Ritchie, £4. The society's annual meetinghas been postponed until next week. ' '

The Secretary of the .South Canterbury Refrigerating Company (Mr G. F. Clulee) in a letter to the Daily Times states that last year hiq company paid a 9 per cent, dividend, and 2<i pcjr head bonus to shippers" upon over t4,000 sheep. In the previous year no dividend wa> declared, being the first year's operations ©f, the company. / v ' pit Shirley Baker, jun., who* ha 3 recovered from the gunshot wound inflicted on him by the Natives at Tonga Tahu, retnrned to that island byj the Richmond.. r ' >r The Nov^ Zealand Loan and Mercantile Araicy Company; (Limited)' has just been advised by -cdblegram from 1 London of the reduction of what is known as the "management rato" from Jd tb one-fifth of a penny per lbfon frozen. meat. F6r the benefit of those who may not be aware of the basis of this rate, we "may 'say that 'it' includes receiving and delivering, and storage for four weeks from the time of breaking bulk in the vessel's freezing chambers. The Loan and Mercantile Company has been, working towards this end for some time, and shippers will doubtless be glad to le^rn. that their efforts have been so far successful.. The reduction takes effect from December .Ist prox.,' and taken in conjunction with tne recent freight contract at ljdperlb, sbjould stimulate the export of frozen mutton considerably.'— Press. Information , has been received of the death from exposure of & man named Charles Boldfc, formerly employed about the Spanish Restaurant in Dunedin. He was on his way across the Rpck and Pillar making for Cottesbrook, and was found in an exhausted condition by some shepherds. Steps were at once taken to attend to him, but he died while being removed. .In connection with the London tragedies and the suggestion to use bloodhounds, Sir Charles Warren witnessed some private trials in one of the London parks. The hounds were the property of Mr Edwin Brough, near Scarborough. The animals— Barnaby and Burgho — were taken v to Regent's Park at 7 o'clock in the morning. The ground was thickly coated with hoar frost, but they did their work well, successfully tracking for nearly a mile a young man who was given about 15 minutes' law. They were tried again in Hyde Park the same night. It was of course dark, and the dogs were 'hunted in a' leash, as would be the case if. they were employed in Whitechapel. Thfiy wpre f again successful in performing their allotted task, and at 7 .o'clock on the following morning a trial took place before the chief commissioner." . r ln all half a dozen runs were made, ' Sit* Charles Warren iii two instances acting as the hunted man.. In consequence of the coldness of the scent the hounds worked very slowly, but' they demonstrated the possibility of tracking complete strangers on to whose trail they had been laid; The chief commissioner seemed pleased with the result' of the trials, though he did not express any definite opinions on the subject to thofe present.

Mr Hookham, the president of the Canterbury Chess Club, in his address at the annual meeting, suggested that State schools might advantageously follow the example set them long ago by the Government schools of a certain town in Germany, where chess is systematically tanght to the pupils. In primary schools a few half -hours in the year (three .per quarter would probably suffice) might be employed very profitably in teaching elementary chess — that is, the moves and the laws of the game— to a class comprising the children .of the Fourth^ Fifth, and •

Sixth Standards. . At the present time physical exercise is promoted by - gymnastic, apparatus, ,and ( Mr Hookham says :— V Surely it is not too much to ask that a trifling expenditure might i be. authorised in encouragement of mental athletics. As regards the intruction, lam quite aware that the existing syllabus is already overcrowded, and .that my suggestion is unlikely, at present, to meet with attention. But the syllaj bus as it is stands- condemned, and will be revised. It may ba ( reasonably anticipated tbab at : each revision 'there will ,be a tendency towards I thesubstitution of the niore agreeable forms of I instruction and of mental evolution for thoae of the; severer and- more mechanical type which have hitherto, held sway in the curriculum. .At one' of these revisions it, may be that the claims of che'-s as "an 'educator— as not merely a mental recreation, but as an important exercise and discipline of the mind— will be no longer ignored by educational authorities." iv.'A terrible ballcfon accident is reported from Canada. At the Central Canada Exhibition at : Ottawa one of the attractions was a balloon ascent in which Professor Williams, after reaching; a height of 1000 ft, was to descend by means of 4 parachute.' Fully 5000 persons were in the grounds to witness the performance. Many persons were holding on to the balloon while it was. being inflated. Among them was a young man named Wensley, who was holding on to a rope running around the bottom of the balloon. When all was ready the professer shouted •• Let go,'' when, to the surprise of everyone, Wensley still kept his hold on the rope, deaf to all the! crie* of the crowd to drop. After he had reached the height of about 50ft he shouted twice, appearing to have realised the perilous situation he was in. It. was, however, .too late. While the balloon was rapidly ascending he kept his grasp and endeavoured to raise his leg through the rope to dbtain firmer Bapport.'->TA.fter-he had reached a height of about lOOOffe he, was seen by the breathless crowd below (» draw himself up as if making a l«st effort to save himself, and then hisjhold relaxed, and with lightning speed he descended towarda'the earth. At this point the excitement among the crowd was beyond description; women fainted, and a panic was' bat narrowly averted. During the first part of the fal| Wensley came feet foremost,!but he suddenly turned a somersault;, and struck the earth with outstretched arms and legs about 300 yards tto\a the spot where the balloon ascended. The' body was disfigured almost beyond recognition, anq neck, arms, and logs were broken, Life must have been extinct before the ground was reached. Professor Williams,- ignorant of the terrible accident, cut adrift from his balloon to commence his descent about 20 seconds after Wensley fell. . In Melbourne lately there have been several meetings among ladies relative to importing a orppetent teacher of plain sewing, aud several of those interested have subscribed a sufficiently large sum of money to pay her .expenses out and for a time after she arrives, and classes are arranged which she will take up on her arrival-— abdut next March. The lady comes from the Sopth Kensington school of needlework, and no doubt will be very well fitted for her duties ; bu| it seems odd that Melbourne ladies had to serjd 16,000' miles for a teacher of plain sewing, Surely one could have been found at their doors at )east it seems so to an outsider.

That one-half of the world doesno^ know how the other half lives is a very true saying. With this introduction a contributor to the Sydney Msjil writes : — " The other day, in Melbourne, there was found dead in a small chamber, which was at once bedroom, parlour, and kitchen, a I humble employe of the Government. He had livpd a lonely life for years ; no one suspected that he was an artjst and an art connoisseur, Yet he was both. In the little shell in which he had ensconced himself were found thousands of pounds worth of pictures and books and curios. th 4 collection of a diligent and discriminate hand. On the table there lay a partly finished copy of one of the finest paintings in the exhibition. The rooms were crammed with books and pictures, many of them of high value." > The following gentlemen were on Wednesday elected county chairmen : — Lake County, Mr O'JMeara (re-elected) ; Waihemo, Mr A. D. Bell (r^-eiected) ; Tuapeka, Mr Cotton ; Waifcaki, Mr Dancajtt Sutherland (re-elected). Le Courier de la Meuse announces that the Rijyal Powder Factory of Weteren is engaged in the manufacture of a new species of powder, which is in all respects equal to that fabricated under the name of poudre Lebel. The name giyen to this explosive is that of papier potidre, or>" paper powder," and' its ballistic force is far superior to any of the ordinary qualities of gunpowder used in Belgium, one' charge of 2i grkmmes being sufficient to send a bullet 600 metres at point blank range. This "paper pqwder " possesses the additional advantages of ndt fouling the barrel, while it produces scarcely ari'y smoke and causes a very slight recoil. | The question of its adoption for the Line regjments is now under consideration, and there is every reason to believe that the Belgian military authorities will decide in its favour. During an interview which one of our representatives had with Mr Phil Robinson on Wednesday,'reference was made to the Schanschieff electric light, of which so much has recently been heard. Mr Robinson, who is interested in the success of the light, explained that it was caused by the action of a solution of mercury on zinc and carbon. Sixpence or eightpence worth of the liquid, he said, would drive a winnowing [ machine at full man power for three hours and also give light, while two sewing machines could be driven and two lights provided for the same time at a similar cost. The light can neither set fire to anything nor be set fire to, while it will burn under water and cannot be blown out by wind. The French Government, Mr Robinton informed our reporter, had adopted ifc for torpedo purposes and for use in all their military magazines and stores, while ' Edison has utilised it in connection with his microphone. It is also now in universal use in mines, and bofch in New South Wales and Victoria large orders have already been booked for ruining purposes. An electrician has arrived in Dunedin, and the first experiments with the light were to be made iv the Garrison Hall at the Convent bazaar on Wednesday evening.

i Regulations for the parcel post between the United Kingdom and New Zealand limit the weight and dimensions the same as in New Zealand — viz., parcels lib in weight, 3ft 6in in length, or 6ft in length and girth combined. Parcels will be despatched fortnightly, the first going Home by the Ritnutaka, leaving Wellington on December 27. Parcels to and from England will ba liable to customs duties. No letters may be enclosed. The rates will be Is 6d up to 2lb weight, and 9d for every additional potmd. Negotiations are in progress for extending the system to Australia and to foreign countries through London.

Mr Foord , of Arrow, agent for Elwell aud Parker of Wolverhampton, electric engineers, had a conference 'with "the Timaru borough conncil, at which he gave the council much information respecting the electric light. He is to examine the town and water supply and report on the cost of an installation for street lighting on Friday evening." , "