OUR AUSTRALIAN LETTER.

Otago Witness, Volume 01, Issue 2123, 1 November 1894, Page 12

OUR AUSTRALIAN LETTER.

Melboubne, October 20.

NEW ZEALAND LEGISLATION.

The publication in the Argus on Thursday pi {he precis of Mr Reevea's Undesirable Immigrants Exclusion Bill, forwarded by its Dunedin correspondent, has caused no small & mount of comment; and that journal the same day devoted a caustic leading article to the measure. According to the Argus no other colony devotes itself to the invention of new laws with greater industry than New Zealand. The diligence of a New South Wales rabbit in the multiplication of its furry young is scarcely equal to#»t of a New Zealand Parliament in the production of new laws. The typical New Zealand legislator throws off a new bill or two in his pensive moments with as much facility as a sentimental poet strikes off a couple of stanzas. The quality of the legislation is declared to be an wonderful as its quantity ; and if the present trend of legislation in New Zealand continues, the unhappy New Zealander of the next gentration will have to conduct all the business of his life under State regulation. A Government inspector will order his dinner for him, and select his wife, and superintend his changes of linen, and determine what books he snail read, what games be shall play, and how often he shall wash himself. After explaining with a running comment of i>tire all the provisions of Mr Reoves's bill, the article concludes :—" The new bill is practically a proclamation of non-intercoui se with the rest of the human race. New Zealand sighs to become, like Thibet or Siam, a * sealed land.' It U a noble cluster of islands, with an area nearly as great as the United Kingdom, and with a population about as big as that of a iondon suburb, and its Government proposes t& translate the fable of 'The dog in the manger' into an act of Parliament and solemnly place it on the Statute Book. What these new and half-filled lands want is population, but the tiny garrison which afc the present moment happens to occupy New Zealand would fain shut its doors against the whole world. •The bill we have been describing will, no doubt, be regarded as an exquisite joke by everybody outside New Zealand; but how the natural courage of the English-speaking race must have perished when the executive body of a British colony seeks after this fashion to lock the whole community up in & glass case, seenre from the free air of the rest or the world J" In the came paper next day a correspondent wrote urging that the measure was one to which the Queen might fittingly refuse to give he* assent. MELBOURNE BANKING TROUBLES. In my last letter I gave particulars of the action forced upon the building societies of reducing the rate of interest to depositors from 8 to 2£ per cent. This week the Argus has hinted at a similar movement by one or two of the reconstructed bankß ; and there appears to be no doubt that it will be carried out shortly. The rate of interest! contracted for was 4-£ per cent., whiob some of the institutions, if not all of them, find it quite impossible to pay, and they will also ask for an extension of the term for repayment. All thic, of course, is a bad Bign, and though the press reports are that the matter is being discussed without alarm, yet there has been no small anxiety in the banking world. The fear is lest customers of certain of the banks should take fright and set about withdrawing ; and thus we should havo a recurrence of the panic of 18 months ago. Perhaps, however, many of the customers are in the position of the man who was summoned to a bank parlour recently. His total liability to the institution is about £700,000, and drawing cheques somewhat recklessly the manager desired to put the brake on. •« What the deuce d.o you want me to do ?— chuck it ! All right ; I'm agreeable." But the manager was not prepared for his "chuckiDg" it; and he goes on drawing cheques. "THE UNEMPLOYED IN MELBOURNE. Whilst the Patterson Government remained in office Melbourne was as bare of unemployed as Iceland of snakes ; but it is a singular thing that no eooncr did they go out tban all the familiar agitation recommences. At the first meeting there were only about 80 ; a couple of days ago these had swollen to about 500. They must aave come down from the village settlements. Poor Mr Turner, the Premier, whom they interviewed, with little Willie Maloney, M.L.A., at their head, could do nothing with j them, and finally lost hiß temper. He promised j to start works for them up-country, but they stormed at the idea and demanded employment near town, beside their wives and families. • The Government have a hard row to hoe. ; T» placate the Labour party they have promised one-man-one-vote and woman suffrage, but the Labour party refuse to be placated with- j out a representative in the Cabinet; and the civil servants are already after them to withdraw retrenchment decisions. Mr Peacock, the Minister for Education, had to turn upon the teachers the other day and rend them, which, as the civil service put the Government into power, is not the most agreeable way of thanking them. MR PURVES AND MR O'HARA, No event for years in Melbourne has given rise to so much fun and gossip ac the encounter jn Collins street between Mr O'Hora (or Dr O'Hara, as he is generally called), tfco well known fcurgeon, and Mr Purves, the even better known Queen's counsel. Dr O'Hara had been the leading medical witness in the Supremo Court action brought by Madame D'Alba, photographer, against the Freehold Investment Company for damages sustained in a lift accident. The lift got out of order and stuck some distance from the floor j and just *g Madame D'Alba was getting out of it 'it started again and she was dreadfully crushed about the head. Dr O'Hara brought her round, but she will be permanently disfigured. The fury awarded her £3000. In giving evidence. |>r O'Hajra Mid hie t& lot bid operation en

Madame D'Alba was 500 guineas, and Mr Purves throwing doubt on this, the doctor added that he had in his time received as much as 1000 guineas for a single operation. In addressing the jury Mr Purves remarked upon this statement that the doctor had not told them whether it was a legal or an illegal operation. Mr Justice Hodges commented strongly in summing up upon this insinuation by Mr Purves, which, he pointed out, was not made until the doctor had no opportunity of replying to it.

The judge's remarks were published last Friday morning, and O'Hara set out on blood intent. He met Purves in the middle of Collins street, and the; had a slight eet-ta. Both claim honours. O'Hara declares that, getting home on that vulnerable spot, the point of the jaw, he knocked the bullying counsel down ; but Purvea declares he tripped and fell over his own hat. And O'Hara further declares that Purves lay in the gutter and cried. But O'Hara's "blow" after the event is one of the worst features about the case. That Purves was not much distresied is shown by the fact that the same aftercoon he won a pigeon shooting match. There was bad blood between the two men for years. When Benson, the Jubileo Juggins, was in Melbourne, the doctor and he are declared to have had a small game at cards, in which Benson lost ; and Mr Parves's legal advice having been asked, it was unpalatable to the doctor. ADd in the Windsor railway accident legal proceedings O'Hara was styled by theQ.O. the "professional medical witness," an insult he never forgave. O'Hara is the man who nearly broke the bookmakers over Ben Bolt's Caulfidd Cup ; but he lost all he made over the Melbourne Cup and other raoea directly afterwards. He is a big, broad-faced, handsome Irishman, and to the press interviewers after the Collins street fighfc declared that he was the best amateur boxer of his day in Trin. Coll., Dublin. Purves would nob deserve much sympathy for personal chastisement at the hands of some outraged witnesses ; but he ha« received a good deal of sympathy over this affair. There is a general belief that L. L. Smith summed the whole thing up admirably in his telegram of congratulation to O'Hara :— ♦• Bravo, old man ; it is worth £250 as an advertisement." A eißgular coincidence arose next day. In the Port Melbourne v. Richmond cricket match the two Port Melbourne bowlers were O'Hara and Pums ; and returning a ball from the field O'Hara struck Purvis bo severely that ha had to cease play, "I met O'Hara " threatens to become a oyword throughout the colony. MR THOMAS BENT. Victoria has been somewhat unlucky in her Speakers. Sir Matthew D ivies would scarcely have much ohance of the office again, and Mr Thomas Bent's character has received such a smirching in the Supreme Court that even were he in Parliament he would scarcely have the audacity to be a candidate. Mr Bent was a shareholder (and also chairman) of the Australian City and Suburban Investment and Banking Company. He owned 30,000 shares in it, and calls were being made which worried him. So one day at Brighton he called into his house »h old surfaceman on the roads, named William M'Mahon, and giving him half a sovereign for his signature constituted him I transferee of the whole 30,000. All he retained was 100, and the same day as chairman he sat and passed a call of 5s per share. Naturally when M'Mahon came to be pressed for payment; j of calls (there was £40,000 due altogether) he began to see that Mf Bent's half sovereign and little piece of paper was a dangerous gift, and Mr Justice A'Beckett, with some very strong comments on Mr Thomas Bent's action, has now cancelled the transfer, and reeaddlecf Mr Bent with the liability. Poor Mr Bent wriggled most j ungracefully and almost pathetically in the box; but Mr Justice A'Beckett could only decline to believe him. j THE WRECK OF THE RODONDO. One, at anyrate, of the passengers drowned in the wreck of the Rodondo— a Mr Parry— was a New Ztalander. He came from Napier, I think. When lie and other New Zealand passengers for the Golden West arrived, they expected to go on iv the Peregrine, one of Howard Smith's best boats, aud when they were abked to take the Rodondo instead they made strong objections. One man refused to go and had his passage money returped, so that he escaped the wreck. Parry, however, was not so fortunate. The most singular feature of the disaster is that the boat got so far out of her reckoning — about 60 miles. The assertion that there was a boiler on deck, which affected the compasses, will surely not be taken as an excuse, for it should not havo beon there. Another singular feature is that, after she was abandoned, she afceeplechased over the reef on which she struck, steamed full-steam ahead for about six miles in the open eea, and then went down. THREE PATRIARCHS. Dean Macartney (95) of Melbourne, Sir Alfred Stephen (92) of Sydney, and Mr John Dunn (93) of Adelaide are dead this week. Surely these ages are a tribute to the climate of Australia. ' Dean Macartney was an old man when he arrived in Melbourne late in the forties. Ho was a sturdy evangelical Christian, who troubled himself not at all about latter-day philosophy, but maintained the simple faith of his youth to the end. Bishop Moorhouse he regarded as " a great man — a very great man indeed, but terrioly uncertain in some matters of doctrine." In the last sermon he preached ho attacked the Rev. John M'Neill's mission, and also Mrs Besant's. Of Mrs Besant he declared :— " It was dreadful for a woman to endeavour to destroy the faith in Christ and give in its place some vain imaginings and wild absurdities that were so far removed from the realms of common sense that they were lost in their own mists, just as a certain type of fish was lost to sight and evaded capture by darkening the water around it."

Sir Alfred Stephen came of a long race ot lawyers and judges, and has left one son a judge. jEte has perpetuated the uatoe, for be

was a judge full of honour and uprightness ; and has received the oharacter from one who knew him well of " never forgetting a kindness and never remembering a wrong." Mr Dunn was the founder of the famous milling company of Adelaide that bears his name. He had been more than half a century connected with South Australia. THE REV. JOHN M'NEILL. A singular incident occurred at the Rev. J M'Neill's service for business men in the Sydney Centenary Hall on Thursday afternoon. The building was packed. The evangelist's remarks evoked an approving " Hear, hear," from one of the audience, but the interjection was reprobated by Mr M'Neill, who said, "Silence, please ; this thing is not to be settled by even emphatic approbation." Some time afterwards there again came an approving " Hear, hear." Mr M'Neill instantly said, "Be silent, you are getting more notice than you deserve." "So are you," was the ready retort ; •• you are like all the rest of them." Mr M'Neill then ordered the usher to put the iuterjector out, but that individual preferred to walk vnaf'oi

his own accord. As he reached the door tke evangelist said, "We have to do a little casting out of devils sometimes." SPEIGHT v. SYME. Mr Justice Williams has now awarded the costs in the second trial of this remarkable action. As with the jury's verdict each party claims a victory in regard to coals, the award is so involved that it will take a month or two to determine the exact position. There were 11 counts and three issues on each count, and each party gets casts on the issue he won. That is about the shortest way of putting it, though it is far from exact. But the main point is that the costs will come out somewhere nearly equal. Mr Speighb, therefore, not beiug weighed down by any liability as to cos^ can now fight along for hitt third trial, which all lawyers expect he will suceed in getting from the Full Court.

Tho Napier News is again in financial difficulties.

A SEE » )F WEATIIEI CABLES. /OMI ID J ;y W. H. S. R< bk: ITS. •il: NO. V. llainfi Dune taken the G' all in idin, from rernmt :tte. 0) a •4-1 >*> o « d 55 I I -p •S3, m ttS.O o H Dates on which Snow Fell. h 2 1° Remarks, me Gnz; Locality. Year and ' Month. d "A I d if 1885. I i i i i I 17 18 6 2 4 6 4 2 31 28 ! • Oamaru ... January ... February 2 3, exceedingly heavy hail storm in Oamaru, with loud thunder Gale, 1, 12, 14 Gale, 2.29; 27,28,29, heavy snowstorm at Dunstan and Lake districts, followed byhigh flood. Some of the oat and barley crops Were still in the field b, and the snow in plac'scover'd them to a depth of 3ft 2-S4S 2-780 21 9 March ... April t . I 1-246 2-938 15 15 18 22 3 2 8 6 2 31 30 2 4 1 1 May June ... 21 25 2 2 5 1 3 2 31 30 E 12 16 2 Gale, 18; 25, ice very thick 1-622 0-576 17 9 July August ... September 20 22 23 9 3 2 3 5 31 31 30 ♦* 14 7 7 1 2-340 3263 jl-255 ! 13 9 17 October ... November December 8 2 8 ** | Gale, 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, 17, 18, 28 ; 28, gale very violent Gale, 12, 15, 31 Gale, 18, 19, 20 Gale, 1, 17, 21, 30 1-86-2 2-840 0-990 16 14 12 21 21 26 — 2 8 7 4 2 1 31 30 31 « 4 31 21 5 24-590 I Totals .. 254 59 365 68 I IG7 ii H i ll fj i 1886. January ... 21 1 4 5 31 28 i Gale, 27 ; 28, severe, storm. Kakanui ranges capped with snow 1148 11 February March ... April May June July August ... 24 17 18 18 21 27 11 2 3 7 3 4 9 8 6 4 2 5 3 1 28 31 30 31 30 31 31 t 1 7 8 15 20 10 1 1 Gale, 29 Gale, 5, Flood, 1 1-273 4-060 4 565 7-434 3-418 0-GBS 19 552 11 20 13 18 17 7 27 2 2 3 9,10 1 29, ther 13deg Gale, 4,19.28 ; flood. 8,18,19,20. Rainfall heaviest on record 12 4, 27, 28 i 1-858 2-352 2-872 3 412 16 15 8 15 September October ... November December ' 17 19 23 25 5 6 7 5 5 2 4 1 1 30 31 30 31 5 3 1 — 1 — Gale, 8, 12, 13, 17 Gale, 1, 2, 3, 4, 13, 14, 16, 20 i 52-632 178 Totals ... 241 35 65 24 365 i ! 70 6 1837. January... February March ... April May June July 24 20 23 23 15 18 21 1 3 3 5 4 4 3 5 6 1 6 6 4 3 2 3 5 2 2 31 28 31 30 31 30 31 «-• 2 5 5 4 13 19 16, very hot Gale, 5 Gale, 4 Gale, 11, 21 1-936 2-272 1-970 2-102 4-877 G 481 2-83 14 14 1G 12 22 15 10 27 20 1 / Flood, 13 to 19 5, 6, 7, -high floods Otago, Canteri bury, Wcstland, and Wellington ; Gale, 13 I August ... September October ... 22 | 19 21 1 1 3 7 6 4 1 4 3 31 30 31 12,23 11 4 2 3-100 4-328 4-765 14 15 17 I *♦ Gale, 2, 19, 20; 3, snow on high hills o November December 15 24 4 4 9 3 2 30 31 w» i 2-590 1890 13 12 ij Totals ... 245 33 GO 27 3(i5 G3 — 41-031 174 1888. January ... — 18 10 31 Gale, 25 ; 26, very violent gale thro' Otago Gale, 5, 7, 8, 9, 15 ; 9, very violent gale throughout Otajjo Gale, 27, 28 Gale, 11 2-302 15 February 22 29 «• 1-412 10 I March . . . April May .. June July 20 20 20 23 19 2 3 7 1 G 7 4 4 5 2 1 31 30 31 30 31 "■• »— i - 4 8 fi 13 2 1 5 Gale, 17 Gale, fi: flood, 11, 12, 2<i, 27 ; 10, 2ft of sn'w utNsi&uby; 11, )2, floods very high ; Taicri river ro^e 15ft in 61ir Gale, 24, 25, 30; floo'l, 10, 11, 12; rainfall, Oamaru, G7Hn Gale, 5 Gale, 4, 13, 15, 20, 31 Gale, 14, 15, 20, 22 Gale, 14, 17; 10, frost ; 22, ther. (shade) 95<let' ; 27, ther. (g hade) SOdeg 5-JHS 1-252 4-32<i 0-970 13-94G 15 9 10 13 13 2 1 fi, T' 10, 26, 27, 28 [ on hills I 20 August ... 13 10 31 3 10724 •• September October ... November December 23 23 lfi 20 3 3 2 2 8 11 9 30 31 30 31 r if l 6 1 2 1 1 0-360 1-934 2-214 3 570 8 13 18 13 « Totals ... 157 i 245 39 71 11 366 50 12 48-330 !l 18-S9. January ... 27 31 3, ther. in shade 91deg;18, in sun, 144deg Gale, 14, 25, 28 Gale, 8, 20 0-438 5 ] t» February March ... April May Juuc 23 20 27 22 21 1 1 2 6 2 6 2 5 3 4 28 31 30 31 30 1 2 - i3 2 0-192 2-424 1-838 o-so-r 1-938 7 11 8 13 14 2 3 *"* 6 15 Frosts very sharpi 17 hardest 19 jj July August ... September October ... 27 24 19 25 1 1 6 1 1 3 3 3 2 3 2 2 31 31 30 31 •"!•• 19, on hills 22 19 4 2 1 "*" — 1-550 1-822 1-7 GO 1-670 8 12 12 12 1 Gale, 6, 11, 12, 21, 23; 22, 26, frosts i November December 20 20 3 2 5 9 2 30 31 ♦• Gale, 17 ; great deal of thunder 4 840 4-070 14 12 275 20 — 23 365 71 I I Totals ... 41 8] 23-446] I 128 1890. January ... Februaiy March ... April ... May June ... July August ... September October ... November December — 1 3 25 25 22 20 23 24 ]3 28 22 20 25 26 1 2 2 4 G 1 2 3 G 1 9 4 6 1 8 1 4 1 4 2 2 2 1 1 31 28 31 30 31 30 31 31 30 31 30 31 ~" - 2 11 17 14 18 2 2 1 1 - 2 - 3 Gale, 7, 10, 20, 23 Gale, 24 Gale, 17 <- - 22, 23, hardest frosts Gale, 4 2560 0-Gl4 3-282 1-252 2-104 0-512 5-370 O'SSB 1-480 2-710 3-180 ,4-050 17 5 12 14 14 11 17 6 9 21 13 11 I 1G 4 6 4 3 I ) I- - - Gale, 28, 29 Gale, 9, 10 ; 3, frost Gale, 1,24; 30, slight frost - lj '■ - I I 273 I I — X 8 68 5 27 1 984 163 '- H I Totals „, I 82 I 52 I F > • •' y ,} t „,,., .J L.J &, / 4 J * - J !. J i A . V ?_ . » i J