THE WEEK.

Otago Witness, Issue 2130, 20 December 1894, Page 33

THE WEEK.

(THURSDAY, DECEMBER 20, 1894.)

•'Nuuqnam aliud nalur», altud siplontfa dlxlt."—JuviNit. " flood nature aud good sense must ever joiu."—Pop«. A MERRY^CHRISTMAS. By the time this issue of the Witness reaches oar readers Christmas will be approaching, and a few words of greeting may therefore be more appropriate and more agreeable than oar usual oriticisms of public affairs. We trust that those criticisms, though occasionally in the very nature of things touched with ievority, are in the main fair and honest, and as judicial as the nature of politics will permit them to be. A newspaper, like a prominent individual, may be popular or unpopular, but for both alike the only enduring popularity is that which is founded on respect; and respect was never yet accorded to thoee who shrink from their duty because it may happen occasionally not to be of the most agreeable kind. To found its reputation on the rock of public respect has been tbe aim of the Otsgo Witness, and very grateful are we for the many indications we receive that during the past few troublous years our effort* have not been altogether in Tain.

Very pleasant is it, however, to reach a period when a truce may be called to the tumult and tht striving, when a pause may be made in the march of life, and tbe wearied may not only have a little breathing time for themselves, bat haply may also look round to see bow their neighbours are faring on the road. Such a time is Christmas. It is not given to everyone to be able to rid themselves for the momeet of the troubles and worries of Hfo because they have arrived at a particular time of year — to have the temperament which enables them to Bay :

What boots it to repeat That time is slipping underneath our feet? Unborn to-morrow and dead yesterday, — Why fret about them if to-day is sweet ? But it is good for everyone to be compelled to relax his own labour, to lee the signs of merriment around him, and above all to have his mind directed to the lessons of peace and cbarity and goodwill which the aisociationß of ages have intertwined with the Christmas time: — I heard the bells on Christmas Day .Their old familiar carols play, Aud wild aud sweet The words repeat Of peace ou earth, goodwill to men I Human sympathy and kindness will at all times do much to palliate some portion of tb« misery tnat is in the world. Well, therefore* is it to hold fast to that period of the

What's in a n»ai«7 We ought to be superior to prejudioeß based upon these airy nothings ; we ought to be, but are not. Deeds of derring do by Li Hung Ohung and Xi Wun Lnog, by Admiral Ting, and Field-marshal Yamagats, are, for us, deeds done in another planet. It in wrong to feel thus. The OhineseJapanese war is really a big thing, and a thing of world-wido importance. So far from being In another planet, it Is at our own doors. By its means already Japan has forced herself into recognition as one of the Great Powers, and that imports a shift eastward of the centre of gravity in international politics that may bring the -whole world topsy-turvy. lam not clear that New Zealand can intervene with advantage, that the Seddon Ministry, like King George of Tonga during the Franco-Prussian struggle, should is&ue a proclamation of neutrality, or anything of that sort. Probably our wisest policy is that of Brer Rabbit — to " lay low." But the phases of these high doings in grotesque Cathay will bear watching.

It is an uncomfortable reflection that had the Wairarapa on her last voyage been in chaige of a captain new to the coast she would probably have been afloat at this hour. The inference seems to be that the local knowledge of the old coaster who has taken bis ship to and fro along the same track, and in and out of the same ports, a hundred and a hundred times, may possibly become a snare to him. It may flatter him into over-confidence, and neglect of ordinary precautions. I myself have had experience of the happy-go-lucky ways of coasting skippers, though not of late years— l hasten to say that. I once went out over the Manakan bar — channel two miles long, if I am not mistaken — when we bumpod on the bottom in the hollow of every awoll. I suppose it was a wrong state of the tide. The skipper remarked upon the incident carelessly at the breakfast table afterwards, •• I thought I should survive." In another West Coast boat we were groping about in a fog to find a bar entrance, edging always nearer and nearer to the surf. Suddenly, with the elegant exclamation, " I've got yer, ye b— h 1 " the captain spun the wheel round and put her through. He had picked up the opening, and all was well. Another time in calm weather we were creeping in through a dense fog towards a harbour that wj could not see. when fckfl

lookout for'ard reported that he could " hear people talking ashore " A snort of incredulity from the bridge rewarded this information, but a few moments later the unmistakable clatter of a milkpail, seemingly close aboard, warned us that we bad nearly run into a dairy. One other fog experience, this time on the coast of Tasmania, though in a New Zealand boat. We were travelling at ordinary speed, nothing visible, when the fog curtain lifted and revealed half a dozen rocks as big as haystacks.outside of us ; that is, we were between these rocks and tbe shore. The steamer was ignominiou?ly backed out, and luckily there was room.

These things occurred in the bad old days, before the TJ.S.S. Company had arisen to bring coast navigation under tbe restraints of science and system. The coastal skipper's half-formulated doctrine in those days was that his ship could find her own way from port to port, even as an old horse knows the road to his own stable door. Unconscious reliance on this doctrine is exceptional now, and the Wairarapa's case seams to have been such an exception. Note the following sentences from the finding of the Court of Inquiry :

The Wairar&pa was lost through Captain M'lntosh and the firat and secin-l office's not taking the corfecfc point of departure at the Three Kings aud not allowing for the current which, they should have been aware, was running to the east and south-east. Why accurate bearings were not taken at the Three Kings, and car* fully compared with the four-yoint bearing tnlo'n off C»pe Maria Va?i Diem«n, ami the •hip's course positively fixed, se-nis inexplicable ; instead ot which, there is no doub the be*riug taken off C*pe Maria was incorrect. They had reached the familiar water*, you see ; they were in right of the familiar headlands ; and so the simplest rules of prudent navigation were neglected, or but perfunctorily attended to. M'ght it not tend to prevent the recurrence of this exceptional recklessness if th« U S S Company were to institute a rigorous inspection of logs 1 Had the officers of the Wairarapa known that their neglect to take bearings at the Three Kings would be discovered in Dunedin, and would inevitably procure them a wigging, this indispensable point of duty would have received due attention.

It may be interesting to give a forecastle view of the matter, preserving, as incidental marks of genuineness, the writer's two or three oddities of spelling 1

Civis,— Your note on the crew of the Wairarapa is pret'y rou.b, but jou aught to sUte in another no c what you -"ow.d have done had you been *boa-d tbt- st^ame- that ojf.ht. What mitht have been done — anil what I have seen don« tinder *imil*r cnrvimstan- cs — the mau oo the look out fiom 8 to 10 or from 10 to 12 should have s\i»u out, " Land ahead ! " They knew — *6 all on boa-d hn-w— that th* v^sstl was in a dangerous possifcion to bf driven at the rate she was And «bo could have contradict**) tt>e m«u on th' look-ow ? No one could see the land on mic a night, but I have >'O doubt tt would have brought the stipfer to hts bemnjs. Of course th« man th*t would do this* sort of thing is generally daubed a "*ea lawy<r," and thy don't carry " tea lawyers" in ihe U S S.Co.'s bo>ts. If ihe |.Ksopl" who k«ow the must abou* the una^es aboard ship could write note/- Ike you can the punlic would get a lot of mf rraation on the 6ubjtcb. Jack. This glimpnj into the workings of the lorecastle mind is instructive, all the more so bec&ase the writer's suggestion as to " what ought to have been done "is absurd. Th«re are responsible officers whott business it is to do the thinking. What has Jack to do with thinking 1 Jaok's business is ooeying The notion that Juck is to satisfy his mind about the skip's position before he consents to keep a true look-on t is perhaps quite consonant with the principles of Democracy, bnt when those principles begin to be applied on board ship landsmen will unanimously stop ashore.

As apropos of the school breaking-up season, an incident, not included in tbe report of the school concerned, is supplied by a O3r respondent : —

They were having an English Grammar lesson in the upper Fi* h Form.

"Name," f-aid >h» master, "any prefix that deno'e* the ger.der of a noun." One girl answered, " Bull " " Quite so," s«id toe master ; "and now give an example of its me."

Sil- nc« for a minute on the part of the pupils. At length a girl hazarded, " Bullfinch ! "

The master's habitnally impassive countenance relaxed for a moment ; then he quietly remarked :

" Doubtless the feminine is 'cowfinch.' "

Fun hpr questioning ou his part elicited the somewhat starling utatnnent thnt tho masculine form of "du^k" is "gander," and th*t of "goo«e" is " «Jrafe«." Small wouder that my faith is shaken, and that henceforth I march with the "People's William " in a cru«ade against " cla*s t chools " whose studec.is display such alarming ignorance. Reform is necessary. Yes, reform is necessary, but I don't think reform need take the shape of sending the school en masse to the next poultry show, as this correspondent goes on to recommend. It is the teaching of English that needs reforming. What is the utility of knowing the prefixes that denote the gender of nouns? Speaking for myself, I am positive that I do not know them. AoT I any the less able to speak or write my native tongue 1 And wbat is the good of learning how to put adjeotives and adverbß into classes (e.,y, adverbs of time, place, sequence, degree, manner, inference, and so on), as the other day I saw required in tt " home exercise " 7 Such knowledge is worthless. Probably there is not a writer or speaker of note who possesses it, or who, if he possessed it, would not find it an encumbrance.

For a primitive community, eating its bread in the sweat of its brow, we have imaginative and descriptive writers galore, some of them, it may be, on the way to become writers of note. There are, as I count, 32, no less, in this Christmas number of tbe Witness. The existence amongst us of bo many embryo poets and novelists is a thing to be proud ot Criticism must be hushed, or proceed by the humanitarian rule:

Be to their faults a little blind, Be to their virtues very kind. Robert Louis StaYeniQn..filjirtiMe. untimebr.

death n<jw o in- j. • < ..ait; hjoi Samoa, has a word of advice to young novelists that I will copy out for our Otago beginners, and make them a Christmas present ot it. He says :

The author must Ictiow his country-side, whether real or imaginary, like tbe h*nd ; the dista> ess, the po'u.ts of the compa«B, thf place of the sun's rising, the behaviour of th« mo m, shi'ukl all be beyoud cavil. And how tronb'esome the uioon is ! I h*ve come to grief ovor the mo >n in " PrinceO to," and so koou ts that wai pointed out to mo, adopted a precaution, which I recommend to other men — I never write now without an almanac

With an a'manao and the map of the country, a>d the plan of ev«-ry house, either actually plotted on ptper or already and immediately apprehended in the mind, a man may hope to avoid some of the grossest possible blunder*. With tho map before him. he will scarce alow the sun to set in the e-ist, as it does in " The Antiquary." With the almanac at hind, he will so»n« allow two hor*enieo, journeying on the m.st urgent afftir, to employ *ix day», from 3 of th« Monday morning till lute on the Saturday uight, upon a journey of, say, 90 or 100 mile*, and before the week is out, und »till on the same nags, to cover 50 in tb« one day, as may be read at leujj'hin the inimitable novel of "Rob Roy." And it is certainly well, though far from necessary, to avoid »uch " croppers." This is R. L. Stevenson, who iff not only an author, but an authority. The young maker of stories will be helped little by the ability to classify adjectives and adverbs, or to catalogue the prefixes that denote gender in nouns, bat it will be of great service to have a clear conception of the plaoes, times, and seasons in which his characters are to act their little play. Supplied with an almanac, the plan of a house, and tbe map of a country-side, I believe I could write a story myself, provided only I had the imagination. CiVIS.

Mr R. T. Aitkeu, tbe iv pec<or for the Soci ty for the Ficvention of C "dty to Animal?, visited Wiwgnloa with Constable Pool**, of Knitangftt-a, ou the 24-th, where, finding hordes b*ing worked while snff<<rii>g from opeu fores under the collars, hr laid iutorta*tions aganxt the offenders The ctweei came before Mr R. S. HHwkitw, S M., ar. Kaifcangata ou Thurnday last, when Mr D Sttwurb prosecuted for the society. Leon»i«i H^«d'e, farmer, for working a horse with two Wg* opou sorea under the collar, was Qned £3 0s 6d, including cobta ; Joeeph Sruitb, farur»e r , whot-e h'irso had an open sore under a collar lined with a rough sack, was stlao Hut-d £3 0s 6d, including I'ost* ; Willivn Burnu, a ploughman, was fhifd £3 10.4 6d, including costs, ou two charges of working horse? with open sorea.

The well-known firm of R^id and Gray last week completed a he,*vy casting tbnfc, from the difficulty of the work nn<i the mcce^s which h»s attended it. desi.r>es honourable mention. The pintou-rorf oi the large Mbeaiu-hamrnor at the Otogo Iron Rolliug Mills (SnielhV*) w*» broken, and had either to be re|Jac«d «r rep*irod, the latter involving an excuediugly difficult operation. \n erp«aditur« of some £130 would be required for a ne«r piskm-i od, i\B the casting weighs over thmn tons, and Messrs Reid and Gray* oVm undertook th« fca.sk of meltiug on oue of the dovetailed etuis, weighing abjut 4cwt. The pi»to i-rod was sank iv thi» ground at au leaTiug the fracture level, and the mould for the new end prepared. Sonae two tons of molten ineb*l were thnu run over the end, so as to fu»« it ; then fche *)UtUt was plugged, Win casting filled, and the new end melted on, all forming a solid mans. Thi« it may be m*ntion<»d is not fche only ooustiufweld Bucce**fully managed by th*- firm, as tome mouths nitica they succeeded iv w«ldiug a castiron end on a large double atael pluiuu, aud the character of this work hue been proved eminently saH*fa.ctory. Tte casting which was made on Friday evaning constitutes ptobably the biggest welding job ever done in the colonies, and the firm is to be congratulated upoa its successful accomplishment.

It will interest muiioians to know that Messrs Charles Begg and Co., of this city, have received from the well-known piano manufacturers, Mtss«rs John Brm«mfrivd aud Sous, duplicates of four instruments which have been tent by that firm to tho H«bart Exhibitien. One of the pianos ia in a c»sa of Italian burr walnut, and the panels are beautifully iwltid with mirqiif try work ; another iv ■olid American waluut, and the others iv solid rose* od — tho d<-dgn in each ca*e being handsome and effective. Tbe ineUumeu'S are all fitted with Brinsnaead's pateut eorck r«pe*ber action, and are aduai übly Quished. It it olaimed for them that their iron tranvs. which are iao.de on a u»w model of the flun'ii, K' ve them a gre*t«r strength than these lurtUomeuti usually have, and th« use of rivets as well as glue iv their construction it calculated to enable them to resist thn effects of damp climate. The careful selection nnd adequ»tt) seasoning of the timber employed are points which may be depended upon in pianofortes tamed out from Mesirs Brinsmead and Sons' factory.

The output of coal from the Weshpoct and Gr. ymouth mine* for the month of November was as follows:— Westp^rt, 14,877 tons 13cwt ; Qreymouth, 7062 tons 6cwb.

The Taieri Advocate reports that the crops on the southern portion of the plivin are looking very well, and there is every indi-ation th*t — provided, of course, thr weather is favourable — the yields will be large. Uuforftunately the yellow weed may be seen in abuudance, particularly in the Otakia district;, apd some of the fields arts timply blitzes of yellow. The Canadian thistle, too, is very much in evidence in portions of the plain.

We learn that the Bank of New Zealand has decided to close its Cromwell branch at the end of the year, and that the business of the branch will be taken over by the Colonial Bank of New Zealand. It is part of the arrangement that the latter bank is to close at Whaogarni, the Bank of New Zealand taking over the business of the Colonial Bank at that point.

About half-past 6 o'clock on Monday morning Ariatides Verral Brown, a clerk in tb* National Bank at Mosgiel, committed suicide by ihoating himself in the head with a revolver. It appears that he was sleeping on the bank premises, and at the hour mentioned ha partially dreised himself and theu went into the banking chamber for a revolver. Returning to his room, he next bandaged his eyes with a handkerchief and discharged the weapon just above the right ear, tbe bullet passing completely through his head. No reason can be assigned for the deed. The deceased only wont to Mosgiel about a week ago to acb as relieving olerk. It is said that he was (hen somewhat despondent, bnt had been more cheerful since. He was about 24 yearn of age, and a son of the Rev. William Panton Brown, now - ; f Elm row, Dunedin, and formerly of Wuikaia. It will ba remembered that a brother oi the

deceased disappeared suddenly snd somewfcgft mysteriously from Riverton some time ago, having, ib was supposed, fallen or jumped into tbe estuary. The auuual scholarship and pupil teachers' examinations throughout Otago commenced on Tuesday morning, aud will extend over three days. They will be conducted at Dunedin, Oammru, Palmerston, Cromwell, Milton, and Lawrence. For the senior scholarship* 54 have entered (48 of whom are enten d from Dunedin), and for the junior scholarships 115 (Duuedin claiming 73). For the pupil teachers' examinations the entries are : First dais 18, second class 14, third elans 30, fourth class 42.

It is uotiQed in the Gazette that eight of the unoccupied sections ou the Pomahika estate may be applied for by the adjacent owners In any area not exoeeding 640 acres.

The Union Steam Ship Company's fine tteamer Tarawera will this season, as usual, be despatched on excursion trips to the West Coast Bounds. She will make two voyages, leaving Port Chalmers on the 17th and 26tb January.

The local treasurer of the Wairarapa Relief Fund Committee has reoeived the sum of £505 in *übacrtphion« and proceed* of entertainments, but including the contribution of £100 from the Clutha relief fund the amount which has passed through hit hands is £605.