PASSING NOTES,

Otago Witness, Issue 2371, 10 August 1899, Page 3

PASSING NOTES,

(From Saturday's Daily Times.)

It is not easy to make out whether Mr Kruger is or is not still President of the Transvaal. It is certain that he resigned ; it is also certain that he was besought to take back his resignation. Probably he Jias token it back ; but I don't remember that the fact has been reported. One thing is clear, the Transvaal Government ihas suffered a rude shock, and in that fact we may all take comfort. The effect of a cannonade may be measured by the amount of confusion it produces in the ranks of the enemy. If all things seemed still to be going smoothly at Pretoria, we might justly suspect the franchise concession as valueless. But when President and •Parliament, hitherto united, are suddenly found to be at loggerheads as the result of this concession, we are helped to appreciate its importance. The Boers, in short, are undergoing a military squeeze, and the new franchise law is just as truly the fruit of victory as it would be had we won it by a successful battle in the field. Twice now has warfare of this bloodless kind served us well. How otherwise did we conquer in the Fashoda affair? — for conquest it assuredly was. After applying the military squeeze to France, and applying it with such shining success, we needn't doubt its efficacy; when applied to the Transvaal. What is now wanted is another turn of the screw. Patience! — all in good time. Lord" Salisbury promises that .there shall be another turn of the screw. Or rather, he says that Britain " having ail t her hand to the plough will not look foack." His metaphor is different, but his meaning is the same. Perfconally, I should Jike to see the Boers whipped in some very .visible and exemplary fashion, by way of -wiping out Majuba Hill. But bince we are getting all we .want* and it will come to

the same thing in the end, it may be as well to remember that we are Christians. } It was a bad day for the Wellington and Dunedin footballers when they got into the same train with the Rev. Isitt. Before the journey was half through Mr Isitt had dis- ' covered that both teams were drunk. Perhaps I exaggerate. After listening to prohibition oratory all the week I feel myself incapable of exact statement*. Exaggeration, as a vice of speech, probably depends upon microbes, and is catching. It was not both teams that Mr Isitt discovered to be drunk ; he subsequently, under cross-exami-nation, exonerated one of them. Then, as respects the other, he gradually pared down the accusation tiU it affected only, or mainly, " a short, dai'k man with a Jewish appearance," in whose person the scandal may be considered as reduced to its lowest terms. Even thus, some will have doubts. Lecturing recently in the north, Mr Isitt had a difference with his audience . about the number of publichouses in a neighbouring village. There were three, he said. "Two," shouted the audience. "I certainly saw three," replied the lecturer, i " Not if you were sober ! " retorted some- • body ; and the laugh went rather against ' the platform. Sobriety of judgment has ' never been a prohibitionist virtue, nor ! accuracy in matters of fact. Mr Isitt un- i doubtedly received a bad impression from j the travelling footballers ; but then, I , fancy, he was predisposed to bad impres- j sions. When two Fifteens are boxed up ! together during a ten hours' railway ride ' you may safely anticipate that their behaviour will not be that of a Sunday school .j picnic. From a prohibitionist point of view, their manners will lack repose. Their voices will be loud ; they will smoke too much ; at the stations some of them will have a drink. Probably this is about the worst of what happened during the journey of the Wellington and Dunedin teams from Chri&tchurch, and it was hard luck that Mr Isitt should be in the train. Mind you, I have no admiration for football manners. That young men travelling between here and Christchurch should drink spirits when they could get tea, I Jook upon as scandalous. Larrikin lawlessness is a hateful thing ; but you will* not cure it by accusing the merely boisterous hobbledehoy of being drunk. i On the Pactolus. ' Dear Civis, — Let us suppose that Messrs X. Y. Z., owners of a current- wheel dredge on this celebrated stream, desire to take advantage of the present beneficent boom. Possibly a syndicate of company- promoters might be found who would buy them out, their claim and their rattletrap machine, for .£IOOO or ±'1200 in paidup shares. But X. Y. Z. know 3, trick worth half-a-dozen of that. They announce a company — the " Pactolian," let us gay; capital, £12,000, in £1 shares, of which shares 6000, . fully paid up, are. allotted to " the vendors." Next, they take up in their own names the remaining 6000 shares, and thus become sole proprietors of the company's stock. Finally, with a view to the sharemarket, they publish the prospectus, " for public information only." Now try to think this out. Nobody but X. Y. Z. was in it at the beginning; nobody : but X. Y. Z. is in it at the end. As vendors, • they obtained from thenise'ves as pur- I chasers, and as purchasers they allotted to themselves as vendors, 6090 paid-up shares. As holders of contributing shares, they are to pay calls of 2s a month; j but, inasmuch as X. Y. Z. will be paying to X. Y. Z., we may regard this as a mere matter j \>f bookkeeping and consider the whole capital ' as already paid up. Messrs X. Y. Z. are there- ! fore in & position to unload upon the public j 12,000 20s shares. A shareholder who sells out J of any company is absolved from responsibility • for the future proceedings of that company. If therefore Messrs X. Y. Z. unload successfully, ' it seems to me that they will retire with £12,000 clear, leaving to their fortunate successors the claim, the current-wheeler, the prospectuses, and the scrip. — I am, etc., Pactolian Sands. I On the last point this correspondent is clearly wrong. The buyer of shares buys a proportionate part of the-company's subscribed capital. A share cannot be sold as representing 20s paid up unless 20s has been | paid up. If, therefore, the proprietors of j the " Pactolian ' should sell out their 6000 contributing shares as " paid up" they would necessarily have to leave behind them, in cash or its equivalent, the sum of | £6000. The " Pactolian " of my corre- | spondent's parable is obviously the Manu- j herikia Gold Dredging Company, the prospectus of which appeared in last Tuesday's ' Daily Times. I confess that I do not find this document a model of lucidity. The j vendors, it seems, are the company, and the company consists of the vendors. Yet Aye have a list of " provisional directors " — Messrs C. G.. Leijon, Joseph M'Geor^e.,

J. 0. M'George, Thomas Steele, A. C. M'George, and W. T. Talbors. Good names, no doubt; but are these "gentlemen, then, the "vendors"? If they "" are, why don't they say so? Is it that modestyforbids V -Possibly enough,— considering the fact that the vendors absorb half the share capital. Tf they are not the vendors, bowdo these " provisional directors " come in at all? Is it that their names and their services ha.ye been hired by the concession of "promoters' shares"? If so, the public ought to know it. Look at the Golden Mascotte case recently before the Dunedin Magistrate's Court. The defendant, Simpson, was sued for a call on 200 contributing shares, which shares, as he affirmed on oath, he had never agreed to take. He didn't believe in the Golden Mascotte, and wasn't going to put his money into it. Yet, in consideration of the gift of 75 promoters' shares, fully paid up. he had consented to become a director, allowing his name to be used for what it might be worth in beguiling the public into investing in a company which, ' as he remarked, " had either been belied or was no good." Here's morality for you ! I accept the Golden Mascotte case as the latest local version of "Satan's Invisible VVorld "Displayed."' As for the Manuherikia Company,' the claim it holds may be as good as its provisional directors' names ; I hope it is. But the overloading is indisputable, and the prospectus, it must be allowed, exhibits a regrettable reticence. Little is being said about the missing Waikato, but perhaps for that ieason we think the more. Little is said, because there is nothing to be done. The Perthshire, when in similar case, figured in the newspapers daily; we shared in all the excitement of the search. But how search for a missing ship last seen off the Canaries? Too plainly there' is nothing to be done. The Perthshire case preaches hope. If a steamer disabled between Australia and JSfew Zealand may drift for 50 days before she is picked up, she might drift for six months if disabled east of the Cape. The Waikato may be now dragging her propeller through the water at the rate of a knot an hour, and may be reported a month hence from the tropics of the Indian Ocean, or turn up near the Leuwin. On the other hand, there are the adverse chances — fire, collision with ice, a broken shaft ripping out the stern of the ship, and a " bad landfall," which is the sailor's euphemism for running ashore through careless navigation. Little difficulty is there in assigning a cause for any case of total disappearance in mid-ocean. An English paper has been enumerating examples of ships that have vanished utterly when navigating the narrow seas about the British Isles. One may suffice to quote : Take tho case of the Burvie Castle as a striking example. She vanished, not in midocean, but between the ports of London and Plymouth. Into the latter port she should have put on her way to Australia. But she never reached Plymouth, and not a living soul knowa how or where she vanished. It is most extraordinary that she should have been lost so near to land without so much as a spar being washed ashore to tell of her fate. And yet, spite of all the perils of the deep, it remains a fact that one could hardly be in a safer place than on board a well-found modern steamer making an ocean voyage. These single-shafted ocean tiamps that come to New Zealand are not to be reckoned modern steamers at all, however lately built. The modern steamer has parallel shafts and twin propellers. If the Waikato were of that kind, the chances are that she would long ago have made her port. i The worst features in the English charI acter — English as distinguished from Brit- | ish — have recently been traced to the most unsuspected of causes. M. Le Rien, who is described as " a distinguished French scientist and pathologist, 'famous for his dietetic investigations,"' has proved, to hie I own complete satisfaction, that the English- | man's pride, his stiffness, his restlessness, his' inability to stay at home, and, consequently, I suppose, his inconvenient presence in India, Egypt, and other such I places, are all to be referred to the fact ! that he is in the habif of eating bacon j and eggs for breakfast. The frenchman, on the other hand, makes his breakfast of coffee and roll ; hence — by similar reasoning — French volatility, fickleness, shallow- | ness ; hence barricades, re/volutions, and the Dreyfus case. This is not the inference of M. Le Rien ; ib is my own, but I am prepared to back it as being quite as scientific as the other. Let us hear, how-

ever, by what methods the French savant reached his results : M. Rien began his investigations by ordering what his recent experiences when in London showed him was a typical English breakfast. He then procured a large jar of white earthpmware, which coiud be hermetically sealed. Thoroughly washing this vessel with an antiseptic fluid, he placed the eggs „ and bacon in it. In two or three hours, when the food was quite cold, he carefully examined it. The bacon was, he estimates, only ten times less than the relative toughness of tanned kid's leather. The egg 3 formed a leathery gelatinous integument, which, hardened by the grease from the bacon, must impose the gravest strain upon the ordinary digestive x>owers. I make only two remarks. The first is that the ordinary English stomach is probably more effective for digestive purposes than an earthenware jar, even though that jar be washed by antiseptics and hermetically sealed. The other remark is that here, in the colonies,, we have learned to qualify the typical English breakfast by the addition of porridge. The profound moral consequences that may be expected to follow from this modification will be identified perhaps by some future Frenchman, whose task it will be to relate how Federated Australasia ousted his countrymen from certain places in these latitudes, whither — ■ considering the unsubstantial nature of their breakfast fare — they ought* never to have adventured — namely, Tahiti, the New Hebrides, and New Caledonia. Civis.

The annual meeting of the New Zealand Refrigerating Company was held on the 2nd, when the directors' report and balance sheet were adopted. It appeared that the year's operations of the company had resulted in- a loss of £140, after providing for the payment of £1304 for interest, and writing off £834 for repairs to roads, buildings, and machinery. During the year £12,433 lls had been expended on new machinery and buildings, mostly at Burnside. At the conclusion of the annual meeting a special meeting of the company was held, when it was decided to increase the capital of the company to £60,000 by the creation of 4000 preferential shares of £5 each. Mr John M'Kenzie, the New Zealand Minister for Lands and Agriculture (writes our London correspondent under date June 23), has .been in a private hospital for the last day or sc — in order to undergo a course of dieting and examination at the hands of specialists. His case is considered serious, but not desperate in any way. There is no doubt that he has done the right thing in coining Home for the best service. Probably in a day or two he will go back to the Highlands for a quiet week, and then return to the specialists to complete what they have in hand. Mr M'Konzie has had several long interviews with Mr Thomas Mackenzie in regard to the produce trade, that would have had to be deferred had it not been for the latter's speedy departure for the colony. Mr John M'Kenzie, however, would not miss the opportunity of talking over trade matters with the exinember for Clutha. The gate receipts at the football match between Wellington and Otago on the 2nd amounted to £216. Four interprovincial matches remain to be played here this sea';on — those against Canterbury, Southland, Taranaki, and Auckland, — and the O.R.F.U, has decided to ispue tickets at 3s, admitting the holder to all four matches. The weekly meeting of the Benevolent Trust waa held on the 2nd, there being present — Messrs Haynes (in the chair), Wilson, and Treseder. The accounts passed for payment amounted to £293 18s 2d. William Brown, 82 years of age, was reported to have died on the 26th ult. The out-door relief cases for July were 321, comprising 111 men, 246 women, and 520 children, — cost, per week, £19 19s. For the corresponding month last year the number of cases was 436, representing 194 men, 309 women, and 616 children, the maintenance amounting to £117 10s 6d. The Secretary of Mrs Sawell's Bible Heading Society wrote stating that they purposed giving the annual tea to the inmates of the institution on the 10th inst., and invited as many of the board as possible to be present- Thirtythree relief cases were dealt with. The East Taieri Presbyterian Church held a congregational meeting on Monday, 31st ult., the business being (says the Taieri Advocate) to receive the names of the three ministers who had been nominated by jfie highest number of congregational vctoe. and a bal-

loting for one of the three, to "whom a call should be given. There was a very fair number" of the members of the church present, and the moderator (Rev. J. M. M'Kerrow) presided. The result of the voting was: — Mr Hall, 139 ' members, 73 adherents; Mr Cairnoy, 114 members, 41 aoherents; Mr Brown', 101 members, 49 ■ adherents. It was decided that a ballot of tho three names be taken, the one who got the most votes to be considered elected. Another congregational meeting will be held to confirm the election. The auctioneers of Wellington having caro« fully considered the Auctioneers Act Amendment Bill, have decided that the amendments are xincalled for, unnecessary, and unworkable, and, if passed, would not be in the interests of the public at large, while it would be most disastrous to auctioneers now in busi-' ness. A number of illustrations are "given of how the measure would work injury. Some of these are on the lines of those givn by Dunedin auctioneers, while others are newv Among the latter is the case of fruit sales. To disclose the names of consignors would place at the disposal of a new beginner 1 all the information as to a connection which has cost perhaps the labour of a lifetime,' and the outlay of much capital. Cases of transactions in' shares are also instanced. If the holder of shares to bo sold be a well-known man, a director or officer of the company affected, the . announcement of his name as a vendor might; { cause a very heavy fall in the value of "shares, owing to the drawing of wrong conclusions, and thereby cause severe monetary loss to other shareholders. In mining shares the announcement of a well-knowu man as vendor might virtually create a panic. During his address at the Garrison Hall on the Ist. the Rev. L. M Isilt stated that when m vas coming from Christchuroh to Dunedin. c^n the previous day he travelled with the Ounedin (Kaikorai) and ""Wellington football teams, and At Studholms Junction witnessed c scene ol drunkenness and blackguardism tha,* \r?x disgraceful., Four or five of tho "ootbailen; -yere staggering about in a moat tn:mi3takabk 3tato o x drunkanness and making use of pro'ame language. He thought that; 1-his waa ©ridenoo "Jmfc ~»« -ranted to do all in our power to 3ree tha manhood of this land from the degrading -fee of drunken-i ness. The divorce suit of Cox v. Cox, which engaged the attention of his Honor Mr Justice Williams at the Supreme Court on Thursday, was the first case of the kind heard here. The case was one in which the petitioner sought a dissolution of marriage on the ground that his wife had, without just cause, wilfully deserted him for a period of five years and upwards, the petition being made under the provisions of the Divorce Act of 1898. From the evidence it appeared thati the parties were -of very contrary dispositions, the petitioner being a quiet man, fond of hiE home and fireside joys, while the respondent preferred a . life of gaiety and manifested propensities which brought her into equivocal relations with members of the opposite sex. Her husband Jiad to leave England in consequence of the difficulty he had with her at Home owing to her love for male society, and after the two came to this colony a rupture between them occurred on account of the petitioner wishing to take his wife home from a party before she was prepared to go. As a matter of fact she never returned home after that night, but subsequently went to live with another man as his housekeeper, and could never be persuaded to go back to her husband. Hia Honor, after hearing the evidence, granted a decree niai. The recently appointed Anti-Opium Committee at Grjeymouth have. drawn up a petition to Parliament, and have had it translated into Chinese. Copies have been forwarded to the principal centres to be signed as largely as possible by Chinese residents. The petition points out that the importation of opium is on the increase, while the Chinese population is decreasing. The inference is that the habit has been acquired by other than Chinese. In ordei to te3t the strength of his nerve*, the Rev. H. Vyvian Tyrrel, precentor of St. Stephen's, South Kensingon, England, entered the lions' den at EarPs-Court the othetf day with Captain Tajlor, the tamer; and stayed there for six minutes. The wild: beasts first snarled and then roared, but the clergyman remained perfectly calm, and left the cage thoroughly satisfied with fch* atatf of his nervous system.