South Canterbury Times. SATURDAY, JUNE 8, 1895. HERE AND THERE.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 8228, 8 June 1895, Page 2

South Canterbury Times. SATURDAY, JUNE 8, 1895. HERE AND THERE.

The licensees of Timaru had a pleasant entertainment yesterday, and their smiles showed that they quite enjoyed it. It is not usual that persons accused of breaking the law occupy the jury-box, and the fact that they occupied the cushioned seats of the judges of fact, instead of standing in the dock when they were arraigned, no doubt added to the humour of the situation. Fever were men more temperately accused of misdemeanour. They expected to “ get it hot,” and their accuser never grew even warm! But the one ground of objection which to him seemed clear and applicable without any doubt to certain houses, is as certainly a morass, which nothing but more legislation can make firm, and the other objections were only, as Mr Gillies admitted, general fault-finding. There is fault and grave fault, somewhere, but it is not a committeeman’s duty to say, or to ascertain, where the fault actually lies.

It is a remarkable thing, when one thinks of it, that this trouble about the private bars has existed for 14 years, and the Legislature has not attempted to clear it away in all those years. For many years though, there was no trouble ; the second bars were specially licensed. Then some bold innovator led the way in opening them without a license, the local bodies lost revenue, and prosecutions failed to close the bars or to collect the fees previously paid. These clumsy points in the laws give far more trouble and annoyance than all the rest put together ; and if the Minister of J ustiee were to confine his attention entirely to discovering the defects and vaguenesses in the statutes on which so much litigation is founded,and to getting them remedied, he would very well and very cheaply earn his ministerial salary.

The Mayor of Dunedin made a strong bid for purity in his City Council, by moving for the discharge of the Finance Committee because one or more of its members had been tattling to outsiders about business that was under consideration by the Committee, and as yet was of a private character. It was with very much pain and regret that he asked for the discharge of the Committee, and for the appointment of another of different composition, so that “ such a flagrant breach of propriey, good taste, good sense, and honourable conduct, should not occur in future.” In the discussion on the motion all the members of the Finance Committee spoke, but they did not all repudiate the charge of tattling, and though some were placed on the new committee some were not. All that they could say—and others said so too—was that the matter talked about, and furnished to a newspaper, was not of very great importance in itself, though it concerned a very important business.

The following curious paragraph has been handed to us. It has been clipped from a-New Zealand paper, which appears to have taken it from the Melbourne Spectator :—“ The Rev. Abraham Levi Solomon writes (to the Spectator ) ; —‘ I happened to take up the Spectator at a friend’s house, and saw about the ‘ unformented wine,’ and was astounded at the statement which implied that the wine used at the Passover (where you say the ‘ Lord’s Supper ’ was initiated) was fermented wine. . It could not have been fermented. The Bishop of Goulburn ought to know better than to make such an ignorant statement. We always have, and always do to-day, use unfermented wine at the Passover.” We venture to say that this is a completely garbled statement of what the reverend gentleman wrote : that “fermented” has been printed for “ unfermented,” and “ unfermented ” for “ fermented,” The sentence : “It could not have been fermented” is sufficient internal evidence of this. “ It could not have been fermented.” Why not ? It could not have been wrcfermented, — because there is no known means of keeping wine, from grape-gathering till spring, without its fermenting. This chemical fact is a general answer to a great deal of the argument about unfermented wines. The holiday maker is being well considered by the railway makers of Europe. There are mountain railways now in existence to some of the lower Swiss peaks, and it is proposed to make one up

the famous Jungfrau. The railway cannot be taken to the very summit, but after climbing as high as possible the line will be tunnelled to a point beneath the summit, and a vertical shaft, with a lift and a windingpath,will be made in this. An order has been given for a mountain line to the top of Snowdon in Wales, and another scheme is to run a line to the top of Ben Nevis, in Scotland, which offers an easy grade for a mountain line. The French are discusssng the plans for another novelty for the next exposition at Paris, a big shaft 4500 ft. deep, with tunnels bored away from the end for restaurants and gardens. It is expected that the natural heat of the earth at that depth will enable tropical plants to be' grown down there by electric light. One gallery is to be prepared for the use of scientific people, who will carry on borings to greater depths, to see if they can tap a permanent and useful supply of natural heat for industrial purposes. “ Mattock,” without a handle, wants the County Councils and Road Boards to order land owners to clear gorse off the roads, for the purpose, chiefly, of finding work for unemployed men. It would be more sensible to set them to wheel shingle round the harbour, for what they did in that way would stay done, whereas clearing gorse of roads that are too wide would be a waste of labour in most cases. “ Mattock” did just mention riverbeds choked with gorse. If he had stuck to this text, and preached a warning to prepare for wrath to come in the shape of exceptional floods which the gorse in the riverbeds will prevent from flowing away, he would have had some ground for claiming work for the unemployed, in that direction. It ought to be patent to everyone that the smaller riverbeds are in many places dangerously choked with gorse. There will be tribulation in consequence of this some of these days. The new local government scheme ought to provide for compulsion in the matter of keeping riverbeds free from gorse,by special rate if need be, to be collected from all owners away up to the head waters, on the principle of the wolf and the lamb fable if no other. If the runholder in the hills did not send down gorse seed to grow in the riverbeds, he has burned and fed the natural herbage off the hills, allowing heavy rains to flow away! more quickly,and in doing so to carry more shingle into the river beds.