Great Difficulties He Had Met

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 325, 15 December 1888, Page 4

Great Difficulties He Had Met

A Zanzibar despatch of November 2ml, say >:—" Courier.-, from Taboia brinjr direct ne>v-> from the Stanley expedition, a portion of which was inei* at the end of November, 1887, by Arabs trading between Lakes Vi toria,Nyaimi, X=igne and Tabora. The Aiabs mob Stanley's lear guaid at a point west of Albeit Nyan/a and southeast of Zanga. The Atabs did not see Stanley. The detachment seen consisted of tliiity men. They stated that Stan'ey was two davs ahead. r The expedition liad suffered gie.itly on the mai^h tlnough a thick foiest" wi.ere it ivn- lmpo^bibie to advance inoie than a mile and a quarter daily. They had alao Miliered in mamheb, where many had disappeared or died. Forty were diowned in crossing a great river flowing from tho ea«t to webt. One white man had died. -Stanley was obliged "to tight some tribes that refused to supply him with provisions. The rear guaid at, the time met had only been on the inaich five days, after a halt of three weeks, due to the illness of Stanley and a great part of the escoit who had been attacked with ievor. Tho Aiabs estimate the total strength of the expedition, after all losses, at 250 men. The health of Stanley was then wood. The tear euard. which consisted of natives of Zanzibar, stated that Stniley had decided that lie would no longer advance in a northeasterly direction, but would strike toward (.he north, hoping to avoid a miiiip\ After getting a certain distance north ho intended to take an oblique Hue to the castwaid and go straight to Wadelai, where it was thought ho would arrive fifty daj-s later, about the middle ot January , 1888. The Arab 1 - were of the opinion that the expedition was tt ill stong enough to icach Wadolai. It will be icnienibored that on Aiu>u>(- Ift infoimation was recehed from Zanzibar that two messengers had arrived theic who left the interior about the beginning of A]>ril, and who rouoi ted Stanley not ai rived at; Wadelai up to that time The mes?cn<;erfc stated thai in tho month ot Etnin Vahlm did iceehe some \ague and in decisive news of the cvpedilion, but that the re[ioits were conflicting. j

In the couise of a tempeiance sermon pienehed at Wellington recently, the Re\. ,1. Beiry said :— Coultl any Englishman be proud of an annual expendituie upon strong drink of 130 millions? The time would come when our descendants would be iillcd with amazement afc the fact that. Christian England in tint, 19th centuiy ! drew 30 millions in revenue from the ! vices of the people. Our ships boro to tliu end ot the eai th their freights of acciuted giog that was doing ten-iold moic harm than all the good our mibbionai ies and literature and civilisation would counteract. We believed that England's mission was to cany the glad tidings $p all the earth, and that for that, purpose we had an Empire upon which the sun never set, yet we spent .C'-i pci- inhabitant vi on diink. and 8d upon foieign mihtions. The picacher had been in more than ono 3?aqri di&tricfc when a f.and Court wa& sitting,' and laigc mi int. of monej weie being divided among the Macui-. He had them -men, women | and children --rolling drunk m the fern tor day and mghth together, dunking the poison we had imported, and told to them by an Englishman who held a license from our (<o\ eminent. New Zealand had during the last 16 yeaib wasted in think suilieiout money to havo paid thewholoof our public debi. The annualexpenditurc now, notwithstanding all that we heai about bad times., is at the ltite ot £20 per family per year. ' Did an average public house damn or an average church nave more ecmh>_ in a year? lio know homo parts ot iNew Zealand in which bhorc were four public houses to one church. Sir Robert Stout stated =>omo timu ago that Dunedin had one public hou. i 6i 6 to every 2'JO of the population, men, women and child ten included } and one to every fifty men. What could we e-xpect or did we deserve, but poverty and crime? As surely as blankets were made at n woollen mill, or boots at a boot factory, paupers, lunatics and criminals were •manufactured in the drink shop. lie had known one beautiful inland \ alley in New Zealand, in which there wete two schools, but no public- houso, nor had there been one for 20 years. During all fchab time not a single inhabitant of that valley had seen thein&ide Of a gaol, and thb district had no policeman. All New Zealand could be made like that, and. would, if th,o people could be roused as one man to say, our country shall be cursed by th© drink no longer.