What Everybody Says.

Thames Star, Volume VI, Issue 1813, 24 October 1874, Page 2

What Everybody Says.

" In multitude o! counsellors there is safety." I . —OliD FKOVXRB. i In military parlance "As you were " would'represent the state of matters at the Thames, except, in regard to the ■weather. We have had weather certainly —fine weather—summer weather, weather 1 which lias raised the spirits of everybody, made the plants grow and the new-formed fruit expand. If only other things had improved with the weather all would have been well, but the weather barometer hasn't influenced the scrip market. Brokers are evidently down on their luck\ and the mines, though down far enough for the pockets of shareholders—which thoy have bottomed —are not yet on the | gutter. The libel case business created a little diversion at the end of the week—• that is, t'other end not this; but the unsatisfactory (to one, at least) conclusion arrived at dispelled all interest in the question. Everybody said the jury wouldn't agree, and they didn't. For once everybody was right, and public writers may now go on lampooning everybody to their heart's content, so long as i they can find an accommodating jury to condone their excesses out of respect for the person instead'of the law. An "intelligent" jury is a great institution. They don't stick at hanging, but thin, you know, a fellow once put out of the way is powerless for good or ill. It seems rather hard on Mr. E. H. Power for the Borough Council to call him to account because he brought under their notice the presence of diphtheria in the Borough. But it all comes of a man, going out of his way. Mr. Power is the registrar of deaths and other event* which awaken the emotions of individuals and sometimes communities. As registrar the cause of death is stated to him, and diphtheria has several times been reported to him as the cause of death. He reports this to the Council arid Councillors ask for his authority— which should easily be found on reference to the registry book. If the Councillors would examine ,»jhi» book they would doubtless discover the authority. If it should be the certificate of duly qualified medical practitioners, the latter should be called upon for their reasons for withholding information from the local Board of Health which, under a certain enactment, they are supposed to give. The disease brought under notice by Mr. Power has been a perfect scourge on the other side of the water, and there is no telling how soon it may manifest itself in a malignant form here ifgthe^ report bp true that " several cases df xliphtheria as causes of death" have been reported to the Begis-. trar —which at present there is no reasott to doubt. ' , v

The new element in the Council was expected to go in for retrenchment, but it was scarcely anticipated that they would be led by the old salt. The question of salaries, howevei', has b°cn discussed, and one of the committee who decided upon the various officers required by tho J3orough for the conduct of its business and the salaries attached has been the first to try to undo the mistake he admits having fallen into. Councillor Butt has evidently discovered that he made a mistake, and is not too proud to admit it. But as another Councillor remarked there is a want of consistency in th's, which was not explained by the retrenching Councillor, who tacitly says " it's better to be right to-day than consistent to-morrow." The murderer Sullivan docs not seem to have had the most comfortable time of it sines his departure from Auckland. Discovered on board ship, the crew and passengers made matters as disagreeable as possible, and when lie landed he discovered that his movements were watched as attentively by a select few as if he had been the Shah—or King Tawhiao. Well, it wouldn't bo just to let the villain tako things too easily. He was lucky to escape the gallows, and still more lucky when ho received a pardon and a I pension. There is, however, just a chance that the members of tha fraternity at Scotland Yard may become too assiduous in their attentions to the ex-con net, and drive him. to America. There his identity would be just as likely to leak out, and, if he escaped lynching, there is a strong probability that he would get shipped back to Australia or New Zealand. Somebody suggested that he might be sent here again as one of the Agent - General's selection, but that was said in " sarkasutn " of the selection as practised by immigration agents. To dispose of such as Sullivan effectually and without much trouble, a penal colony on the west coast of Africa might be considered a ratable adjunct. Everybody ia inclined to be charitable to an absent man; and everybody who is not a nobody would be sorry to say anything of a, man behind his back. At the same time everybody is anxious for the return of Mr. Walter Sully to learn from him the circumstances under which a, private note from Captain -Eraser to Mr; Sully found its way into the hands of the defendants in the late libel action. This ere thing will keep, as the Yankees say.