THE WEEK.

Star (Christchurch), 30 September 1893, Page 7

THE WEEK.

Is the Camperdownto be regarded as one Of the "unlucky" ships of the British navy, and in very truth to become the "Clanspherdown" of tbe eatiriat on naval qomtruction who haa in such graphio. sort predicted the heaving upoi! her battered side, snd the going down of A million pounds in Bteel To the cod and tlie corpse-fed conger eel? The Campardown has been aground at Malta, her steering gear proving defective at a critical moment. But it is precisely At these moments that the steering appliances onght to be absolutely reliable. If we -were to follow the eld rule and from the defects of one of our naval monsters jndge the whole of the huge, ugly, unwieldy vessels, England's naval prospects would be deplorable. One can' only hope that the threatened searching investigation, as an outcome of the Camper-down-Victoria disaster, will be. quick and conclusive. 'Two warships have gone down, one of the visßßels belonging to the Haytian navy, and the other to the Bussian ; and in each case there was terrible loss of life. Hayti'a navy consists of half-a-dozen vessels all told— unarmoured screw steamers ranging from. 500 to 1200 tons displacement; and the fact that each ship is either of steel or iron makes it easy to be understood how the Alexandre, supposed to have been deliberately, scuttled, " sank like a _ tone." ■ Eussia's . ill-fated ship, was the Eousalka, ; one ol her three two-turreted monitors, ' tl^d launched, with a Bister ship, in 1867. The Bousalka was of 1520 tona displacement, : belted with 4§iu armour, and ahe carried two 9Ln guns. The diecovery of wreckage of the ship unhappily leaves no doubt as to the dad fate of the two hundred men who were on board. I The great struggle in Brazil between rebels and roja listß goe_ on. Bio has been bombarded once more, but this time the rebels were beaten, off, the fire of their stepa being silenced by theioits, ahd their torpedo boats— .or some of them were cajptur £&.... Meanwhile .the rebels had made a hot attack upon Santos,' the place co unfleasanCy famed for its pestilential peculiarities, and here again they were repulsed. Santos is the port of San Paulo, from which it is thirty-four miles distant, and occupies a position on ihe north ward . side, of the island of Engua Guacu. Probably the reason why the rebels electsd to at.ack Santos was because it is a collecting centre or prodnce, and eends nearly everything direct to Eio. The attack on Santos meant an attempt to destroy one of the principal supply bases of the capital. , The fact cannot be too forcibly im- ' pressed npon the people that only one Week remains wherein their names can be placed upon the main electoral rolls of the Colony. " There may be supplementary rolls ; of course there will be ; but it will ] bo eminently unwiee to neglect the safe of the coming week. Po'i- ; tical queetions of vast importance are looming' large, and when the polling day comes — it will be with us almost before •we • can realise the faot— there will be bitter . regret in the minds of those who find- themselves disfranchised by their own utter negleot. There iB only one safe course ; only one wise course. Register at , once. ' ■ i Amongat those who are in doubt as to the ] Cftpabilityof women to hold their own in I political matters, the Mayor of Christ- ' church is not now to be included, for he has been gaining experience. Mr Eden > George convened what somebody flippantly I ityled a mothers' meeting. He invited j "ladies only " to meat him in the Tuarn ■ Btreet hall, to the end that—in a spirit of i pure philanthropy, and not for the purpose of advancing his own interests — he j might instruct them on the political ques- . fcions of the day, and guide them to a right : issue. Not many ladies were present, but if the city, gossip may be credited, they made it lively for Mr Eden George j they "heckled" him in a style that would have warmed the heart of the keenest old politician, and' it is whispered that there is confession of "the warmest quarter of an twurl ever had in my life." Women's suffrage ha_ always been a stumbling block and an offence ts MrEish the- notable Danedin representative, aud it seems that the very word "franchise" has been enough to trip him up. Listeners to Mr Fish's fervid oratory note, with amused appreciation, that . tho more impassioned he grows the more marked is his entanglement of speech. Beferring to this Women's franchise question, he brought out " itenchyse" with very marked emphasis,'and then amended this with "franeheese" ■ Of course, members laughed, and Che wags unitsd ih a request that Mr Fish would " cheese it." . Mr Fiah failed to appreciate Slang Dictionary humour, and angrily advised his tormentors to consult a pronouncing dictionary beforo they laughed at his accent. But as Mr Fish, lr eit warmed up, continued to display a' considerable degree of impartiality with regaftd to the pronunciation of the word, membera probably concluded. that it would be of little service to trouble him with dictionary ref erences.' It remainß to be seen how-large is the stumbling-block Mr Fiah has yet to encounter on the polling day. Fiat JExperimentum, says the Sydney Horning Herald, but it declines to add / the conclusion of the sentence, incorpore viU, for it is discussing the conferring of the' franchise npon the women of New Zealand. It was not to be expected that a journal so intensely Con. er vat ive should Wax enthusiastic over such a democratic step as we have taken ; but as a matter of fact the Merald's objections are only of a negative sort. It does not consider it satisfactory that' a constitutional change, the effect of which cannot be fore3eeD, Bhould be carried by so small a majority in either branch of the Legislature, and without a special appeal to the country. Bnt Conservative arguments are very often feeble as the proverbial conies; and as timid. The Herald holds . up the experimental examples of American Legislatures, and inconsequentially proceeds to declare that "-frhat will happen in New Zealand will not necessarily be what baa . happened in the American Union." - It implies that New Zealand is " a place of more pretension " than Wyoming, and may therefore expect to eeceive a more respectful hearing ; it asks, "After all, what is the value to us of a decision in New Zealand upon snoh a question aB this ? " And it winds up with the following delightfully simple acknowledgment:—"New Zealand has already taught us some useful lessons. It has warned ns of the folly of excessive borrowing and extravagant expenditure; it has shown us the value of stem economy and enterprise in the developaient of the natural capabilities of the ,)ountryj it haß initiated experiments in i_gislatic__ for sooial purposes, the working

l»»___M____-_____»__fcMMMMBMMMBM|BMMM» M »» M »___-M<»-»ll_l-l__l_l of which we shall watch with lively interest." { What a familiar name Agnew once was '■ in connection with the Besßions of Parlia- ! ment. The Agnews, husband and wife, j j were in evidence always j they haunted I the Legislative buildings, they waylaid members, and their grievances, real or imaginary, were uttered to every wind that blew. Mr William Agnew*s spirit remaina undaunted. He was taken into ; Dunedin the other day, having been j-brought from Naseby in oharge of a conj stable, to undergo a month's imprison- | ment. Having illegally erected a fence across a line of road, he had been sumj moned and fined ; but the old mixture of defiance and martyrdom asserted itself, ! and Mr Agnew promptly declared that he would " take it out." Queer experiences fall to the lot of busy Coroners. Dr Youl has been relating to a. Melbourne journalist- -some incidents that would "be veritable literary nuggetß to a ; j modern novelist or a modern play- wr ight. ] ; He and the journalist had been talking j about the difficultiea of identification that sometimes arise, and Dr Youl was, able to i bring forward aome typical cases from the • store-house of hia personal knowledge, j One of tho instances of mistaken identity I was this. An Irishman • had been con- ! earned in one of the seemingly inevitable j "orange and green" disturbances, stabbed j jan opponent, and wbb sent to prison. Dr : : Youl. tells tho remainder of the . story : thus : — On the day that he was discharged j from Pentridge he went to ccc his foster- J mother, and he got very drunk before j ho left the house. Next morning the i _ body of a man who had been suffocated ' j waa found face downward in a heap of i mud' near the place. The foster-mother ! identified him as her foster-son, and a J warder from Pentridge identified him . as the man who had been discharged | on the previous day. Of course I accepted j the identification, and the Irishman was ; entered in the books as an "accidental 3 death." The report of the inquest was I : published in the morning papers, and when ! : I was at my break.ast the ccfcpse arrived* | and complained bitterly of what I had , done. It seems that he was in receipt of i a pension or allowance from Ireland of J_6 j a month, and he waa afraid that when his • relatives Baw the report of his death they , | would discontinue the remittance. I took > : him down to the morgue with me and com- j pared him with the body on the slab. Ex- ; cept that one waa dead andthe other alive, ' I could not have told them apart. Neither j he nor the foster-mother nor the gaol ; warder had ever seen the " double " j before. We conld not find anyone to I identify him, and he was buiied as a man ] unknown. [ Here are two obher experiences from Dr ' , Youl 's notebook :— -Mr Bosisto, the member , , of Parliament, identified a body which j i v/ss taken out of the Yarra as tbat ! of a man who had left his house onthe j previous day to go to England. He gave ,- ua the man'd name and all particulars, and the corpse was duly buried. In six mouths' time Mr JBoaisto'a visitor turned up again. He had been to England, of course, and ' had come back again, S3 I had to scratch ; out the name in my books, and enter the body afrean as that of a man unknown. j In a third case a woman wa3 actually. I showing me the photograph of her husband ! to prove ■ that -he was identical with the ; corpse that was lying in the morgue, when ; the supposed defunct looked oVer her shoulder and gave her a terrible fright* He was very much alive indeed. i [ The annals of the New Zealand Post [ Office continue to afford ample proof that ; people are often strangely iorgetfnl and | negligent. In the Eeport on the Postal < and Telegraph Services that has been I presented to Parliament, it is recorded [that the following articles of value were ' found in letters opened in the Dead Letter Office, and, whenever practicable, returned j to the senders : — 170 . Post Office orders ' representing a total valne of -£438 • 80 I Bank drafts, value .£3034; 131 cheques, | value £904} Bank notes to the value of i -8109, gold to the value of £15, promissory notes for £178, besides postal notes, stamps, silver and copper. In addition thera 'were found six silver watches ahd a Waterbury, brooches, earrings, lockets and rings, a ailver thimble, a shell necklace, and a pair of gold-mounted spectacles. The business of the Department has expanded wonderfully. The number of books and packets posted and delivered during j the twelve months covered by the report j was unprecedented, having grown from | 7,170,731 in 1891. to 13,283,387 in 1892. j Thia was mainly attributable to the reduction of book postage from 8d to 4d per ; j pound, and to the introduction of a cheap ' I town post. These reduction-, it seems/ ! combined with the more lib .ral conditions ; of transmission conceded to the public, had j the effect of attracting to the Post Office : an entirely new class of business, without J appreciably adding to the, expense of the I Department. ■■-',■