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Waipawa Mail, Volume X, Issue 1034, 15 January 1887, Page 2

The speech of Prince Bismarck has had a uniform effect on the European Powers, who take it in good part. This is so far as outward appearances go. But inwardly, it must be thought that the independent attitude of the German Chancellor can hardly be pleasing. The French papers say the speech is reassuring, because “ France would not dream of attacking Germany.” The Russian press believes it will tend to pacify Europe Iu spite of these assurances, the general public will adhere to the belief that France will fight her old enemy the moment she considers herself powerful enough to do so victoriously.

Referring to the speech of Prince Bismark, the Press says :—Speaking generally, we should say, the speech is intended to convey the expression of a hope and at the same time the suggestion of a threat.

Messrs Murton and White announce their sheep-dip as ready for sale now. Mr White informs ns that the dip has been tried by a very large number of settlers in Ilawkes Bay who declare that it is efficient in its cleansing properties and beneficial in its effects upon the wool. One flock of 25000 sheep is being dipped solely in Mr white’s dip, and we believe about four-fifths of the sheepfarmers round about are giving it a trial. Maligner was scratched for the Dunedin Cup this morning.

We have received from the secretary to the Napier Park Racing Club a programme of the club’s events which will be run on 9th and 10th March. Wc are pleased to find that some good counsels have prevailed upon the club to bold tlieir meeting on a different day -to that which the Waipawa club selected months ago. After all, there arc men on the committee of the Park club who must be above the kind of spiteful competition which we have criticised on more than one occasion, We hope they will keep the upstarts in order, and thus gain for the club a respect which will never be its own under other conditions.

By some oversight, the circulars inviting people to the Lawn Tennis Tournament on Saturday next refer to the date of the tournament as being “ Saturday, 25th.” It will be seen that Saturday next is the 22nd, and intending players are requested to make a note of that date, which is the correct one. Nominations must be in by Wednesday next. The Wairarapa Star rather put its foot in it, in its last weekly edition. It took Mr Justice Richmond to task for criticising the use of the heading “Timaru Sensation;” and claimed to have invented the heading itself. Our contemporary rather boasted of its inventive powers with regard to headings. In the same issue, we read another heading, “ A Napier Tragedy ; two men murdered ” &c. ; aud all this is the simple invention of the sub-editor, for there was no murder ic Napier, neither was there anything in the wording of the published telegram to justify the sub-editor in supposing that there had been.

A gentleman who has recently ridden round the plains informs us that the couutry is exceedingly dry now, although there is plenty of feed. The runs are better off in this respect this year than they were last year, when the poor growth of the spring started the summer very badly. Rain cannot now be expected iu auy quantity until the autumn, but there are no fears that fe d will be short between this and then. Fresh growths are, however, depended upon for the winter.

Although the Wairarapa County Council were rather ridiculed for proposing that a toll-gate should Le erected in the Manawatu Gorge, it must be admitted that the local body in question is in au unenviable position. It has to maintain four miles of a very expensive line of road, aud the ratepayers iu its district in no way benefit by that expedniture. The Council has, we believe, informed the Government that unless assistance is granted, it will decline to maintain the Gorge road. The farmers in the country districts, says the Woodville Examiner , arc complaining bitterly of the intense heat during the past week. Fires are raging everywhere, and much damage is likely to accrue. The report that the Hon. P. Buckley contemplated resigning is absolutely untrue. Ministers in Wellington all say that there are no grounds whatever for the statement. A public meeting in connection with the New Zealand Temperance Alliance will be held in Woodville on Saturday next, when addresses will be delivered by Sir. Wm Fox, aud Mr Glover. Mr W. C. Smith M.H.R. will take the chair.

A cablegram received this morning announces that the Banks iu Australia, with one exception, have agreed to a reduction of 1 per cent in the rate of interest on fixed deposits.

The thermometer read 77 in the shade yesterday, and 79 to-day. The Manager of the Bank of New Zealand intends to commence operations in the newly completed bank buildings on Monday morning. It is now more than twelve months since Mr Ewen begau to carry on operations in temporary premises, and it will be a pleasure to him and his staff to once more occupy the suitable and commodious offices which the bank provides.

A most significant and portentous speech appears to have been delivered in the Reichstag on Tuesday least by Prince Bismarck. According to the cable message which reached us last night the German Chancellor spoke out with almost unprecedented boldness of menace. His threat that when the next war took place betweeu Germany and France—which he declared to be inevitable sooner or later—Germany, if victorious, would not rest until France should have been crippled for generations, embodies so direct and irritating a challenge that we shall be greatly surprised if it do not excite a storm of rage in France. Not improbably it may have been intended to have this effect and “ draw out” France into affording a plausible pretext for such a sudden and paralyzing attack as should secure a German triumph from the outset. The speech is a most extraordinary one for a great statesman to have made, and it will assuredly create a profound sensation throughout the whole civilised world.— Times.

Every printer and newspaper writer everywhere, will heartily concur in the followiug advice to young men—“ Young men don’t swear. There is no occasion for swearing outside of a priutiug office, where it is useful in proof-reading, and indispensably necessary in getting formes to press. It has also been known to materially assist au editor in looking over the paper after it is printed. Otherwise it is a foolish habit.” Prior to the night of Mr Gladstone’s memorable Home Rule speech in the House of Commons, tlie greatest number of words ever transmitted by wire from London on one day was 860,000. On that night the number rose to no less than a million aud a-lialf. Sir Jno. McDonald, Premier of Canada, bears the following testimony to the results of protection iu that colony :—“ When we commenced to tax cottou and woollen goods, wc were assured that the consumer would be ruined and driven out of the country by high prices. What lias been the result ? Our manufacturers of cotton aud cloth are in a position of increasing prosperity and to-day the consumer is able to buy his goods more cheaply than when Canada was upon a Freetrade basis.”

Thus does our brother of the Manawatu Times admonish those of his subscribers who have not paid their quarterly bills :—There are many on our list with whom it is a real pleasure to tratsact business. There are some who make it a point to pay immediately the account is rendered, and others who as regularly and punctually pay in advance. Some of the latter are indeed patterns of regularity, and one or two carry this out so well that each quarter on the same day they visit our office with the money, aud once iu each year bring along a birth notice. These arc the rueu whom the newspaper proprietor would sadly miss. But, alas ! they are few in number, and the “ hard cases” are many. There are some who will go on conteutendly reading the paper from one years end to another, and nevergive a thought to paying, and among these are many the delivery alone of whose paper costs us quite as much as we receive for it.

We clip the following from the Post : The many friends of Mr R. B. Smith, who has for some time past filled the position of accountant at the Wellington branch of the Bank of Australasia, will be pleased to learn that he has been promoted to the managership of the branch at Palmerston North, for which town he leaves in a few days. Mr Smith has been one of the principal members of the Star Boating Club duriug the time he has resided in this city, aud that body will suffer a great loss by his transference to Palmerston North.

In the case Youngmau v. Angus McLennan which was heard at the Ormondville R.M Court on Wednesday last, our correspondent omitted to state that Mr A. W. Gonld, of Waipawa, appeared for the plaintiff. The omission might not be looked upon as an important one, but ou the other hand it might raise wrong impressions. Our custom is to mention the names of the legal gentlemen who appear in court cases, and an isolated omission is at ouce noticeable.

A sensational incident (says the Ballarat Courier') thrilled some thousands of spectators with horror for a few moments on the evening of Boxing day at the Eastern Oval, where a fireworks display and a Blondiu performance were being carried out. Blondin (Mr Stevenson, jun., of Ballarat East) had performed on the rope, which was about 30ft high, in his usual costume, and on the second occasion, about half-past ten o’clock, he mounted the rope incased in a helmet which contained fireworks. Fireworks were also fixed on the rope, half-way across, which Blondin was to ignite. Dressed in oil-cloth he walked along the rope, and set fire to the pyrotechnics, and, as arranged, a sensational scene was provide I, Blondin being surrouuded ou all sides with colored fire. He then suddenly stepped backwards, aud it was seen that he himself was on fire, and that the flames from his oilcloth were blazing up the side of liis face. With wonderful coolness and presence of mind under such frightful circumstances, lie dropped his balancing-rod, and, letting himself down on to the rope, slid down a trapeze hanging below, and he then dropped to the ground. His fall was broken by Brigadier Frazer, of the City Fire Brigade, and he was at once seized, and the burning garment extinguished. Having been doused with water, amidst, great applause he ascended the ladder for the purpose of letting the spectators know that he was not seriously hurt. The affair caused great excitement for the moment, and several ladies went into hysterical fits. The oilcloth is supposed to have ignited through some fuse being in one of the pockets. Stevenson was only slighted scorched, and his skin chafed with slidiug down the trapeze. Russia practices fraud as a means of conquest, and professes it as a religion. She lies scientifically, and compels the acceptance of her lies by those whose interest and whose duty is in proclaiming the truth. It is saying very little to assert that no treaty which she has signed is worth the paper on which it is written. She never undertakes an obligation with making the promise the very means of evading the fulfilment. — Vanity Pair. The study of the drink question in Switzerland has disclosed the fact that the

use of alcoholic beverages is largest iu those cantons in which wages are lowest, aud the people are the poorest. An exchange has the following sententious

paragraph .-—Cincinnati has discharged two policemen because they could neither read nor write. The position of juryman is now about the only one for which dense ignorance is a qualification. The eleath of Archer, the famous jockey, has been the signal for a universal moan of sympathy all over the world. The Press however, concludes a soliloquy on the matter in these words :—He lived in a beautiful house, surrouuded by luxuries, and had any number of servants aud a valet to attend upon him personally ; but he was only a wretched slave all the while, and his existence was iufiuitely less pleasurable than that of the horses he rode, who at least had health and leisure and all the equine joys to recompense them for their labors. Archer’s toadies and eulogists are never tired of praising liis honesty ; but we, confess wc cannot see any merit in a man being honest to whom money was absolutely no object at all, and who could not have been dishonest without exercising some sort of intellectual qualities, which Archer apparently did not possess. It would be almost as rational to praise the honesty of a totalisator or of a racehorse. The poor man seems to have felt that he was a mere machine, and at one time he made a strenuous attempt to break from his weary chain. He found, however, that his mind was a blank, and that there was no place in the world for him except the racecourse. He went back to it, wou more fortunes for his employers, earned more thousands and tens of thousands for himself, aud at length went mad aud released himself in the only way that was iu his power from a life in which he had never done any good for himself or anybody else. There are doubtless raauy people to whom the career of a famous jockey appears an object of envy ; but for our part, we would almost as soon be the Czar of Russia as a man like Archer.