[PUBLISHED DAILY.] FRIDAY, JUNE 7, 1878.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XIII, Issue 3146, 7 June 1878, Page 2

[PUBLISHED DAILY.] FRIDAY, JUNE 7, 1878.

« / The question of accounts as between the Harbor Board and Borough Council will shortly be investigated by the Commissioner appointed by the GoTernor. Whether the Harbor Board have, or have not, " a leg to stand upon," will be decided by the Commissioner. It was decidedly unfair to state that the " prime mover "in the matter was •' again absent " from the meeting, No one attends the meetings of the Harbor Board •with more regularity than the member who has taken such a prominent part in bringing about a settlement of accounts. As a matter of fact he did attend the meeting, and only left because it had been previously arranged that he should be appointed, in conjunction with the Solicitor, to undertake the charge of the investigation. Mr Peat's opinion may be that the position of the Board is not tenable, but the point has not been settled definitely. It is an open question, and we much prefer that the Commissioner should decide it. The premises in Victoria Avenue lately occupied by Mr L. L. Levy have been taken by Mr Ward of Nelson who intends opening up as a general drapery and. outfitting establishment. We publish to-day a report of the last meeting of the Palmerston Borough Council. It should have been in time for our last issue but unfortunately was delayed in transmission. "We make this explanation in justice to our correspondent. The first meeting of the Wanganui Scheol Committee will be held this (Friday) evening. One of the most important questions to be considered is the adoption of the compulsory clauses of the Act. We notice that the Tiruaru Committee has brought them into operation. " Crustacean " in the Otago Witness writes : — The Somervilliana that pass round still are not so bad. On one extremely exciting night, a call for those who had been converted was made. Twenty-nine stood up as having been "fetched" by the great Evangelist. " Only twenty-nine in this great thriving city !" said the great man — " Only twenty-nine in this vast crowded assembly I—Only1 — Only twenty-nine !" with a slight touch of the sentiment that animates the auctioneer at the fall of the hammer. "Oh I it, I'wont see you stuck for one !" said one criminal, and stood up. But, as I said, the Somervilliana are amusing, though. I question whether we have not had about enough of them now. "An old maid " writing to a Melbourne contemporary, propounds the pertinent question, "Why don't men marry?" and she then proceeds to advance the theory that the cessation of marriages arises from tha bad custom that man alone should have the right of asking in marriage. " Custom," she says, has long tolerated this hydra«headed monster." and she protests that women hare too ■long tolerated it, and that, while women have long agitated for equal rights of entering medicine, law, and Parliament, they have "neglected a matter of more vital importance to themselves, the right equal to man of asking in marriage." Then why, we (Witness) ask, don't women marry / Why do they not take the initiative, and pop the question? There is surely no law or principle iv our social code preventing them 1 Horrid brutes that we are, we seem to have usurped the right, but we have not the slightest objection in the world to woman sharing it. There is no particular pleasure in popping the question, as every one that has passed through tfte ordeal knows well. And when wo do it, it is in the roost awkward, bungling way. We hem and ha, and beat about the bush, and flounder in the mo^t diutrefising way, and if it were not for the help wp get from the darlings themselves, there is not one of us but would make a mull of it. Theu why don't the girls take the initiative 1 We feel confident they could do it more gracefully than our blundering way. And it would be far pleasanter to us, Speaking for the whole ot our rough sex, we do not know anything that would be nicer than for a lofc of young ladies to be quarrelling about us, while we coyly fled from their advances, unless it be to be bailed up by one of the prettiest of them, and asked to marry her. W8 protest against any such, charges as this of arrogating to ourselves the right of proposing. We only propose because the ladies won't, and instead of our being blamed, we assert that we are deserving of sympathy and thanks, for if we did not rouse ourselves ourselves up to pass through the dreadful ordeal, there would be no marriages at all; and where would we all be then ? There now. That wonderful piece of mechanism known as " The Blacksmith's Dream " has arrived in Wanganui, and will be exhibited every evening at the City Hall. In the Southern township the skilled workmanship displayed was much admired,

When Mr Gladstone was in Ireland last year, he travelled on one occasion incog. to the County Wicklow, in a third-class carriage, to see what the peasant classes were like. Ho got into a chat with a frieze-coated fellow passenger, and the conversation turned on Irish landlords. The ex-Premier's companion denounced in unmeasured language nearly all the landlords in the country. Lord. Leitrim'B name was mentioned. "Be jabers, your honor," said Mr Gladstone's informant, "he's tho worst landlord, in all Oireland." "Then how is it," said the author of the Irish Land Act, '"' that he has not been shot ?" ■' Begad I dun know, your worship," said Paddy, "except, maubes, sor, it is bekase what's every man's business is nobody's business.'' An inquest has been held at Otaki on the body of Mr William Prouse,who was recentlydrowned there whilst on his way from Wainuiomata to Foxton. The following verdict was returned by the jury :—": — " That the doceased, on the evening of the 30th May, whilst waiting on horseback on the north bank of Otaki for a boat, by some means got into the river and was drowned."