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Waikato Times, Volume I, Issue 62, 21 September 1872, Page 3

The Pall Mall Gazette says —It is probable that before long the usual notice to be seen on board steamboats, "JSo smokiug allowed abaft the funnel," will have to be discontinued, owing to the absence of any funnel abaft which smoking can be prohibited. Smokers will be simply requested to discharge their smoke into the water. According to the titom Thn<>s two Austrian marine ollicers and a marine engineev have discovered by united experiments n method of conveying away under water the smoke from the

steam-engine, instead of through a fiuinel into tho air. They make ti.se of double ventilators, which com pres., the smoke and force it overboard. For propelling these ventilators thev employ .according to circumstance?;, cither water-power—that is, the pressure of the water between the surface of the water and the place where this apparatus is fixed—or, for smaller vessels, steam power. The advantages of this discovery are the greater security of ships of war, as in armour-plated .ships the-only vulnerable part, the fvinnt 1, will be taken away. Other advant will be the sarmg of space now occupied by the "passage of the funnel through every deck, as well as security against danger from lire; complete regulation of the di aught, and in consequence of that, the application of a method for consuming the smoke, thereby effecting a saving oi fuel;, and linally, better ventilation of tho boiler. For submarine and torpedo ships and monitors this discovery will be of great value, as the last will be lenlered quite mvulncr ble. Tae trials that have been made lxare, it is alleged, resulted in a complete success, even to the smallest details. liUi I.NDIY IDCAL jEfiHMKNT IX IfrSTOKV. —The

lessons given to every civilised-child tacitly imply, like tho traditions of the uncivilised and semi-civilised that throughout the past of the human race the doings of the leading, persons, have been the only t.ungs wot thy to be remembered. llow A hrabam girded up his loins and. get him to this place or ths.t; how Samuel conveyed Divine injunctions- which Saul cusobeyecl; how David recounted liia adventures as a shepherd, and was reproached for his misdeeds as a king; these, and personalities akin to tbese, are the facts about which the juvenile reader of the Bible is inteiestccL and respecting which he is eataehised ; such indications of Jewish institutions as have unavoidably got into the narrative being regarded neithei bv liiiu nor by bis teacher as of moment' So too, when, with hands behind him, he stands to sav his lessons out of " Pin nock," we see that the things set down for him to learn are—when and by whom England was invaded • what rulers opposed' tho invasion , and how they were killed ; what Alfred did, and what Canute said ; who fought at Agincourt', and who conquered at Flodden; which kfng abdicated, and a\lnch usurped, &c. And if by some chance it comes out that there were serfs in those days, that barons w ere local rulers, some vassals of others, that subordination of them to a central power took place gradually—those are facts treated as relatively unimportant. Nay, the like happens when the boy passes into the hands of his classical master, at home or elsewhere. " Arms and the man " form the end of the story as they form its beginning. After the mythology, which of course is all-essential, come the achievements of rulers rind soldiers from Agamemnon .down to Csesar; wliat knowledge is gained of social organisation, manners, ideas, morals, being being little more than the biographical statements im volve. And the value of the knowledge is so ranked, that while it would be a disgrace to bo wrong about the amours of Zeus, and while ignorance of the name of the comma-nder at Marathon would be discreditable. It is excusable to know nothing of the social condition that preceded Lyeurgus, or the origin and functions of the Areopagus.—Herbert Spencer, in " The Cotemporary Review. Missing- thk Point.—Legal Adviser (speaking technically): "In short, you want to meet your creditors." Innocent Client: " Hang it, no : Why, they're the very people I'm most anxious to avoid.*"' —Punch., Deriding him now when he is down thev declare, in New York, that Tweed is like the Black Sea, because he is .not the Boss-for-us.