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Auckland Star, Volume I, Issue 72, 1 April 1870, Page 3

The crop of clerical scandals in these colonies has not been all gathered in. The last few days have supplied us wittwo unsavoury specimens. Archdeacon Reibey, of Tasmania, has been charged with immorality before the Church Synod, which has been holding its meetings at Launceston, and a committee of that body is now investigating the allegations brought against him. 3he other case,m that of the Rev. Thomas 1 aylor, a Baptist minister at Sandhurst, who has been commited for trial for having embezzled trust funds to the amount of £600, which he had received for investment on behait of a widow belonging to his congregation. There was a co-trustee of the same name, but no relation, who was also defrauded by the reverend gentleman. We understand the delinquent is the son of another minister of religion whose conduct formed the subject of conversation and censure not very long ago. In their conflicts with "the world, the flesh, and the devil," the seclcrical functionraies seem to_ be frequently worsted by the two first whatever may be the success which attends their sword-play with the last. Australasian. Polygamy in China. —There is no point on which greater misconception has prevailed than respecting the existence of universal polygamy in China We will state the case exactly, from the preface to the translation of the "Fortunate Union," which is therein declared to be a more faithful picture of Chinese manners, inasmuch as the hero espouses but one wife. It is not strictly true their laws

sanction polygamy, though they permit, concubinage. " A Chinese can have but one tsyy-or wife, properly so called, who is distinguished by a title, espoused with ceremonies, and chosen from a rac-k of life totally different from his tsie, or handmaid**, of whom he can have as many or t'.< few as he pleases ; and though the offgpv'.rjor pf .the .attov*possess many of the privileges of legitimacy (ranking, however, after the children of the wife) this circumstance make little difference as to the

truth of the position The. principle on which Chinese Jaw and custom admit the offspring of concubinage to legitimate rights is obvious ; the importance which attaches in that country to the securing of male descendants, it is plain that the tsy and the tsie stand to each other in very much the same relation as the Sarah and the liagar of the Old Testament, and therefore the common expression first aid second wife, which the translator himself has used on former occasions, in imitation of his predecessors, is hardly correct. — Sir John Davis's China.