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Globe, Volume II, Issue 185, 12 January 1875, Page 4

“ For the first time the new flag of Tasmania was exposed to the public on Saturday,” the Hobart Town Mercury of a recent date says, ‘‘on the stern of the Tasman. The flag is not unlike that of the United States, and we understand that it is a fac simile of that of South Australia. The Union Jack is placed in one corner, and on the remainder of the flag there are shown the five stars of the Southern Cross, with stripes.” One of the speakers at a meeting held in Leeds recently, stated that “ the people are no better olf now, relative to the price of bread, than they were before the repeal of the corn laws and other protective laws.” Mr John Bright’s attention having been called to this statement, the right hon gentleman has written a letter in which he says :—“ More than half the working men of England with their families, are fed on bread which comes from abroad, and it is obvious that the continuance of the protective system, as applied to agriculture, would have spread famine amongst the people, and would have plunged the nation into anarchy.” “JSgles,” in the Australasian, says :—The indomitable enterprise of Tallerman is almost without parallel. He has really been practically our Agent-General for years, without pay. A friend writes to me that he (T) has organised a new series of preserved meat banquets all over England and Scotland, for the express purpose of familiarising working men with the excellence of Australian meats. He points to the inexplicable fact that consumption has been almost entirely confined to the middle and upper classes of society. He provides viands, the cooking, and the incidental expenses. He is paying out of his pocket £IOOO for this series of experimental dinners. It may be said that he has a hope of future personal advantage. Of course he has. But how many wealthy stockowners would it require to make up a sum of this kind to be cast upon the waters for a problematical result ? If some of these persons who have profited by an annual export of 17,000 tons of Australian meat were to take up some shares in Tallerman’s company, they would encourage an enterprising man in his efforts, and the benefit must ultimately be theirs in maintaining an English demand, which means better prices for Australian sheep and cattle. A Melbourne exchange tells us of another message of a very misleading nature having passed recently along the wires. A gentleman sent a telegram to a friend in town to the following effect:—“Wife just dead. Please send substitute without delay.” Most of the operators on our lines belong to the curious sex, and a hundred ladies at a hundred different stations conversed in their slack moments over the heartlessness of the monster who could desire the consolation of a substitute before his wife was buried. Excitement rose very high indeed, when our civil service sisters had tapped out to them over the. length and breadth of the land this answer* on the following morning: “ Substitute gone up by morning train. Will be with you by six.” The ordinary telegraphic business of the country was interrupted that day to an alarming extent. A hundred messages were sent to the lady who had charge of the office in the town where the “ substitute” was to arrive, and each contained a prayer that she would find out all about the brazen woman and circulate the news. A telegraph messenger was on the ground when the coach stopped, and the painful news had to be transmitted throughout the land that there was really no scandal at all. “ Substitute was a gentleman. Widower had been expecting wife’s death, and applied for some one to relieve him,*’ Moral; How many other scandals might be traced to an equally innocent cause !