THE GLOBE. SATURDAY, JUNE 14, 1879.

Globe, Volume XXI, Issue 1659, 14 June 1879, Page 2

THE GLOBE. SATURDAY, JUNE 14, 1879.

It is very satisfactory to note the spirit which is animating the Volunteers throughout the colony. To the Christchurch Artillery belongs the credit of having been the first of all the South Island corps to offer its services in case a necessity should arise in the North Island. Three detachments of the E battery having placed their services at the disposal of the Government, the offer was accepted, the Government, in the words of a telegram received on the 6th instant, “receiving with great pleasure the patriotic and important offer.” A telegram published yesterday stated that at Nelson at an Artillery parade on Thursday, when the men were asked how many would go to the front, the whole company stopped forward as one man. Indeed, the enthusiasm appears to be spreading, and, should unfortunately the Native crisis eventuate in open hostilities, the Government would find at its disposal a large and well-trained Artillery force. Such a force, together with the other Volunteers that would doubtless follow the example of the Artillery in the various provinces of this Island, would form an invaluable South Island contingent, which it is certain would give a very good account of itself. To Whiti and the other malcontents must fool somewhat uneasy at the fervid manner in which the gauntlet ho has thrown down has boon caught up. Having already withdrawn his ploughmen, ho will probably, bo glad to make a still further retrograde movement. It is to bo trusted that the Government will act with firmness under the present circumstances. The colony has already boon a heavy loser both in money and credit through the vacillation and false policy of the Ministry, and if the present opportunity of teaching To Whiti a lesson is not improved, a still greater wrong to the public will have been committed,

The Chief Postmaster of Wellington deserves well of his country. Ho has successfully moved the City Council to number the houses in the town, and the inhabitants of the Empire City will shortly outer into a state of bliss which, on account of its height, is almost painful to contemplate. The residents of Christchurch may, indeed, be expected to emigrate en masse to a locality whore, if a man is in search of an individual —say of the name of Jones —ho lias not to undergo the tortures of the damned. Take the case of a Jones-huntor. Ho is told that the man lives in such and such a street, east or west. If the individual searched for lives cpiite in the centre of the town the task of finding him is comparatively easy —but only comparatively. Should, however, Jones lire some little way from the centre, though well within the town belts, the case of the searcher is a sorry one. As the names of none of the streets are, in those parts, written up on the corners, and all of them within a few chains of Colombo street look almost exactly alike, unless lie starts from the centre of the town, and walks outwards, the Jones-huntor has to take some well-known spot and count the streets from that, when, if his arithmetic and memory are correct, ho will finally arrive at the desired street. Then commences a search before which the search of a Japhot for a father pales into insignificance. A rate-collector’s or a census-taker’s work is, in comparison, a more bagatelle. If Jones is a new-comer the searcher had far better at once order refreshments at the neatuoL vUf..] 10use> in order that he may bo able to sustain tne observant man will at once “ spot” an individual -who is in search of a new-comer. There is wildness in his eye, despair is

written on ovory lineament, and limpness and exhaustion have seized upon his whole frame. All men, women, and children combine in one vast conspiracy to drive him into an early grave. If ho ever roaches the goal of his desire ho falls prostrate into his friend’s armchair, and is only brought to by strong applications of sherry and bitters. This is hardly an overdrawn picture of what may happen to a man who is in search of one, Jones, a new-comer. Sincerely thou must wo congratulate our Wellington friends on the fact that their houses are to bo numbered. It may bo more aesthetic to live in Seadown Cottage than in No. 4, but people of a poetic temperament would soon find the bloom taken off the affair if they had in their turn to hunt up one, Jones, a now-comcr.

"We confess to the soft impeachment contained in an article of last night’s “ Star” of having cut a sentence of a previous effusion of that journal in half, and of having commented on the grammar of tho latter half. Wo did so for the sake of brevity, and from tho idea that the wildest imagination could not for an instant suppose that tho first half of the sentence had anything to do with tho second. However, we now quote the sentence in its entirety, and leave the public to judge whether wo were not justified in our belief: —“We understand that there are a number of most estimable and highly intelligent citizens who, during tho past few days, have forgotten tho hard pressure of tho times in vain efforts to forecast tho future of a young community—such as we have hero in New Zealand —when public writers in tho Press, aspiring to bo teachers and guides to tho people, are found exhibiting deplorable ignorance of tho most notorious facts of history, such as they have recently witnessed in the columns of two of the daily journals in this city.” Tho word they can only ho connected with the estimable and intelligent citizens alluded to in the first half of the sentences by some process evolved out of tho “ Star’s ” inner consciousness. Let us “ boil tho sentence down,” and see how it reads —-“We understand that there are intelligent citixous who have forgotten tho hard pressure of tho times in vain efforts to forecast the future, when public writers are found exhibiting 1 ignorance of facts which they have recently witnessed.” Tho word they must of necessity apply to the public writers. Or, perhaps, as the “ Star ” may have become rather fogged in poring over its own sentence, suppose we make an exactly similar sentence in construction, with somewhat different words. “Wo understand that there aro a number of intelligent readers of tho “ Star,” who have gone mad in trying to make out a sentence in last Wednesday’s issue, when public writers have given up solving conundrums such as they have recently read in tho columns of an ovoning paper.” Can they apply to “ the readers of tho * Star ’” ? Does it not evidently belong to tho writers who have, so naturally, given up trying to solve the great grammatical conundrum ? If we have ■ been driven into the paths of vice tho fault lies at tho door of tho Avriter Avho has led the world at large astray by uoav and singular uses of nouns and pronouns. In tho Avell-kuown language of our Cashel street morning contemporary, “ comment upon such grammar is superfluous.”