THE GLOBE. THURSDAY, JANUARY 22, 1880.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1846, 22 January 1880, Page 2

THE GLOBE. THURSDAY, JANUARY 22, 1880.

The half-yearly report laid beforo the general meeting of tho members of tho Wellington Working Men's Club shows an eminently satisfactory state of affairs. Not only is the financial situation good, the number of members large, and the general conduct of the institution excellent, but a spirit of enthusiasm appears to animate the officers of tho club, which is a guarantee that tho interests of the mainbody of the subscribers are well looked after. The roport shows that tho club numbers 10 life members, 60 honorary, and 285 ordinary members; 79 new members having been enrolled during tte last half year. The statement of assets and liabilities shows a balance to the credit of tho club of £343 17s Id, besides a further claim against an Insurance Company of £l4O, which, it is believed, fan be satisfactorily established. The receipts from the bar and billiard room amounted to £746. The only difficulty the club seems to labor under is the insufficiency of tho present premises for tho growing number of members, and during the present hard times the leading spirits of the institution are unwilling to embark in any extensive building operations, although they have applied to the Government for a building site under tho torms of the Act passed last session. The roport touches but lightly on the newly-formed Small Farm Association, and it would appear, from remarks made in the " Chronicle," that it is probable that the Association will find that it is only by acting in concert with similar bodies formed in other cities that the promoters will be able to carry their object into effect. But, of course, this Association is but an excrescence—desirable, no doubt, liko a truffle on the root of an oak tree—on the main body of the institution, and tho latter certainly seems to flourish in a manner that has passed all expectation, for notwithstanding tho blow received at the time of the great fire in Wellington, the club has entered upon a career of steady prosperity. The working" men of Chvistchnrch are certainly not to bo congratulated on their attitude with regard to the formation of a Working Men's Club in our midst. No one has ventured to question tho utility of such an institution, and yet nothing is done. As we have pointed out before, no doubt the formation of a club has been somewhat hindered by the wellintentioned efforts of the gentlemen who have endeavored to establish an institution on purely temperance principles Such an attempt never had tho thorough support of tho body of working men. The realisation of the scheme has long been found to be impracticable, and yet its phantom, made the more potent by the powerful names attached to the programme of tho scheme, would appear to beckon back those who would otherwise, in all probability come forward, and move in the formation of a thoroughly useful institution. The uses of a Club, founded on a wide basis, need not be recapitulated. For purposes of intellectual and social enjoyment, for the formation of sound political ideas, for inculcating habits of economy and temperance, and for establishing a nucleus round which may gather the true interests of the working classes —for all these purposes a Club established on a sound and sufficiently wide foundation would be found invaluable.

A stae lias fallen out of the journalistic firmament into what the paper in question would probably have called " the abysmal depths of chaotic darkness." The " Lyell Argus" is, alas! no more, and it may truly bo said that tho world could well have spared a moro extensive luminary. Not that tho views of tho journal were particularly brilliant, or that the circle of its readers was large, but there was a freshness and raciness about the production that made tho scanning of its columns always amusing. Its spelling was decidedly peculiar, its general get-up and mode of printing original, and its size was most diminutive, but there was no other journal like it in New Zealand, and it had a character of its own reflecting tho views of a mining population as filtered through the gigantic mind and epigrammatic pon of its able editor. The eluico-box and tho long-handled shovel wore roflected ia every line, and the advertisements afforded a valued peep into tho inner habits of tho hardy sons of toil who inhabit that remote outpost. But although tho " Lyell Argus" has " joined tho majority" the district in not to bo unrepresented. " Tho Lyell Times" has sprung like a phtunix from tho ashes of its predecessor, and tho editor gives us tho following taste of the gonoral views plotted out for tho now journal in the following remarks in tho opening article : —" ' The Lyell Times'' w Spirit' is not of this World it scorns the Trammels of Grammar, Spelling, or even Printing, that hamper the thoughts of other Journalists. Tho Spirit of tho Times soars abovo such trifles, it seeks to instil into tho miuds of mon (and of women too), tho Spirit of the Thnos, a spirit of Liberality in Thought, Word and Deed, towards our fellow men, coupled with an earnest desire to improve the Social Condition of Mankind in gonoral."