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Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 17, Issue 914, 11 January 1871, Page 2

The editor of the Leader answers a correspondent's queries as to butter making as follows: —In curing butter one of the great secrets is to thoroughly work out all the butter milk. One ounce of the following mixture to a pound of butter is the quantity commonly used, viz., 8 ozs. of the best salt, 4 ozs. saltpetre, and 4 ozs. of the best white sugar. Rancid butter may be restored by melting it in warm water in which animal charcoal, after being freed from dust, has been allowed to steep, and afterwards the water strained through a flannel cloth before the butter is put into it. A Sydney paper of a late date says that Mr Parkes gave notice in the Assembly of a motion to the effect that the practice of Ministers appointing themselves to offices of profit is contrary to the spirit of the Constitution Act, and detrimental to responsible government. A motion was also brought forward to appropriate the sum of ]£soo for the Hon. Charles Cowper, the newly appointed for travelling expenses and salary till his arrival in England. A very animated debate ensued, in the course of which hon. members generally condemned Mr Cowper's action in appointing himself. The motion was eventually withdrawn. In a late Nelson Examiner we find an able article by Frank C. Simmons, Esq., M.A., Head Master of the Nelson College, " on the best means of diffusing and promoting higher education in the Colony." Speaking of the urgent necessity which exists for this diffusion and promotion of knowledge, he says: —"Besides the whole range of the physical sciences, and much technical instruction, there are subjects such as modern and especially English history, and our own language and literature, of which to our shame be it said, few English men or women know anything. We have to govern ourselves —and how many of us know anything of Constitutional history or constitutional law? We have to tax ourselves, and men hold sway amongst who are so ignorant of the nature of Political Economy that they can argue that a protective measure is innoxious or even advantageous because it is small —much as though a man should maintain of a triangle, that it is so diminutive that its three angles cannot possibly be equal to two right angles. The merest dabbler in economical scieuce sees this, and yet our majorities give the control of our finances to men who think, or at least talk in this way. This crass ignorance might be dispelled, and to my mind it is the first duty of central authority to dispel it. To devise the means cannot be impossible, though it is the duty of our rulers rather than of us. Our business is to insist upon its being done/'