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Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 17, Issue 921, 19 January 1871, Page 2

Otago will send to the Colonial prize firing at Auckland 14 volunteers, including the champion and 6 cadets.

It has been hoped that the progress of enlightenment would tend to render wars less frequent, but the unquestionable result of educational advancement of modern times has been to render wars more destructive, while jit has not lessened their number and magnitude. Science and art have been active in the invention of machines for the destruction of human life, and the intelligence which is derived from education has been turned to military purposes. As Mr Lowe has pointed out, one of the most valuable lessons to be learned from the present war is that the soldier who is well taught is far supemor either to do or to sufter to one who is ill taught. There is a sort of melancholy fascination (says the Evening Post) connected with the long death roll contained in the Parliamentary paper to which we alluded on Tuesday, entitled "Return of the names of persons drowned in New Zealand from the Ist January, 1840." To furnish this list great trouble has been gone to, and every available source of information investigated. The Regis-trar-General has been applied to ; the records of the Colonial Secretary's department have been searched; inquest proceedings have been scrutinised, as well as old files of newspapers; the Provincial Governments have been appealed to; and yet with all, although over 1,100 names have been obtained, it is well known that that number falls far short of the true one. In the early days no authentic records were kept, and even in late years many have found a grave in the rivers without being missed. It is very sad to walk through a crowded cemetery where only a few years before the grass was growing undisturbed by spade or mattock, but it is sadder far to think that out of our scanty population considerable more than a thousand have prematurely lost their lives crossing unbridged rivers alone. We are subsidising ocean steamers at great expense, we have talked of uniting ourselves by cable to Australia, and we have projected some vast schemes of colonization ; and yet all the time travelling short distances within a few miles of our own doors is a work of both difficulty and danger, and for the last thirty years the rivers have been steadily levying a toll upon our population —a toll which they still exact. During 1869 and 1870 no less than 155 individuals are returned as drowned in the New Zealand rivers. It is not nearly time to cease offering these yearly hecatombs to the Moloch of mis-Government ? Is it not possible to do with fewer Commissioners of everything mentionable from flax to finance, to save a little of the money that is now being lavished at the will of the Ministry on objects of no value to the country, and put up if only one or two bridges to reduce the death rate ? We commend the subject to the consideration of those who are about to send representatives to Parliament. The greatest postal reform accomplished since the introduction of the penny postage system lias come into successful operation. Newspapers not weighing more than 6 oz. each can be sent to any part of Great Britain for \\ ; and for the same coin 2 oz of printed or manuscript matter can be sent. Then there is the half-penny postal card—-an idea borrowed from Germany. One of the latter has been received by a gentleman in this city, and shown to us. They are of very thin cream colored card-board, the size of an ordinary letter, and impressed on one side with a stamp and border in violetcolored ink. The address must be written on the stamped side, the sender being at liberty to make what use he pleases of the reverse side. Victoria thinks of adopting both systems —at least the Age says the Postmaster-General has expressed himself as favorable to their introduction there. The use of the cards in England has been extraordinary. On the day they came into use in London no less than 800,000 passed through the metropolitan offices alone ; and in one week between two and three million cards were posted in London. In Liverpool 240,000 were distributed in one day; and similar accounts of enormous sales come from other parts of the Kingdom.—Dunedin Evening Star.