THE Hawke's Bay Times. Nullius addictus jurare in verba magistri FRIDAY, 27th NOVEMBER, 1874.

Hawke's Bay Times, Issue 1632, 27 November 1874, Page 442

THE Hawke's Bay Times. Nullius addictus jurare in verba magistri FRIDAY, 27th NOVEMBER, 1874.

The New Zealand Steam Shipping Company is not in danger of underrating the value of its services. The Evening Post recently stated that the company had very liberally offered to undertake the collection and distribution of the interprovincial mails, in connexion wiili the temporary San Francisco mail service, for the "merely nominal subsidy of £2,300 per annum," but that the Government, '* for certain private reasons,' had taken the " extraordinary course" of declining the offer, " intimating that it will not enter into any contract or pay more than £l2O per trip, the arrangement being made from month to month." From the New Zeuland Times we gather the real facts of the case. The manager offered verbally to undertake the service for £2,600 per annum—'- not such a liberal offer after all," as the Times suggestively remarks. " The company were given to understand that Government would probably not entertain the offer. On the manager of the company intimating that the company would be prepared to perform the service for £2,U15 instead of £2,600, and that any agreement must be for a period of twelve months, the Hon, the Acting Postmaster-General called upon the manager and stated that he considered £l2O per trip, or £1,560 per annum, ample payment; and that the Government could not make any arrangement for a fixed period of twelve months. The Government could only arrange trip by trip, or for so long a period as the existing temporary ban Francisco service continued. This was the extent of the refusal of Government. On the other hand, the company declined further negotiation, as the Government would not enter into a contract for twelve months. This was the only hitch that occurred. On the reasons for refusing to make a twelvemonths contract being explained to the Chairman of the Directors by the Acting Postmaster General, the chairman considered them satisfactory. Hence the following written offer from the company :

New Zealand Steam Shipping Company (Limited),

Wellington 19th November, 1874

Sir, —I have the honor to inform you that the directors of this company are willing to perform the service of carrying the inward and outward San Francisco mail from Manukau to PoitChalmers. and back to Mantikau, calling at New Ph mouth, Nelson, Picton, Wellington, and Lytielton, upou the followiug terms aud conditions, viz.: — The steamer to leave tin Manukau on the arrival of the mail from San Francisco. In the event of the mail from San Francisco not ai riving in Auckland at its due date, the steamer to await its .\rrival twentyfour hours, without extra charge ; beyond that period a payment to be made the company of fifty pounds per day, or part of a day, such detention not to exceed forty-eight hours after the vessel's advertised time of sailing, or the due date of arrival of the San Fiancisco mail; and the detention to be computed from the advertised hour that the vessel should leave Onehunga in time to cross the bar at the Manukau Heads during the daylight, aud at time of high water on that date. Should the vessel be required to leave the Manukau before the advertised date and ti" e of sailing, an extra payment to be made the company of fifty pounds per day, or part of a day, time to be computed as above stated.

These conditions to refer to the departures of the vessels from [for?] Port Chalmers. The service to continue for the period of twelve months, should the San Francisco mail service exist for that time. Payment for such service (£155) one hundred and fifty-five pounds per trip—payable monthly, or after performance of such trip.—l have, ic, K. S. Ledoeb, Manager. The Honorable the Postmaster-General, Wellington. —This offer has been accepted by the Government, who could have secured other offers for the service, but did not wish to ignore the local company. The terms are not unreasonable. So far from any bad feeling existing, we believe the chairman expressed his regret that there should have been any misunderstanding in the past, and his earnest desire to work harmoniously with the Government." From these particulars it will be seen that the company have agreed to perform, at the rate of £2,015 per annum, a service for which they at first demanded £2,600, and which the Government rated at £1,560. It is a matter for congratulation that the Government, in the public interest, felt it their duty to decline to accept the excessive terms offered by the manager, and their only mistake was in coming to any terms at all, when, as intimated by the Times, they " could have secured other offers for the service/' We can understand that they "did not wish to ignore the local company," but think, in this instance, the local company deserved very little consideration. No false sentiment appears to have prevented them from making the most profitable arrangement in their power. We have here another instance of the tender way in which an overgrown monopoly is always fostered. Nearly every other field of trade and industry is crowded, while the steam coasting service remains a strange and unaccountable exception. In no line is opposition more sorely needed. Complaints, loud and deep, have found their way into the coliimns of the press, but with little effect. Here is a good opening for capital aud enterprise, and we venture to predict that a new company, well organized, and reasonable in their charges, who

would show a due consideration for the public convenience, would gain the good will and .hearty support of the entire community.

Somewhat late in the day—Mr Holloway having left the Colony—our morning contemporary complains that he did not visit the Province of Hawke's Bay. In the original plan of a four months' tour, Hawke's Bay was included; but the stay has been extended to nine, and he has gone without paying us a visit. Who is to blame for this? Not Mr Holloway, we are convinced. His mission was to learn by actual observation the eligibility of the Colony as a whole for agricultural settlement, and especially the comparative adaptability to this end of its several districts. A stranger among us, he would have neither sympathies nor antipathies as regarded one province or another. Perhaps—and the opinion is pretty general—our provincial magnates had no particular desire for a visit from the agricultural delegate. The influence of our Superintendent is such that if he had very anxiously wished for Mr Holloway to come, the matter could, we think, have been easily arranged. The results of Mr Holloway's investigations here might have been very unsatisfactory to those who are opposed to the spread of the agricultural interest. Hence, though it may not have been arranged that the peculiar advantages possessed by Hawke's Bay for the location of an agricultural population should lift kept from the knowledge of Mr Holloway, events have been very complacently permitted to work to that end, to the disappointment of a considerable portion of the community.

Mails close for Wellington, Southern Provinces, and Australian Colonies, per s.s. Itangatira, this day, at 9 a.m. The telegraph line has been extended to the township of Hastings, and an office will be opened there shortly. It is intended to erect a Sundayschool at Waipawa at a cost of about £SOO.

The railway to the Port was opened yesterday morning. The station is not yet built, but a temporary platform has been erected.

From our Tauranga correspondent's telegram, we gather that Mr Sisley, an old resident in Napier, may shortly be expected here, having accepted an appointment in the civil service.

From a Waipawa correspondent we learn that at Mr Turley's stile, on Tuesday, the grazing of the land offered was not let. The cattle realized good price?, but the horses did not go off well at all, and were for the most part bought in. A spring cart and second-hand buggy were also bought in.

We would direct attention to the large directory of this Colony now in process ot completion by Mr T. H. Feilding, who is at present in Napier. The book is to be large 4to. size, and will contain about 1,500 pages, of three columns each, in nonpareil type. It will also contain about fifty maps and plans, including one of each Province, and one of every important township. In order to ensure accuracy, Mr Feilding has personally travelled over the whole Colony ; and the work, when published, promises to be a very complete and valuable book of reference. The price to subscribers will be 325; to non subscribers, £2 2s. In the Court of Appeal, Wellington, in the case of lhissell v. Scaly, judgment was given for the appellant, without costs. The appeal was virtually against the Crown, and in a case of that description costs aro not allowed. The Evening Post having by a blunder reported that judgment was given for defendant, our morning contemporary committed the strange freak of copying the paragraph without contradiction, misleading some of its readers, and confusing others. At the time, however, the result of the appeal was well known; the case being one which excited much interest, many persons had received private intelligence of the decision.

In the Resident Magistrate's Court, on Wednesday, a char,ft against one Mark Edgington of embezzling two gallons of whisky, the property of Mr A. Sheild, was remanded to Friday.—, Mrs Macnrthy, wife of T. Macarthy, Hiakspeare-road, was charged with unlawfully assaulting and beating Annie Kijy, daughter of George Key. Hans 8 ten berg, a Norwegian, deposed that on Thursday he was shingling on a housetop overlooking defendant's house. Hearing screams inside the house, he looked thar»», and through a window smw the defendant thrashing the child. Saw her go to the door and get a large horsewhip, which she twisted round her arm, and beat the child with the handle. Annie Key, a girl of thirteen, lame, who had a bad black eye and other bruises, described the assault. Mrs Macarthy had beaten her because she said, when she was doing the washing, that she could not get the stains out or the tablecloth. Afterwards her father came and took her away. She had been staying with Mrs Macarthy to mind the baby. Mr Keys described the condition in which he found the child when li3 took her home—her eyes blackened, and her back and arms scored with bruises. In defence, Mrs Macarthy stated that the witnesses must have been bribed, She had been a mother to the child, and this was the reward of her kindness. When the girl was taken away—without the least warning—there was not a mark on her, and the bruises must have been caused by her mother afterwards. The Court considered the assault clearly established. The Norwegian witness had given clear independent testimony of the nature of the offence, for which no justification had been shown. Defendant here said that the girl hurt her eye against the well-handle the day she left, Fiaed. £2, with 14s costs.

The barrenness of news exhibited by our contemporaries, north and south, is something remarkable. Editors of broad daily sheets are sorely put to it, as shown by their columns of American and Australian clippings, and expanded reports of town council meetings, &c. " Locals" are at a premium. A few anent certain big productions of the vegetable kingdom have gone the rounds till nearly threadbare. The brief life-and-death history of a Polyphemus-eyed porker, which made its appearance in a southern Province, has been copied and quoted right and left—the nature of the creature being veiled from vulgar curiosity by the technical description—" a diminutive specimen of the Sus scrofa" he was called, in penny-a-liners' " pig-latiu." Leading articles, too generally speaking, are just at present about nothing in particular; the subject of Sir G. Grey's petitions—which were hailed as a heaven-sent boon by the press—being now pretty well exhausted. Here and there a " libel case" is on the tapis, and the legal profession—who appear to be as much at a loss for a sensation as the press—will doubtless do their best to fan these and any other little matters they may have in hand, into a steady flame. After all, dulnes? is preferable to many kinds of excitement. Let us hope that in the present instance " no news is good news." Some most extraordinary suggestions with regard to choice of immigrants hav» been contributed by "A Northern Farmer" to the South Australian Register. We quote from the Australasian—which discerns " 6ome wisdom at the bottom" of this production the "three tests" to which he proposes all candidates should be subjected:— One of these is the hand, with regard to which "the fingers would be short and square at the ends ; if over 30 years of age a little knobby on the knuckles, 'the palm should be hard and dry, and when the owner is a-ked 10 put his baud flat on the table it should be found resting ou the wrist aud tips of the fingers." The next is the handwriting aud al.hough the writer looks buck with regret to the days wheu the best immigrants were unable to sign otherwise than by a c oss, yet this is a declaration of faith that he would nut now insist ou. '' A man sliould not be condemned because he is able to write his name, but to a good farm laborer it will be always an effort requiring a sigh after it is finished. Any attempt at a flourish shouk 1 cause a mau's rejection." His third test is '•speiking capabilities," aud with reference to this he snys:—"Make the applicant stand on a chair aud ask him a few questions; it he speaks as readily as when on the ground be doubtful of him, bur if he snows the leasi tendency to wave his aims condemn him at once—he is a born orator, and if brought out he will never work himself, aud will try to prevent others from working, but will possibly get into Parliament, or come to some bad end."

—lt is not difficult to see what class of immigrants a " A. Northern Fanner " would like to see introduced; though the tests proposed—suggestive of palmistry and chiromancy—are odd enough. Why not add physiognomical and craniological tests, and reject any man who was at all deficient in " veneration," or was sufficiently self-assertive to look his interrogators straight in the face? The behaviour of the applicant in the presence of the 6quire or the parson might also be duly noted—such a test would be quite as useful as to place him upon a chair and question him. The test of "the hand" might be extended to his feet. A light or well fitting boot "should causa a mail's rejection," and a minimum size—say No. 9—might bo fixed, and rigidly adhered to. We have ventured somewhat to extend the application of the ingenious idea originated by the "Northern Farmer,'' and imagine that immigrants who have fulfilled all the conditions specified would suit him to a nicety. We shall lock witbi interest for further valuable practice suggestions from the same quarter.

We admire the " New Zealand Tablet" — it is such a lively little print. It is not in the number of our exchanges, and we do not often see it; but the columns of our contemporaries are often illumined by extracts from its pages. In a late issue it divulged the dread, the mystic secret of Freemasonry, which is only bestowed by the " CM." in the exalted grade of" Perfect Mistrtss." [We know, now, what the mystic sign " P.M." signifies! But we will not repeat the "secret," which is only to be given "in a low voice."] Quite lately the Tablet found it to be its painful duly to administer a rebuke to the Otngo press, which it did in detail, in the following exalted strain :

Our attention is constantly distracted between the Duuediu daily papers and their correspondents, and our country contemporaries. At one time it is the Guardian that calls for animadversion ; at another, the Daily Times is provoking. The Eveuiug Star is frequently very prcteutious and supercilious in its tieatmeut of social and ecclesiastical questious. and requires a check. This paper takes great airs, and has <if ten reminded us of an upper servaut of a good family out of place. Theu there is the Bruce Herald, which, of course, imitates the mantiers of its betters ; but our contemporary of the Plain lacks the ability of its leaders, aud falls into great follies. It would occupy too much space, however, to [jive here a complete list, with their respective characters, of all those to whom we have to administer reproof every now and theu.

—Nothing could be more touching than the kindness and gentleness of this reproof, which we regret to say has been quite disregarded, and in some instances actually turned into ridicule, by the papers for whose benefit it was written.

We find the following mot in a late Southern Cross. It is stated to have been written many years ago by Mr Mautell : Bridges and roads, roads and bridges, Aro among our most valuable privileges, But roads and bridges, bridges and roads, Never come near us ser.tlero' abodes.

We meet with the complaint occasionally that the pulpit is not sufficiently trenchant in its attacks upon the enemies of the Church, and upon the evils which have grown up within it—that, in fact, it is given to mincing matters where plainness of speech is requisite. Such a charge can hardly be brought against the wellknown " Father Ignatius," nominally a priest of the Church of England, who one Sunday recently delivered his valedictory

address in London, wherein he metaphorically shook the dust of that city off his feet. From the following summary of that address, taken from a London daily, it will be seen that the language of the Rev. Father was plain if not complimentary. Whether he was speaking " the truth, in love," or not, is a different matter:— His address was explanatory of his position as a monk of the Church of England. He began by emphatically stating his convictiou that the majority of Uhristiansof the present day wore humbugs, and their religion a delusion. They went to church on a Sunday, but they did not care two straws about Jesus Christ or His Gospel. The Legislature was not behindhand in this respect, for what could be more disgraceful than that the House of Commons should sit for the transaction of business on Ascension Day, and adjourn for pleasure on the Derby Day ? It. was a disgrace to civilization aud to the country, but. then, English society was from beginning to end a humbug. The'monastery, he believed, was the on'y safety for the Church of England, for numbers who professed Christianity were atheists at heart,.especially the ladies, who gave up their souls and everything else for dress. He finished by asserting that those persons who suppose m nasticism to be peculiar to Rome are misled by brutal, stupid, pigheaded ignorance.