JOURNALISTIC ITEMS.

Hawke's Bay Times, Issue 1633, 1 December 1874, Page 446

JOURNALISTIC ITEMS.

We have to acknowledge, receipt of the first number of " The Southern Cross," a weekly religious journal, published in Melbourne, Victoria, edited by the Rev. Dr. Cameron, and containing contributions from ministers and members of all evangelical denominations. It is the size of our journal, and is well-written, well-selected, and very well printed. The price of the paper is twopence—address .61, Queenstreet, Melbourne. " The Weekly Tribune " in connexion with the evening " Tribune," is announced to appear in Wellington with the new year. We wish the proprietor every success.

It seems to be a practice of some of our contemporaries, when desirous of venting a little ill-humor, to bestow it upon the Press Telegraph Agency, or upon a gentleman therewith connected, named Knocker, who has met with some very rough handling. It is a pleasing change to meet with a testimony like the following from the columns of the Nelson Eveniug Mail, which most newspaper readers will be quite ready to endorse: '"During the session of Parliament wc could uot but be struck with the excellent manner in which the speeches of the various members were summarized by the Press Agency for transmission by telegraph. Whoever it was that undertook the task, he certainly was master of his work."

In our first page we give the very interesting address delivered by Judge Chapman before the Dunedin Press Club, in which he narrated the history of the early press of the Colony. It contains, how"ever, several inaccuracies. For instance, he does uot mention that the Wellington Independent was an offshoot from the older paper, " The New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian." From the merely casual allusion to the " Spectator," the reader might suppose it to have been of a more recent date. In his later information Judge Chapman is not more accurate —for instance, the Independent was published daily long before it became the " New Zealand Times." An undeserved slur also appears to be cast upon the printing of the early missionaries. The first book printed in this Colony, which issued from the mission press, will compare very favorably with some New Zealand productions of A.D. 1874, notwithstanding all advantages of modern and improved appliances. The paper "printed in a mangle" was entitled either " The Auckland Times " or " The New Zealand Times." The history of the early New Zealand press, should it ever be written, will not omit to mention the first Wanganui paper—" The Wanganui Record"—printed and published by the late Mr Francis Watts. It was a single sheet of foolscap, and was printed on a press similar to that described by Judge Chapman as having been introduced by Colonel Wakefield. We once possessed a file of this interesting little paper, but it was unfortunately destroyed by fire in 1859. The ." Record " was not very long continued, Mr Watts meeting with an accident which prevented him from working upon it, and he subsequently disposed of his press and other material to the Rev. C. H. S. Nicholls. The Nelson Examiner, which only recently ceased publication, was the oldest paper in New Zealand, having run an uninterrupted course of over thirty years. The Southern Cross (Auckland) is now the oldest surviving representative of early journalism in New Zealand.