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

The New York Nation thus appreciates the political value of -the Home Rule movement:—" The real difficulty in the way of Home Rule is that hardly anybody in Ireland who had anything to lose would contemplate it without a shudder. As the 'National Party' in our day is entirely wanting in tho elements of intelligence and respectability which gavo a certain dignity and promise to the 'United Irishmen'organization at the close of the last century, and even gave some elevation to the Repeal agitation, the triumph of the present movement would probably result in the production of a legislature at Dublin of which the New York Common Council of late years might furnish a fair idea, and whose main occupation would be the 'striking' of property-holders. The leader of the Lower House, at least, would certainly not be a gentleman like Flood or Grattan, or even like O'Connell or 'Smith O'Brioiii with self-respect enough to refrain from the grosser kinds of peculation, but probably a common 'boss' like Tweed or Shepherd, armed with a 'rake' and a 'slate,' fond of good living and fine furniture, and indifferent to reputation." Upon this the Pall Mall Gazette comments: —" A New York journal has some right to bear testimony to the qualities of Irish administration. Nowhere else in the world have Irishmen had such an opportunity of shewing how they can manage the business of government, and all the world has seen the result."

We take the following from the New Zealand Herald :—A Victorian journal, known as the Mortlake Dispatch, states that on the 27th ultimo a wager was made between two men as to the quantity of whisky each could drink. It was agreed that the trial should be made on a Sunday afternoon, at the house of one Mullens, a publican, one Welsh being a witness as lo fair play, and to see that each competitor "honorably" partook of the quantity he had agreed to swallow. One man drank off three tumblers of raw whisky, upon which the other did the same. One died almost immediately, and the other, suffering greatly for a long time, survived. Nothing was done to the publican who provided two men with the means of committing suicide ; although the Coroner who presided at the inquest declared that, had the law allowed him, he would have committed the landlord, on a Coroner's warrant, for manslaughter. Some time back, three men on the Auckland and Mercer line of railway made a wager, not so fatal, but equally disgusting, as to who would drink the largest quantity of beer within the hour. One man drank twelve pints, and the other had nearly done as well, but after he had swallowed the eleventh, artd was about to place another to his lips, his head dropped on his breast, and he sunk into a sleep, from which he did not awake for twenty-six hours. Now, we would ask in all reason, is the landlord who would permit such an act being committed in his house deserving of being allowed to hold a licence? The man who would tolerate such a brutal exhibition under his roof would, probably, encourage any vice which would bring him custom ; and it is at such houses the police may hunt up the dog-fights and rat-pits, which are said to be the Sunday amusements of some of the " navvies" engaged upon our railways.