Notes and Events.

Manawatu Herald, 4 June 1896, Page 3

Notes and Events.

The Japanese in order to celebrate their recent victorias, are goiog to •reet a gigantic itatue of Buddha. The height will be 120 ft. The mittl will be supplied from the ordnanoe captured in the late war. The monument will cost about 1,000,000 yen, and ia to be erected At; Kioto. Do not be in a hurry to ftoeuse the fcpanesa of too great an expenditure as a yen ii equivalent to two shillings of our money, but this even makes the cost £100,000.

Budda, 10 to 1m honored was a prince in Central India who was born 623 8.C.. He became disgnated with the behaviour of the Brahmins and retired, for a time, into private life. When he again appeared he preached the new religion so successfully that it predominated in India until the 10th century A.D. Buddhism is the chief religion in Asia beyond the Gangei, and in China, Japan and Ceylon.

Buddhism in its eaaential prineiplei, in fo far as (hey can be reduced to an Occidental form of thought, are, that man is under the operation of ctrtain inflexible laws, from which there is neither escape or deliverance ; existence under them is an evil ; priestly rites find sacrifice! are unavailing ; death is no escape, but only a transmigration to another form of existence ; obediunoe to the moral laws — the practice of oharity, temperance, justice, honesty, truth — insures a ~~sejurn in heaven, followed by a higher existence on the earth ; disobedience insures a punishment in some of the innumerable hot and

cold hells situated in the interior of the earth or on ita furthest verge, followed by a lower state of existence on earth ; the supreme felicity to be attained by perfect obedience is the suppression of every passion and desirs, and eventually an unconscious existence or annihilation. When landlords graep too much

tenants will rebel. A curious instance of this has just been shown in the State of Washington in the United States, which is situated on on the Pacifis coast and adjoins British Columbia. In that State there is a town called Wenatohee, and is now in course of removal, building by building, to a new site. This has arisen from the citizens being incensed at the avarice of the owners, we have fixed the price of property at a very high figure and also, which is probably the real reason, owing to tb.9 water supply being bad. The fact remains that our cousins are moviug a town two miles to a site on the bank of a river, for cne or both the above reasons.