TOPICS OF TALK.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume IV, Issue 256, 30 January 1874, Page 3

TOPICS OF TALK.

" Seute them right " will probably have been the verdict of all who read the judgment of the Court of Inquiry, with regard to the wreck of the Sural All trouble is not apparently over, for the captain was again apprehended and charged with criminal neglect before the Dunedin Resident Magistrate's Court. Mistakes fti seamanship, as in everything else, occur daily. It would be hard to find .one in authority who would escape unscathed, should judgment inevitably follow results of error. But . when that error is from a wilful obscuring of intellect, from a direct refuge in the gin bottle, the utmost severities of the law are more than justified. In this case we find 300 souls, more or less—probably every one better worth saving thau their drunken officers —committed by direct licenses of competency to thes« men's supposed N ability and skill. Tt is well, so far, \that, by the cancellation of the certificates, the three first officers of the Surat are no longer licensed todrown on the high sens. Well, that is putting it rather too strongly; but it must be remembered that there is not

always a sandy beach at hand on which to run a vessel, nor yet is it always calm for a week at a time on the coast of New Zealand.

A cabi/egkam announces that "a Papal Bull authorises the next Papal election, without regular conclave, in Monaco, France, or Malta. Germany refuses to recognise it." What is called the conclave is the place where the Cardinals—some seventy in all—assemble in prepared chambers to elect the Pope. This has always been at Eome, in the Vatican palace, near to St. Peter's. The mode of election is peculiar. A number of cells!are prepared, equal to the number of Cardinals attending the election. LA number is put upon each cell, and small papers with corresponding numbers are put into a box. Every Cardinal,

or some one for him, draws out one of papers, which determines in 'wnjeh cell he is to lodge. The cells .are.;lihed with cloth, and there is a part of each one separated for the conclavists, or attendants, two of whom are allowed to each Cardinal and three

to Cardinal Princes. They are persons of some rank, and generally of .great •confidence, but they must carry in their master's meals, serve him at table, and perform all the offices of a menial servant., ; Two physicians, two surgeons, an apothecary, and some other necessary officers are chosen for the conclave

by the Cardinals. On the tenth day after ihe Pope's death, the Cardinals who are then in Rome, and in a competent state of health, meet in the chapel of St. Peter's which is called the Gregorian Chapel, whera a sermon ■on■the choice of a Pope is preached to them, and mass is said for invoking the grace of the Holy Ghost. t , Then the Cardinals proceed to the conclave in procession, two by two, and take up their abode. When all is properly settled the conclave is shut up, having boxed wheels or places of communication in convenient quarters, and there are also strong guards placed all around. Two-thirds of those present must vote for the same person. As this majority is not often easily obtained, they sometimes remain whole . months in the Should the. direct vote not be effectual, recourse is had to what is called accession—that is (> a voter who has voted for one in the minority accedes his vote to the popular candidate who yet has not enough support to obtain the two-thirds necessary. The source from which Iwe extract this information tells us that the JKmperor of Germany and the Kings of France and Spain claimed a right of excluding one Cardinal from being Pope at every election. Hence, when the Ambassador at "Rome of any of these sovereigns percer??d .that a Cardinal was likely to be elected disagreeable to his master he an audience, and then declared l his master's will, which was always attended to for the common good. But each of these sovereigns was thus allowed to exclude only one at a tirfie, and they unwillingly and seldom put this right in execution, 'this may nlain the weight of the protest on the part of Germany, against the nlxt election being held elsewhere thanjat Rome. The accuracy of the cablegram has been disputed. Who does not sympathise with fie foreman of the Dunedin jury (Mr. Cutten) who, placing his hand uppn his waistcoat, said "it was getting near his dinner hour—ls'ature would 'dssirt her sway." Time, four p.m. —ah'adjournment for lunch had heen alWed at one. His Honor remarked that {he law took no cognisance of dinners; aiid, indeed,' strictly forbade jurymen [to have either food or fire when they wfer'e , locked up to consider a verdict, the foreman's dinner would accordingly have to keep' warm for him, as he] did not get out till nearly twelve o'clock. We hope the viands did not spoil With the keeping. Seriously though, Ihere is something barbarous in thus starving put a verdict. A question $, in reality, put to each juror—ls your principle above your waistcoat oi beneath it ? ■* ' ; The law of primogeniture, so familiar to English-speaking people] has much to answer for in hastening the rapidity with which land has beenfcoming into the hands of few proprietors, especially in Great Britain. TheJEnglish census of 1861 showed that there were only 30.7GG landowner? to 24J),2G1 farmers in that country. The fi|ures ' have, it is right to say! been disputed, but it js not disputed that everyjyear. the number of owners decreases; and J

the jiimdiei'of tenants increases. There is a more positive en use even than Ihis of. primogeniture at the root of this tendency for lands to gradually gravitate into a few hands only : that.is the law of settlement and entail. In at that time the English Colony of Pennsylvania, Adam >mith-says " there was no right of primogeniture,^an I lands,, like moveables, are divided, equally among all the children of the fanrly." There can be no doubt that the engrossing of uncultivated land is the great thing, if possible, to be. prevented, especially in young Colonies, where the land is obtained at such a low price as to relieve the large holder from any necessity of special exertion to make his adventure remunerative. Looking forward to the future of New Zealand, and that the great tendency already so conspicuous of,the uncultivated lands is to merge into a few great holdings—the owners of which are sure to effect settlements and entails aping at an imitation of the old historical families of -Great Britain—we need no deep, prophetical vision to foresee that the indirect evils of the system will be' very great, and, in a country of so limited' an area; the scarcity of land over which the State has any control will be very limited indeed. It follows," as a natural sequence, that will be low and rents will be exorbitantly high. This might be, in a measure, corrected, if no disposal of property by deed or will were permitted unless absolute, whether that property be in land or otherwise. Necessary exceptions would have to be made to secure provision for widows. Such a system has heen ably advocated in England, to correct the same evil that we at present only see, as it were, the footprints of, but that will, before long, be not only seen but felt. An ■• able English writer says—"lf property in land is to be maintained at all, and if, at the same time, society is to assume more and more the democratic form into which it .is now growing, we cannot, for our own part, conceive the possibility of our proprietors being allowed to preserve the strange privilege which they now enjoy—unique, we believe, ,in Europe, except as regards some noble fiefs in regions where that mediaeval distincis still kept up—of carving out future estates on their soil for hypothetical possessors, and ' solemnly appealing,' as it has been expressed, ' from one generation to the next."*

The Governor's journey up-country has very much resembled a rush of dace, in an English river, after an unfortunate mayfly. His Excellency was paying his way —not loafing on the funds of the Province—and wished to gain a knowledge, from quiet observation, of the country and the people he has to govern. He objected to pay £2 2s. a-bead for unordered dinners ; he objected to bo fleeced right and left, and, probably sickened by the shaking of paws and doses of nauseous panegyrics upon his many virtues, as administered at Tokomairiro by the school children, he determined in his future progress to disregard Municipal etiquette, and endeavor to be allowed to take his pleasure his own way. Of course the indignation is terrific. Even our sensible contemporary the ' Watip Mail,' is carried away by the popular wrath, and says, as it always does, clever things condemnatory of a half-and-half style of Gubernatorial porrrp*"-). One comfort out of it all is, that a~ ',n is evidently at the' head of affairs in this Colony who will not be imposed upon, nor,"-what is" .much more common, allow himself to be knowingly duped and befooled rather than quietly but firmly object. Firmness and independence in small things is no bad guarantee of a similar line of action in dealing with the difficulties that occur owing to the battles of conflicting parties in Parliament, and exasperated leaders of Opposition placed for the hour in some position of power and authority, prepared to destroy with prentice hand what they are ignorant how to rebuild. Wo do not sympathise in the least with the disappointed publicans, not with that poor groom who stopped up all night to rub down four poor horses—what had they done to be so rubbed ?—and got 2s. 6d. /or his pains. Quite enough too.