TOPICS OF TALK.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume V, Issue 282, 31 July 1874, Page 3

TOPICS OF TALK.

Wk often wonder whether anything which has proved a success ever was started without being denounced beforehand as a certain waste of time or money. Everyone knows the outcry which was raised against Mr. Vogel and his Policy of Public Works ; now, after a fair trial, and a dipping into £65,000,000 of borrowed money, showing the splendid results of a £300,000 surplus on the last year's revenue —a fact that evidences, in the strongest manner, the faith of capitalists in the country and its policy, for surplus revenue is not raised where private enterprise is stagnant or paralysed with fear of what is to be. ♦: H).u\.p: Not only is this suspicion of the commercial soundness of new ideas confined to public expenditure, but the criticism is carried further, and *sonu: must needs pry into their neighbors' affairs and foresee financial destruction there alao. We hear that a section of the inhabitants of a town that shall be nameless have formed themselves into a Committee to prohibit the grant of any more business licenses or obtaining of freeholds to or by those who wish also to compete in the selling of sugars, teas, &c. The Committee say that they individually are most anxious that the privilege of selling sugars, &c, should be extended to as many as possible. 'J hey are most anxious for such extra establishment of sugar shops:—> indeed, there are no stronger advocates—but they wish such sugar-selling to be a Buccess, not a lingering life of poverty and a miserable failure, as they much fear it would be if any more business licenses were granted. Besides, too, they refer byname to the experience of those at present sellers of sugars, and the unanimous answer of these they declare to be—not profitable. * Still, if more.sugar 18 to be sold—which Heaven forbid—let it be well away from those likely to buy it, and, above all, not so situated ns to interfere with the rights of these poor, impoverished ones, who, out of pure philanthropy, still remain to supply a one-horsed district with chaff enough to maintain life, which is, after all, the only thing needful—extra sweetness would be fostering luxurious instincts. It will, they say, require more than a few large stomachs, monster appetites, and growing children to prove the suitability of the said township for profitable sugar-selling. The Commijt r tee are aware that the Great Panjandrum himself, with the little round button on top, has reported—we all know what happened then: how, in the old parody, they all fell to playing the game of catch-as-catch-can till the gunpowder ran out of the heels of their boots—most truthfully, most accurately, that more sugar is not needed—doubtful, indeed, if it would not melt; besides, that the town itself is steeped in Bugar; that all in the shops belongs to the people of the town. This small story of ours is, all our readers will agree, sheer nonsense and we at once admit idle invention; our excuse is that it was .suggested by similar nonsense we made room for in our last issue.

A pew weeks ago we referred to the new way of disposing of our dead called cremation. This now is already being improved upon. "Phill/' writing in ' Town and Country,' a Melbourne journal, says that "a formidable rival to cremation has appeared in the form of a project for petrifaction, suggested by an eminent Italian medico. By this means, instead of ornamenting our chimney-pieces with the urns containing the ashes of our forefathers, we are to embellish our staircast b, conservatories, and gardens with our dearest friends, turned to stone in the attitude we like them best in life. Apropos of cremation, the Cambridge University Union has adopted a motion in its favoi by 101 to forty.two votes ; while in the United States a case of cremation has actually occurred. The 4 crematee ' was George Opdyke, eon of Dr. Francis Opdyke, a native of Heidelberg. The body, which.produced ' a quart of whitish grey ashes,' was burnt in a chimney of ' peculiar construction,' which had been constructed in pere Opdyke'B house ; and the asheß, placed in an urn, now ornament his study mantel-piece. There is one little fact, however—the experiment coßt £2,000." In Dunedin, last week, the loung Men's Debating Society took up for discussion the subject of cremation, and decided in favor of it as against ordinary burial.

Since our last ißsue the project of deepening the Channel looks a little more like a possible reality than it did laßt week. We observe that, on the 22nd, Mr. Mervyn obtained an answer from Mr. Eichardson that the Government would not be able to agree to the recommendation of the Provincial Government. On the morning of the next day the Government received the lengthy telegram from the Naseby Progress Committee, which, backing up in the strongest manner Mr. Mervyn's action, no doubt tended to influence Mr. Richardson in his reply on the afternoon of that day (the 23rd), in answer to Mr. Mervyn's laudable pertinacity, to the effect that the Government would reconsider their determination. The meeting held on Saturday would also accelerate the favorable movement, by placing on record, in the most emphatic manner, the opinion of practical men that the alterations are a positive necessity. If we do not allow ourselves to lapse into the too common lethargic state Naseby in not altogether a stranger to, the deepening of the Channel may very well be looked upon as a certainty. A full report of the meeting will be seen in another column.