REPLY TO "CIVIS."

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume V, Issue 188, 11 August 1870, Page 2

REPLY TO "CIVIS."

To the Editor of the Nelson Eventxg Mail. Sir — I have no doubt you will allow me the usual privilege accorded to most persons suffering under the infliction of a great wrong. My intention in this instance is to reply to the rather extraordiuary production of "Civis" — extraordiuary I esteem it, not from any novelty in the composition, nor for any value in the seutiments expressed therein (for I find very little in either). "Civis" mentions the idea of his never in many years' experience as a government officer having seen subordinates treated with such unbecoming familiarity by chief officers as in departments of this provincial service. "Civis "is a person evidently not accustomed to abstract reasoning, for if he has had as many years' experience as a public officer as he says, he has not profited much by it, otherwise it would be within his recollection that there are men in that service of lofty integrity of character and firmness of purpose that would entirely preclude the possibility of any undue familiarity with them ; and if ''Civis's" remarks have any reference, or are at all applicable, to the person whose character he wishes to shield, he will have no difficulty in observing that a person manifesting that weakness of character indicated by " Civis " is not the right man in the right place. I beg still further to state that if there was less of a disgusting punctilio and useless ceremony, ami more strict attention to the ordinary duties connected with the office, the public would be spared, not only the disgrace, but the expense, and we would hear no more of the escape of prisoners from Nelson Gaol. Apologizing for encroaching on your valuable space, I am, yours, &c, Alexander McKinlay. Nelson, August 11, 1870. ["Civis" and his self-constituted opponent have each fired a blank charge now, and must not expect us to afford them any more space for their somewliat unintelligible effusions. — Ed. N. E. M.]

The Christchurch Gas Company have paid a dividend of 7^ per cent, on the paid-up capital of the company. A Model of a very ingenious machine for cutting and trimming gorse hedges is now on view at Christchurch. It is the invention of a gentleman living in the Canterbury Province and is to be worked by horse power.

The Golden Crcwn paid a dividend of £10 per scrip to the shareholders on Thursday last. The Thames Advertiser says that Mr. James Mackay, Jun. has filed his schedule, being unable to meet his engagements with his creditors. A fatal accident occurred at Otahuhu, Province of Auckland, a few days ago, by which one man was killed by the wheel of a dray passing over his head, and another had his legs broken. The Carandinis have given a concert in Auckland in aid of the fund being raised for the widows and orphans of those who were lost in the Tauranga steamer, and have handed over £20 to the committee as the result. The Gridiron Hotol, Hokitika, was recently sold for £331 . Over £3000 had been expended on the extension and improvement of the hotel since it was first erected. The Native Contingent. — Alluding to Major Kemp, the Wanganui Chronicle says : — " This Maori Military officer recently arrived here, with a draft on the Bank of New Zealand for £11.300 in his pocket. Great will be the rejoicings of the native contingent." A Man named James M'lntosh, a passenger for Auckland by the Argyleshire, committed suicide on the voyage by jumping overboard whilst in a state of insanity. A gale was blowing at the time, and the ship was running under cloae-reefed topsails, with a heavy sea on, so that no assistance could be rendered. " Miner" Considerations. — (From the Tomahawk). — Why are the Thames Mining Companies like clocks ? — Because they go by tick, and get wound up. Why are Legal Managers like ladies of fashion? — Because they are fond of making calls. What is the difference between a wages man asking for his money, and the Long Drive Claim ? — One is a paying claim, and the other is a-claiming pay. We learn from a Melbourne contemporary that the Queensland Assembly has resolved to expel one of its members (Mr. Sandeman) from the House ou the ground that he had forfeited his seat by absence during a whole session. The peculiarity of the case is that the session in question lasted only two days. Titokowaru. — The Wellington Evening Post says : — lt is commonly supposed that the whereabouts of Titokowaru is no mystery to a number of people, both European and Maori, on the West Coast. He is living as it is said, quietly in the Upper Waitotara, with a small number of adherents, not being able, in his preseut reduced circumstances, to maintain a large retinue ; while, since the withdrawal of the Ngatiporous from Waihi, fears were beginning to be entertained that he may draw together the straggling Hau-haus now hanging about the outskirts of the settled country, and again commence murdering and pillaging. At the same time we have a highly salaried Native Commissioner residing at no great distance, who professes to have great influence over the natives for the exercise of which we pay him. Why cannot he prove his influence either by inducing the professed friendlies in Titokowaru's neighborhood to give him up, or go himself and secure him before be gathers strength ? A correspondent of a New South Wales paper, writing from the Lower Macquarie, says that suakes are very plentiful in his locality. A person could now kill fifty of the reptiles with considerable more ease than Mr. Kelly experienced in dispatching the monster that attacked him while coming from the Warrego to Bourke. ' Within the last month we killed over fifty at Grawhay, and it is the same on nearly all the stations. There is very little dry laud, and the snakes make for the dry patches, where they can be found in hundreds. The largest lot killed was at Messrs Cobb aud Co.'s Willawarina station. The stockman there (Mr. Thomas Gardiner) killed about 300 within a radius of 200 yards of the house. He had in abox nearly sixty dead, which he killed in one day. The reptiles were all sorts and sizes.' " The Right Man in the Right Place.. — We {Fun) have just come on this item of Indian news :— " A Madras paper states that the Thayetmyo Brigade is to> be abolished, and that Brigadier-General Macintire will be transferred to a command in the Madras Presidency." Surely, instead of abolishing this brigade, it would be wise to send it to New Zealand. lacase of another rising of cannibalistic Maoris, it would be well to meet the maa-

eaters with their own weapons, and make them howl out " They-ate-me-oh ! " with a vengeance. Disappearance of Whales. — At a recent meeting of the Otago Institute a paper was read by Dr. Hocken on the great decrease in the number of whales on the coast. Among the reasons assigned by very old whalers was the following, which seems conclusive enough : — One informant states that he has known, for mauy years in succession, ts many as 300 sail of American, besides many German, French, and Colonial vessels, fishing on these coasts. They would commence the bay whaling in all the principal harbors of the Middle Island, from Cloudy Bay to Preservation Inlet, and would afterwards rpj'-ur for the off-shore whaling to the banks between New Zealand and the Chatham Islands. Many of them would sink and lose more whales than they procured ; on an average he would consider that each ship lost about 50 whales per season. One Captain Perkins stated that he had sunk and lost about 70 in the year '38. He had known many to lose 10 or 12 in a day. Another says that by far more whales were lost than taken. A Captain Fisher says that he killed over 300 in one season, and secured but 100. For remainder of News see Fourth page. New Advertisements.

The Sugar Planters of the Sandwich Islands, like the squatters of the colonies, says a writer in the OUgo Times, are big people, the aristocrats of the land. The planter is a gentleman who carries hie head high, looks down upon all others, but entertains a very good opinion of himself and the pursuit he is engaged in. And wool growing and sugar raising have this, too, in common, that of late years both have been carried on at a loss, owing to bad seasons and depreciation in prices. The planter, like the squatter, is in the hands of his merchant, who squeezes him until there is no more left to squeeze, and very often finds the squeezing has been carried on too far. Heavy mortgages, high interest, bad times, and the affectionate squeezing just spoken of, are destructive to the planter and squatter, and very often, too, the merchant "burns his fingers " in the process. The production of sugar, however, is the strong point, the very life of the Islands ; its export, a big thing. Rob them of this and you rob ihe inhabitants of their bread and meat, their pride, their glory, their very heart's blood itself. Eighteen and a half million of pounds of sugar! It's a big export, and would supply the whole of New Zealaud for a twelvemonth, even if New Zealand had ten times as many people as it now has. In rouud numbers, upwards of £400,000 is invested in sugar growing, the expenses being about £120,000, the gross returns £240,000, and the net profit £120.000, or 30 per cent, per annum. The horrors of war are strikingly suggested, if not faithfully pourtrayed in the following extract from the letters of Sir Charles Bell, recently published by Mr. Murray. Sir Charles was studying gunshot wounds at a time when plenty of them were inflicted on the French and Allied soldiery on the continent of Europe. He went to Brussels afc six o'clock on the morning of the day on which the battle of Waterloo was fought, he took his knife in his hand, and thereafter continued to ply his benevolent though painful profession for three days. He says : — " All the decencies of performing surgical operations were soon neglected. While I amputated one man's thigh, there lay at one time thirteen, all beseeching to be taken next ; one full of entreaty, one calling upon me to remember my promise to take him, another execrating. It was a strange thing to feel my clothes stiff with blood, and my arms powerless with the exertion of using the knife ! and, more extraordinary still, to find my mind calm amidst such variety of suffering ; but to give one of these objects access to your feelings was to allow yourself to be unmanned for the performance of a duty. It was less painful to look upon the whole than upon one object." Again Sir CharJes says : — " There must ever be associated with the honors of Waterloo, to my eyes, the most shocking sights of woe ; to my ears accents of entreaty, outcry from the manly breast, interrupted forcible expressions of the dyiug, and noisome smells." Scenes of this sort tend to strip off the gilding and frippery with which commanders and governments have endeavored to smother the wrinkles of grim-visaged war. An old soaker replied to a temperance lecturer by the following poser : — "lf water rots the soles of your boots, what effect must it have on the coat of your stomach. ?" Schell, the artist, is likewise a punster. When with some of his brethren out sketching, one of the club proposed to remain and sketch another landscape. " Oh no," says Schell, " let's sketch the train." At a concert recently, at the conclusion of the sou|i, "There's a good time coming," a farmer got up and exclaimed, " Mister, you could not tell us the date, could you ?" Matrimony Defined. — A priest the other dap who was examining a confirmation cla s in the south of Ireland, asked a question, "What is the Sacrament of Matrimony?" A little girl at the head of the class answered, " Tis a place of torment into which sowls enter to prepare them for another world. " Bein, said the teacher, the answer for purgatory." " Put her down to tbe fut of the class." "Lave her alone," said the priest, "for any thin, you or I know to the contrary, she may be parfitly right."