AMERICAN EXPERIENCE.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VI, Issue 261, 4 November 1871, Page 4

AMERICAN EXPERIENCE.

(From the Lyttdion . Times.) The Melbourne Leader, in its issue of (•.[Oct,*. 7, contained . a few Sensible and suggestive remarks on the! subject of railway 'corisl_ action. Traveller after traveller, observes our. contemporary, aor&escio 'us 'Wa- New 'York, the Great ..Pacific Railway, and San Francisco, but j^o>one has ; given any. * feerviceable account of this wonderful trans-continental l|ne. : ; ;. We (Sometimes read' a few ' Stray leayes from a wiandere/s diaryVaboufc Hhe drinking saloon's of 'Frisco; the'beauties of the Yosemite valley, tsf.X delights of '*; :-&allmaAs or the ; idiosyhoracies of. the- Hdlwbllerci \ } in'' Salt I<ake city; but^nSter a word do we gather '^copperoingj^, -the j,,*£ngineering statistics of* the lonffe|t^i^ilwa*y track in :ihe,wbrld; !r -Thig substi^

of Mr. Vogel's short letter, necessarily writteh in a hurry and without professing to go into details, we have had nothing really practical and to the point on the construction of railways in America generally. -: And yet there is no country in theVorld from which we could derive so much useful information on that allimportant subject. The Leader goes on to remark that Victoria is extending her railway communication daily, at a vast expenditure : " conducting costly experiments for which our children and our children's children must pay, and we shut our eyes to the lessons which might be gained from tbe experience of our neighbors." The case of New Zealand is exactly analagous to that of Victoria., We, too, are extending, and are about to extend on a large scale, our railway communication, and, like the Victorians, we deliberately shui our eyes and ears to tbe valuable teachings of American experience. Our railways will cost, on the average, say £5000 per mile, and there is good reason to believe that a great portion of them might be constructed for something like half the sura. America has solved the problem of cheap construction', and though that solution might be ascertained by a trustworthy and competent observer at a trifling outlay, we prefer to go on with the costly system on which we started — a little modified, perhaps, through the persistent advocacy of those who think that the colony ought in the meantime to be content with moderate speed and rough- '< and-ready service, but, in the main, {"•** expensive and elaborate. Why should not the Government, before going on with the. 500 odd miles of railway which the Assembly will be rsked to authorise, send some reliable man to the Uni*" id States with instructions to enquire minufcely-ioto the whole question of construction— the cost per mile; Vie maximum gradient; the mode of laying the permanent way; the process of forming embankments; <'ie weight of rails and the method of keying the same; the size ahd proportion pei* mile of sleepers; the nature of the ballast if any; the material and construction of bridges, viaducts, and culverts; the power and principles of construction of the engines employed; the fuel, and the average rate of speed ? These, and a host of other questions, might be eas-ly and satisfactorily set at rest, within a reasonable time, and we think it highly probable that a large saving, with a correspondingly large increase in the length of lines constructed in the colony, would be the result. It is not alone in railway construction, and the mode of working, that we may learn from our Yankee cousins. We pointed out some mouths ago, and to a certain extent the Provincial Government have acted on our suggestion, that America is pre-eminently the land where necessity has proved itself the fertile mother of invention. With the Americans, as with us, tbe one great question has been the expense of labor. This question had met them, as it has met us, at every step in their career, and in every possible direction. What is the result ? They have invented and are constantly inventing labor-saving machines of all descriptions, about which we read fragmentary accouats occasionally, but of which we know very little indeed. What we require is, the practical observations of a practical man on every department of American industry. Their commerce, their agriculture, their manufactures, their industrial organisations generally, and above all, the various ways in which they so successfully adapt their means to the end which they seek to accomplish— these are the things, that is the kind of knowledge, which we stand so urgently, in need of, and which we might so easily acquire. Sir Morion Peto concludes his useful, but 1 somewhat desultory and' dry book on ithe resources and prospects of America, . by asking where iit is possible to find her equal in material progress or in general prosperity. As a united people, he says, the Americans present to the world a spectacle that must excite general admiration : "It is a great thing to boast of, that from the shores of .our own land, there has gone forth . a nation which is able to reflect so many advantages upon the country from which it started, and which has before it so grand a future." A great thing ' most assuredly,' and if America can reflect so many advantages upon England, can teach the old country so many useful lessons, as Sir Morton Peto seems to think she can, surely a young country '* like New; ' Zealand would be benefitted in a tenfold degree by a systematic inquiry into the causes^bick haye produced' and are prdauciag) "such astonishing results: Theoutlfey necessary to, defray' the e^Maises- of a qualified-: JCommi|pner 'lid/Wlid- 'tJtiited States, say for a term of two years, would be repaid 'over •^uaH 1 -"over-; again to the colony, and we trust that. the question will I ,bfe_orothejepaion.(^pfe-r ":>'- .'• „^v,( ' 1

LvANGAHtTA Reefs. — Another rusb, says the Grey River Argus] to ground on the right-hand branch of the Inangahua river has set in to what is reported to, to. a new reef between; Anderson's andpCelly's. reefs. Adam Smith's party tyarejfefruck 'the reef at a lower level of GO feet. The stone exhibits increased richness. It is said that the committee. appointed to superintend ., the* arrangements made to secure the comfort aid convenience of hon. members of the Legislative Council and House of Representatives reported recently tbnt, la their opinion, the wines, &c. for " Bellamy's " should be imported duty free. They also considered that it would be expedient to have a special cellar constructed wherein the exhilarating liquids might be stored from session to session to gain those desirable qualities conferred by age. This is coming it rather strong for an Assembly, the Premier of which is an apostle of teetotal ism. If the proposal finds favor with hon. members, and is adopted, we very much fear that a desire to represent a constituency in Parliament will come to be regarded, riot so much as ah evidence of public spirit, as of a longing for " public spirits." There is -only one improvement to be made upon the " publicspirited " suggestion of the committee, aud that is besides remitting the duty on parliamentary liquor, to place a round sum on the estimate to defray its original cost, together with freight, wharf dues, &c. — Leader. Satukday Half Holidays. — In the course of a sermon recently preached in the Church of ' St. John, the Baptist, at Christchurch, the Rev. E. Bailey, made the following remarks on the subject of the Saturday half-holiday: — "And here my thoughts turn, whether I will or not, to many houses of business in which on tlie Saturday night young men and women are kept at work untfl ten and eleven o'clock, and are not able to retire to their beds until Sunday morning; the forenoon of the Sunday finds them sti!'. in bed; they rise dull and unrefreshed, and in too many cases they use the after part of the day in seeking the country air, which they have not the opportunity of seeking on any of the other days pf tbe week, and can you wonder that tbey do this, can you blame them that they do it ? Nay, rather blame those who keep them so late at business — and this is -not, in the greater number of cases, the employers. Blame those who by late shopping prevent them from obtaining the rest and repose which are necessary for the renovation both of the physical and menial powers. You, and such as you, prevent them from attending the House of God on the Sunday morning. You drive them, as medical men testify, to the gambling-house, and to improper society, in order to unbend those powers which are bo painfully prostrate. Dr. Lankester, a man whose name is well known in the philanthropic world says : — "I find that there is in London a sacrifice of a thousand lives annually through the practice of keeping in shops for a greate. number of hours than the human constitution can bear. But this is not all. Where a thousand persons die from tbis cause, there are at least eight thousand whose , health suffers from it." Many other testi- • monies of men of science might be adduced to prove to you that this late hour Bystem is productive of most serious consequences to the body. I have no means of shewing you by statistics to what extent it ruins the soul; butT have a firm conviction that it is the cause of the eternal destruction of thousands. The remedy for this great social wrong is very much in the hands of our mothers and sisters. If you did not put off your shopping till late in the week the shopkeeper would gladly put up his shutters and send his young men out on the Saturday afternoon into the green fields. To this extent also you have the remedy in your own hands. You can patronise those shops only which close early in the evening and give their servants the Saturday half-holiday. It is absolutely certain that if ; wpmen were to take the matter in hand -in this practical manner, one month would see the end of this monster evjl. The ■ Saturday halfholiday lias proved an inexpressible boon to many large towns in the manufacturing districts of England. The Early; Closing Association of Manchester publishes abundant evidence that this movement—so successful in. that city, has resulted in the better observance' of the ,day ot rest, and the more* 'reg_l_r Latteiidance.on Sunday upon those religious duties which none can neglect without sin. and danger. Can we not, each of us do something towards making this an institution in the town of Christchurch ? Surely, it be a noble featiire our *"■ coicjnfal character if the young men and women;. iu shops, and all employed in labor, .-.could lave a halfholiday on t Saturday- »pr,e£)ftrfljtor'y-.;tiO: the, engagements tof j&paVs ho]y»d_y. xj