THE WEEK.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XI, Issue 21, 22 January 1876, Page 2

THE WEEK.

v ' " Arejbhe intereaj»x)f re^en,on ■|gwns,^Qd Tgf thoje whpli^in \X$ |ountr^ id^iticalßp T&, te think, p)uld^-m|ah exc^ent an*a^;h^iiext" s|xaminfion^r Pro^ vincial Scholarships, or, say, for an article in the New Zealand Magazine. If tfie subject, be taken up, I shall be 1 prepared.to assist the, writer or writers by giving; evide ? ncefojabp^h sides of the' question, provided that^it is dealt with from a meteorological and not from a political point of ..view;..,. J[ .was,, walking through the streets the other day ; a burning hot sun was acting upon me like the- jet of flame that the jeweller brings to bearupon the metal he wishes <to melt, while a stiff b£eeze_ fromthe. South-east— such as /I 'A. hajd * hith>rto supposed was unknowri*outsfde of Wel-lington-7-was blowing clouds of dust into my Jfacei' filling niy rmoutb) whenever I was foolish enough to open my lips, causing my eyes to smart and my body generally to feel like the "rough end of a niatchbpx-rl waß a victim, I say, 1 toi all these inconveniences arid discomforts when I met a hale hearty^ friend just in from the Waimea;* " Splendid weather," said he, " I've got all my oats in, and the best part of my wheat, and ifj. the ;rain only holds off for^another fortnight I shall be all right." I didn't say much, because I always like to be onfriendly .terms with a man. unless there is some .very good reasonfor falling out with him, but t thought a good deal, not about his oats, or his 'wheat, or his barley, but of how thankful I v stiould feeV. for a heavy shower and a consequent fall of the mercury. And then I met a gentleman who has just left the Court, where he had been engaged for an hour or two. He wore a light coat, and the god of heat had unmistakably marked him as his own by branding him visibly undeifr-each arm with a huge stain, while from his brow the perspiration would have fallen' in streams had not its downward course been checked by a dam of dust. ", Confound this weather," was his exclamation, "when are we 'going to have rain?" It was evident from this that his wishes were at variance with those of my farmer friend, so T came to the conclusion that it was, perhaps, just as well that the clerk of the; weather was not under human control, or, at all events, that," if that officer were elec-i tive^ his, constituency should not be composed of townspeople and agriculturists in equal proportions.

About the cable : which has beeia before the public of late quite sufficiently to warrant a paragraph of my com-ments-upon 'passing eyents to; be devoted to it. There is a current saying . that " Murder will out," and it has so ofteu proved true' that its correctness is generally accepted. The discoveries made, in fishing for the Cook's Straits cable would seem to justify a similar assertion being made with regard to engineering mistakes. "Engineering blunders will but." ""It appears now that instead of taking proper soundings and making themselves acquainted with the lie of the land beneath the water on' which their thiti wire rope was to rest, those to whom the_,work was entrusted were content to carry it out anyhow, and so it happened that the cable has been perched on occasional pinnacles of rock which have been suffered to wear it away little by little. One advantage has accrued from the breakage. Naturalists have been enabled to make themselves acquainted with numerous specimeus of marine life to which they had hitherto been 6trangers, 'but this can scarcely be regarded as an equivalent for the enormous expense that has already been, and yet has to be, incurred in remedying a disaster that a little care in the first place might have prevented. Now, if that ragged end of the .cable of which we have read could only be endowed with the faculty of speech, I should much like to have a chat with it, and to listen to a record of the most interesting of the messages it had— r-as it lay a hundred fathoms below the surface of the water — conveyed from one island to the other during the last ten years. What a string of political fables — I might use a stronger term but prefer not t^—it could relate. as having been flashed from one' of its ends to the other, the object being to turn au election or to influence a division in the Parliament. How. many times, has, an item of commercial intelligence that would enhance or reduce the value of a mercantile speculation by thousands of pounds rushed past the habukae and other, deep aea fish that have solemnly gazed at that thin line and wondered what was this new trespasser ia their domains? How often has the news hurried along it that the father, mother, husband, wife, brother or sister of the recipient of the tness-ge bad been attacked, by a dangerous illness, had growtt worse, had rallied for a time; and then hnd gradually suck and died? I should like to learn something of all this, and to know how many a throb of the heart bad been occasioned by (he appearance of the telegraph boy who was the bearer of a message that had flown past all that mass of marine animal and vegetable life with which that tiny line ib said*-to be encased. But I am afraid my curiosity must remain unsatisfied, and that the only question that is ever likely to be thoroughly solved is, how much will this unfortunate breakage cost the colony. Horribly practical, when there is room for so much romance. j

The vagaries of the Sao Francisco mailer vice are aa numerous, as unexpeotedj and bb unaccountable as -could possibly be. wished for by its most

lettrmined, opponent. have of latf been i|cori^ntly rec.ewing'V telegrams |o&ff o^nother of l|he bo|ts||^gagid,| Bup|pse4^|> be en -/S a ß®|[»| P^Jns ma^y%elie,v(9i, not en-<-iagel|at Ml in thelservice^ps arrived ifrom^t!^ no one* had looked, for 'ii*fi "M s y for naraß3 is not very good, co I must be excused if I cannot call to mind all the vessels that have turned up in on anf»xpected, sprt of way, for really their [ oairne appears; jo m 4 toj be libgtbn. The last' freak is that of the Mikado's arrival at Auckland in the placa of the Gity-of -San Francisco,- she being-ihe,,. hearer of the news that the "■ City " is" joing to, run' in one direction, \aV<i.tJie, Zeaiandia or the Granada in another. Chen" there is the' Colitna trßvellin^ ibout in anriodependent sort of way, and the Cyphrenes, dojng'^iuty Homewhere, and the City of Melbourne occasionally putting in s gn> apperfrADp??, and\ the City' of Sydney J going to^e^ placed on the line, and probably a dozen otßerss_doingix>r gibing to do something. One part of the telegram •< forwarded frbm;. Auckland;; do'l Thursday amused me not a little. ? • -It is; hpped."ywe iweretold, ; " that the^ future mail arrangements wi|t be" satisfactory," T rather like this, seeing that such a, hope ; is all the satisfaction we have Kad^for the laat three i years/ '-1 «h6uldTike to hear something now about its realisation.

doVt kWow whether xtite hot; weather has anything to cay to it, but I notice that most of my remarks to-day are in some way or other connected with the sea. Then next' item on my* list, I find; is the Qiieefi's Wharf in the PPot,,r t ,, ot Nelson. It , was ' a : ' iSri^ sight that was to. be seen yesterday,, when a package weighing some five or' mx tons had to be taken out of tbe ship Caroline. She, you must know, ifi berthed alongside the Goyernment. Wharf, but it would never do to place half a dozen tons on that convenient md commodious structure, because, the other day, an individual who I am sure does not weigh over 11 stonejl proved too heavy for it, aud put his foot through the flooring, and so a hulk* had to be -hauled round to the. ship, and the package had to be p.ut iulo the hulk, and then the hulk had to be taken round to another wharf which is in Boond condition being private and dot Government property, and there the package was landed. Now, if you did not know it before, you would scarcely believe, would you, that eighteen months ago the news was received with intense satisfaction that Nelson was at liberty to raise £27,000 for wharf and d.66k purposes, and that as yet not even a commencement hna been made? If anyone, who is not personally acquainted with the circumstances doubts my asaertiou, I can forgive him, for the facts, I must admit, are altogether irreconcilable with the probabilities. Still, what t say is true. Abominably, disgrhoefully, shamefully true.