THE WEEK.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XI, Issue 55, 26 February 1876, Page 2

THE W E E K .

: " Vote for Jack Smith and progress." About the time that an election is going on, be it for the Municipal or Provincial Council or for the Colonial Parliament, this is the sort of placard you see posted up on the walls. In its way it is all very well, but it seems rather superfluous to recommend a man because he is favor of progress. Not one of us ever records his vote for a candidate except in the hope that " progress " is to be the result of an election. There are three kinds af motion, said the schoolboy when under examination, the progressive, the retrogressive, and the standstill motion. Do you suppose for one moment that a wooer of the sweet voices of the electors would ever raise as his battle cry, " Vote for Jack Smith and retrogres* sion," or " Vote for Jack Smith and standstilledness "? But when you have got your progress man iv how much better off do you, as a rule, find yourself? Does he go ahead more than his predecessor or than a less demonstrative opponent would probably do P My Nelson experience leads me to doubt it. Jack Smith, Bill Robinson, or Tom Snooks seem to be pretty ranch alike so far as bringing about progress is concerned. But another candidate has lately come forward and craved our support, and in the interests of progress I am inclined to baok it against the field, even at odds. " Vote for Electricity and Progress." Now this is something like a cry. None of your promises which may or not be kept (a defeated candidate at the recent elections questioned their reliability), but actual performances. This is the recommendation of the electric telegraph. London news not three days old telling us of the opening of the wool sales, advising those who are interested in this particular trade of the exact state of the market, and warning them not to be too speculative. This is one ofthe results of being at one end of that little bit of wire which lies at

the bottom ofthe sea. And ifc is pleasant too to know how old dame England -ryour mother whom we . all reveto iind admire —is getting on with .her Continental neighbors, and to s lfearn what v slje was doing a day or two ago. Then to come nearer to our island home. There is considerable satisfaction in knowing that there is a bond closely unifciug us with, the sister colonies of Australia. Suppose the first use made of the wires should be to inform us that an artful dodger who thought he had a right to certain funds that did not belong to him had fled to these shores. We might have had more interesting news certainly, but there is some satisfaction in the knowledge that if a villain had sought to make this his borne his full description was at once in the hands of the police, who will doubtle.ss take an early opportunity of providing him with a free passage back to the place from whence he came. And, if I were a merchant, I should feel a greater amount of coufikence in my business position if at one p.m. I received a Melbourne telegram dated eleven a.m. on the same day. This may perhaps be regarded as almost impossible, certainly as improbable, yet it is an occurrence that took place in Nelson yesterday, and so, all things considered, I feel inclined to sing with heart and voice " Hurrah for Electricity and Progress."