Untitled

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIII, Issue 177, 26 August 1878, Page 2

A Melbourne telegram dated 22nd insfc, says: — In the Steveuson prosecution the jury were locked up for six hours, when, still disagreeing, they were discharged, and the defendants bound over to appear when called upon. A late telegram, published in the Indian papers, under date 16th July, says:— "An fexteusive fire at Mandalay (Rangoon) destroyed 4750 houses, including those of several queens and princes. No lives were lost. The steamer Europa, homeward bound from Bom* bay, sank after collision with the Staffa. The crew and passengers were all saved, and landed at Eerrol." Referring to the proposed Parliamentary peregrinations in search of pleasure, the Post says :— No one will object to the members of the Legislature enjoying _ pleasure trip, and uniting pastime with business, travelling hence to Christchurch and Dunedin as far as the railway will reach, seeing the country, and at the same time gathering useful information. Still there are some considerations which stand, or ought to staud, in the way of this holiday being immediately undertaken, It will cause a delay of the session of at least ten days, for, besides the ordinary work of Parliament which is. performed duiing tha ftiiir eiiting days there is the work of Select Committees which must be neglected during all the time the members are absent. The sessiou up to this point lias not been an arduous one; the hours have been light, the labour easy, and the debates as a rule by no means severely testing the intellectual capacity or members. Why then should Parliament suddenly bn ak up for a period of ten days, and leave undone work which should be at once accomplished and for which the country at large is looking ? By all means let members go South, aud see with their dwn eyes the country which to many is I ah unknown land: btit let the wOrk be done first and the pleasure be taken afterwards. In other words; delay the opening of the line for another fortnight or three weeks until, say the end of September; complete the business of Parliament in the meantime; and then, let the senators, wearing the laurels of a grateful country's well-earned praise, travel southward aud behold strange things in a strange land, testifying to the good which springs from earnest labor like to that which the country expects from themselves. [Wo quite agree with our contemporary's re marks, but they do not seem to us to go far enough. We fully believe that the members' enjoyment of their visit to Dunedin would be more largely shared in by their constituents if they (the members) paid their own expenses instead of making them, as is clearly intended, a charge on the colony. — Ed. N.E.M.I