Untitled

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIV, Issue 119, 20 May 1879, Page 2

The Post says it is not surprising that the authorities at Home experience some difficnlty in getting first-class immigrants for the colony. We learn on the best authority that employers of labor in England are in the habit of telling their servants that if they come to New Zealand they will not be free agents, but that they will have to take any work the Government choose to give them for some considerable time. David Henry, the well known usurer of Melbourne, had, by exacting excessive interest for loans and by various evil actions, reduced a widow named Mrs Crawford to beggary. Henry tried to bribe the jury in the last of these actions, for which he was fined £500 and sentenced to a long term of imprisonment. The latest telegrams from Meibourne stated that he had been stricken down by apoplexy and be had remained insensible for several days. Henry used to have a splendid mansion on Eastern Hill, where he lived amidst almost the luxury of the Turkish Sultan. He is now a prisoner in a common gaol. Mrs Crawford, after being reduced to beggary, took a situation as manager of an hotel in Eiverina. There she married a sexegenarian squatter, who recently died, leaving her a million sterling. Talk of romance after this. Surely truth is stranger than fiction. In the London Times of the 13th March is given a full report of the debate in the House of Commons on Sir Wilfrid Lawson's resolution relative to the introduction of the local option principle in the future licensing system of England. The resolution brought forward was as follows :— " That, inasmuch as the ancient and avowed object of licensing the sale of intoxicating liquor is to supply & supposed public want without detriment to the public welfare, this House 13 of opinion that a legal power of restraining the issue or renewal of licenses should be placed in the hands of the persons most ■ v t? interested an <i affected— namely, the inhabitants themselves— who are entitled to protection from the injurious consequence or the present syststn by some efficient measure of local option." The resolution was lost on a division by 252 against 164. lne following are the majorities by which tne proposal has been rejected during the present Parliament:— 1874 2">6- 1875 285ISM 18 S B S be - Bm --^tndrfwnt' 1877), 194. So that it will be seen opinion is rapidly growing in favor of the Local Option principal, the majority on the last division having been reduced to 88

" Bob, where's the State of matrimony ?" — " It is one of the United States. It is bounded by hugging and kissing on the one side, and cradles and babies on the other. Its chief productions are population, broomsticks, and staying out late o' nights. The climate is sultry till you pass the tropics of house-keeping, when squally weather commonly sets in with such power as to keep all hands as cool as cucumbers. For the. principal roads leadiDg to this interesting State consult the first pair of blue eyes you ruu against." " This cold," said the General, " is nothing to what it is in Canada. I remember when, one one occasion, I was travelling in the Dominion being attacked by a robber. I had a pistol and some blank cartridges, but no bullets. Quick as thought I expectorated down the muzzle and fired at my assailant. Judge of my surprise when I perceived the robber, not only lying dead, but pierced by the icicle from ear to ear." And yet the Geueral does not claim direct descent from Baron Munchausen 1 In a letter to the Natal Mercury the Rev. Mr Robertson, a missionary among the Zulus, thus describes the cruelties practised by Cetewayo, whom he styles a " bloody tyrant and oppressor :"—!. In 1873 he was solemnly j installed as King by the Hon. Mr (now Sir) Theophilus Shepstone. He then consented to a treaty, by which he agreed that there should be no more killing in Zululand, unless after a full and opeu trial. Mr Shepstoue had not crossed the Tugela before the killing was going on just as usual— nay, worse than ever it was before. 2 He then reorganized aud rebuilt the military kraals. This was a task of great labour, and because the work did not go on as quickly as he desired, he sent out and killed thc sick throughout the land, it haviug been represented to him that some of the men were sick. 3. In 1876 he, in addition to the all but daily executions for witchcraft, killed— no one ever knew how many— young women, because they refused to marry old men for whom they cared nothing. 4. When Sir H. Bul wer remonstrated with him on this particular point, he treated him and the Queen he represents with supreme contempt, saying, " Sir H. Bulwer is Governor of Natal, and I am King of Zululand." 5. In 1877 he caused three Christians to be killed, and subjected the missionaries to so many insults— their people being assaulted and driven from the stations —that they were obliged to remove for safety to Natal. Dr Dresser says : " A certain kind of scarf, woven in a certain part of Japan, was, when single, worth about £1 sterling. They were then such as any lady in the land might covet, but to ourselves in part, and still more to lthe Americans, attaches the blame of bringing comparative ruiu to the town where they were made, aud of destroying a lovely manufacture. * I will give you 18s each for them.' « I will give you 15s.' ' I will give 12s,' and so on. Tbis is what the consecutive foreign merchants said, till the last gave about 3d. Let me show you what this lovely manufacture has degenerated to; and these miserable fabrics are the best that can now be procured at the town whete once only beautiful objects were made. We talk of the degeneracy of Japanese manufactures, but who is the cause of this sad falling oif in the quality their of productions ? And we wonder whether Japan can now produce what it did prior to the overthrow of the Shogoon's rule. lam happy to tell you that Japanese arts are not yet lost, and that Japanese Icve of the beautiful has uot been stifled, for in all cases where I offered remunerative prices I got the old thing with its beauties and strange merits. But as we have thus destroyed the beautiful arts of a people saturated with the refinements which spring only from an old civilization, can we wonder at tbat dislike to the foreigner wbich permeates so much of Japanese society ? Ido not, and were I a Japanese I should hate the foreigner with a sincere and uumitigated hatred." Blackwood's Magazine thus speaks of the aristocracy of the United States :— ln all , the larger cities of the United States there is a cir <»3 which openly calls itself, and is openly called by others, the aristocracy ; and the more modern members of it are endeavoring as much as possible to adopt the manners and customs of aristocrats in otber countries, to contract matrimonial alliances with them, or to bow down before them. They put their servants iu livery, emblazon the panels of their carriages with heraldic devices, iu wbich coronets and insignia of nobility, and even royalty, are visible. Some have purchased property abroad, and call themselves by its wellsounding foreign name; others have adopted the names of noble families, and some have even gone as far as to assume foreign titles, which they use when abroad, and with the crest and armorial bearing of which even at home they stamp their note paper and decorate their dinner menus. The demand has become so extended in this direction that two heralds' offices have actually been opened in a fashionable part of New York to meet it, where coats-of-arms, crests, and mottoes may be obtaiued to suit the name, taste, and pedigree of the purchaser. The recent large and continuous importations of American fresh meat and provisions into tbe North of England are producing quite a revolution in the trade of the butchers in towns such as Newcastle-on-Tyne, Gateshead, Shields, and Sunderland, especially those supplying the working classes. American fresh meat of really excellent quality is sold in shops which have been opened by companies at 8d per pound for best roasting pieces, and from 7d to 5d per pound for other qualities. They have very large sales, and in many instances the opening of these shops has had the effect of bringing down the prices of English beef 2d per pound. A large quantity of American bacon and hams is sold retail in the northern towns. The price is from 8d to 4d per pound. A very excellent qnality of American bacon is sold among the working classes at 5d per pound in pieces. j The New Zealand Wesleyan for the present month contains another of tbe Rev. James Buller's chatty letters about scenes and friends in old England. The following are among Mr Buller's jottings .—" I have just now received a letter from another very old New Zealand friend— the venerable and Rev. James Stack, who is at present living in the Isle of Wight with bis two daughters. He was one of the trio of missionaries who were driven away from Wangaroa in 1827, wben the savage natives burned the premises. He says in bis letter to me .-—When you write to New Zealand please to say that when I wrote on the 24th I was hale and strongfrost and cold notwithstanding— and still able to cry aloud, ' Behold the Lamb !' To all my old New Zealand friends I send my hearty good wishes.' " Mr Buller went to Brixton and heard the Rev Morley Punchon give readings on the poets, but gives no opinion thereon, perhaps wisely so, for Mr Punchon, aprinceamong Wesleyan preachers, is a stranger to poetic sentiment. Mr Buller concludes his letter by saying :— " Our good * ship the Waimate, Capt. Peek, is loading for Lyttelton, to sail next week. I send by her two promising young men as candidates for our ministry. They both bear the well-known name of Jones, and will, I hope, be made very useful as preachers of the Gospel in their adopted land." A patent medicine man posted handbills iu every available spot in the village one mornmg.and before night 15 goats had enough medical inf ormation in them to run an eclectic college.