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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XV, Issue 176, 26 July 1880, Page 2

A glowing account which appears iv the j Pctoti Press of a Volunteer Ball recently \ held in that town concludes as follows:— "We have nearly omitted to mention the name of the Beilo of ihe Ball, but our readers will excuse the omission when we state that there was not only one Belle but a regular peal, and that he would be a lucky tnau fortunate enough to ring any one of tfcem. It is not , impossible that the Volunteer Ball may lead . to several events of an interesting nature, and the Belles and Beaus who disported themselves thereat may in time to come have more than ordinary reason to remember with I pleasure the most important, gratifying, and I

felicitous event which sprang from the meeting on the night of Wednesday, July Uth 1880. ONi-Tof the most severe criticisms upon a member of the House for a breach of his election pledges is contained iv the Auckland Herald of the 16th inst. The individual criticised is Dr. Wallis ; the occasion, his support of Sir W. Fox's motion for the reading of the Bible iv schools. Our contemporary says :— " There be land rats aud water rats, aud there is another species— the Parliamentary rat, Dr- Wallis belongs to this last. The member for City West well knows ou which side his political bread is buttered, and so accommodates himself lo the wishes of bis constituents to obtain a seat in Parliament, and looks after the oleaginous adjunct to his staff of life when he gets there by resisting a reduction in the amount of honorarium, although reductions are being made in every other direction. The first of the numerals is Dr. Wallis j he is number oue, and carefully looks after it. Bufc the pliant doctor, who casts his political promissory notes broadcast when he wants votes, is quite a different man when in the saddle and the honorarium safe. We have never cared much for Dr. Wallis, always deeming hitn a person of easy virtue who might be expected to go wrong at some time, but we gave him credit for as much worldly wisdom as would enable him to present Some plea iv defence of any awkward peccadillo. Wo gave him credit for too muchj he is nothing better than an otdinary trickster^ and a very clumsy one. At the last general election, thefei waß so strong a belief— a belief justified by what has occured — that he would, unless pledged, play fast and loose on the education question, that it was determined to pledge him beyond escape. Fallacious idea; pledges to Dr Wallis are like dicers' oaths. Addressing a meeting of the electors, ou the 18th of August, last year, Dr Wallis said, alludiug to the educatiou question; — He voted for Curtis's Bill. He now accepted heartily aud entirely, the present system of education, because the people had resolved, and they were the true judges of what they thought best for their own interests. Such a statement, ought to have satisfied anyone} but, witlTan accurate appreciation of the man with whom they had to deal, the f'rieuds of secular education determined to have an even more precise pledge. At a meeting held by the candidate, on the 21at August be was asked whether he would resist any and al lattempts which may be made to reverse the presont system of free and secular education, to which he replied : " I will answer that question heartily and unreservedly. I believe I was one of*the men most instrumental in establishing the present systeQi of education, and I will go htart and band into defending it to the utmost." It might be supposed tbat implicit reliance might be placed iv a candidate who, asked so explicit a question, gave so full and solemn a. pledge. But to Dr Wallis pledges seem trifles light as air. It is not quite a twelvemonth since the pledge was giveu, and yet on Wednesday he seconded Sir W. Fox's motion. Facts are stubborn things, and here is what Dr Wallis promised and what he has done. We do not know what his constituents think of him, we know what they out to think of him, and we leave him to them," A semes of questions were recently addressed by the Joint Committee of the two Houses appointed to consider the Bankruptcy laws to the Judges, Chambers of Commerce,Law Societies, and others with a view to eliciting their opiuion on the subject. Some of their criticisms are well worth reading. We quote a few : — Judge Williams sayg : — " Iv England bankruptcy is still thought a disgrace. Here it appears to be considered, by many, more in the light of a good joke Our present system is thoroughly demoralising ; it encourages rascality, it places the honest trader at a disadvantage, aud causes enormous pecuniary loss to the community." District Judge Harvey, in advocating the granting of a summary power of commitment for contempt in cases of prevarication on the part of a bankrupt aud witnesses, says :—"ln my opiniou such power would be of the greatest assistance in checking what I must characterise as the moat frightful amount of perjury which at present exists." The District Law' Society of Dunedin consider that if it is practicable " a provision should be made to prevent debtors in insolvent circumstances and on the eve of bankruptcy from making vain efforts to save themselves by throwing themselves iv the arms of usurious money lenders— the 60 and 70 per cent men." District Judge Kenny cousiders that "bills of sale^ should be made void as against all creditors under a bankruptcy when given for future advances or for a past debt—another name for a fraudulent preference. A bill of sale would then only hold good against bankruptcy creditors when given for an actual present advance of money." This Judge also considers that " the landlord's privileges of distress should be wholly abolished. It is a barbarous survivee from feudal i*tu. District Judge Weston considers that ♦* unregistered bills of sale are cruel instruments, and a curse," and " a rather lengthy experience as a practitioner and judge" convinces bim "that but little benefit is derived by the holding of the instrument, whilst ruin in most cases results to the giver and great loss attaches to the unsecured creditors." With regard to " deeds of arrangement," Judge Weston considers " they are a cloak to cover iniquity when perpetrated upon a large scale. The small . dealer, without friends, with an empty cheat, is compelled to file and submit to an examination ; whereas the reckless and often dishonest merchant, with the assistance of a heavily and recently secured bank or brother merchant, with funds to pay a small composition, and aided by a solicitor of influence and manner, can invariably collect a Bmall meeting of creditors and obtain the sanctiou of the majority to a deed of arrangement and a release. In that way he escapes an examination, and possibly punishment, the fate of the man less favorably circumstanced." District Judge Broad, on the contrary thinks, " deeds of arrangement should be continued. They sometimes enable desirable and convenient compositions to be made which could uot be made by other means." District Judge Mansford "could never understand why, in tbe Colonies, the landlord's power of distress for rent should be permitted. He ought to be treated the same as the baker or butcher." Sir Henry Parkes is rather roughly handled in a biography published by the Sydney Bulletin. The writer says: — " With the exception of " party " politics, there is not a thing that he ever touched that be did not mar— not an effort he ever made that did not prove a failure. As an artisan he could only eke out a bare livelihood; as a journalist he so mismanaged the affairs of his newspaper that it had to collapse, and that with such an ignominious display of incapacity that that portion of the public which was willing to support a second daily morning paper shrunk for years from the responsibility. During his mercantile career Sir Henry gave sufficient indications of bis want of tact and experience, and more than once succumbed to those embarrassments which are ordinarily the outcome of incapacity to deal with commercial matters. In the region of party politics he has fared better, although it took bim ten years to gain a status iv the Parliamentary fore rank, aud bas strained bis best mental powers since to keep the position to wbich he then attained." The Lyttelton Dock is to be lengthened 60ft. This will make it the largest south of the line.

The New South Wales Government proposes retrenchment by reducing all Civil Services salaries over £200 by ten per cent. Common sense endorses the proposal to fix a minimum instead of making an indiscriminate reduction on salaries that are scarcely enough to procure tbe bare necessities of life. — Star. Owing to the depressed state of the gum market in the Wangarei district and the low price prevailiug, fully 200 men have given up digging and taken to 'cockatooing' or some other employdient. Some northern gumdiggers are talking about forming themselves into a company aud sending gum direct to England, so as to protect the trade and gumdiggers against ' corners ' of gum. Tbe task of catering for & modem multitude is uo easy one. Ou Whit-Monday the resources of the Alexandra Palace were taxed to the utmost, when 70,000 peopie attended to witness the numerous entertainments so liberally provided by the new management. There were, ib appears, consumed during the day about 506 dozen wines and spirits, 150 barrels draught ale, 1,000 dozen bottles of ale, 400 dozen bottles of stout, 3,000 dozen bottles of mineral waterSji 15 tons of meat, 5 van loads of small salad, 4 tons of new potatoes, 10 chests of tea, 4 cwt of coffee, 25,000 loaVes of bread, and 31,000 buns and cakes. Tinder the heading of breakage and missing come 1200 glasses, 500 pieces of crockeryware, 1£ dozen of plated goods, 2 dozen of cutlery, 5 dozen of tin measures. There were sold: 10,344 teas and 2,855 dinners from Is upwards, 3,500 were entertained in the theatre, and 31,283 in the circus and hippodrome- 5,000 towels were used in the lavatory, and 109,006 gallons of New River water were pumped into the Palace. There were 400 waiters aud attendants, including 150 barmaids, engaged. £5,407 was taken in casb, exclusive of season ticket admissions, all accounted for but £70 wbich was stolen. At one sweets stall £108 5s worth of goods was sold. A remarkable mirage has been seen at Oamaru by passengers iv the early train from the north. In tbe eastern sky, nearly over the end of the breakwater (6ays the Oamuru Mail) appeared an exact representation of the south side of Itchen-street and portions of Tyne-street and the harbor block. Every feature from Hood and Sherman's corner to ESpencc and Bee's was reproduced with exactitude; tbe names of those firms, and of other storekeepers in the same line, being as easily readable as they may be on the real buildings by a person in the same j street. The picture was not reversed, as iv the telescope of a theodolite, but seemed to stand as does the view it represented. It was an aerial -view of the reality- on an enlarged scale. Tbe illusion only vanished from the eyes of the delighted spectators when the train at length moved on. The proceedings of the Resident Magistrate's Court yesterday, (says the Christchurch Press) were rudely disturbed by certain growls, interjections, nod expostulations with some imaginary foe emitted by a woman of Amazonian proportions, who was awaiting her turn in the dock on a charge of drunkenness. The harsh sounds became so intolerable that the Bench ordered her re' moval— more easily directed than performed, for she.got her back up against the Court planted her ffeet firmly against a post, -tibclared she .would not be " polluted by the mrads of a common constable," showed fight, andajjjmra time kept tbree or four constables at VxM There was a scuffle, a scream, tbe jarring of some object on the floor, aud convulsive laughter by the spectators that even the stentorian tones of official blue could not at once suppress. The object of interest was relegated to her dungeon cell to undergo a cooling process. The Sydney Evening News receutly has purchased, over the counter, for analysis, samples of liquor vended by the low drinking shops of Sydney, and gives the result as follows:—" Wbat is called pale brandy is not pale brandy at all. It is a locally manufactured article, and is composed entirely of potato spirit, burnt sugar, hydrated oxide of otthyl (fusel oil), spirits of nitre, and flavored with oil of cognac. Oil of cognac ia a composition manufactured in Germany, and large quantities of it are imported to the Australian colonies. A small phial of it will impart the flavour of brandy to a hogsdead full of liquor. It is easily procured in Sydney. Our readers can form some conception of the mental and physical state of a man after drinking several glasses of such a filthy mixture. The next samples tried were those of delightful whisky, which were proved to contain a large proportion of wbite spirit, creosote (oil of tar) and saccharine matter. A very nice beverage truly I The rum of the purlieus, on being submitted to the analytical test, was found to contain sulphate of copper (bluestone), cayenne pepper, and was flavoured with amytic ether. The only wonder is that men in the habit of drinking such loathsome compounds do not more frequently commit murder. There is i a popular idea tbat it is utterly impossible to adulterate gin. That may be quite correct, but it is easy to manufacture it. This is the result of tbe analyst's inspection of what was purchased as gin :— The sample was diluted with wbite spirit, and strongly .flavored with oil of juniper and Strasburg turpentine."