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New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4593, 9 December 1875, Page 2

We shall never have done making pleasant explanations and apologies about that report of Mr. Travers’ meeting. After the trouble we have been at to put matters straight in a kindly manner, it does seem hard that we should have to keep still speaking up for. Mr. Travers and others. We now wish to point out that a new lustre has been added to the reportorial effort which appeared on the Monday following his delivery of the. speech. The report of that speech was not done by any of your ordinary shorthand herd. It was accomplished by a sub-editor. This is highly satisfactory, and enables us to compliment a literary brother on the possession of imaginative faculties that would qualify him to take a high place amongst authors of works of fiction. It is peculiarly agreeable to us to be in a position to pay these friendly compliments to genius, but we do so with a clearer conscience since we see that Mr. ! Travers himself has written on the subject. His letter, however, is not worthy of ‘its subject. It is too barren and bald. . Too much like six-and-eightpeuce worth, and dear at the price. It is too legal, and yet not sufficiently so. If he were going in for this kind of thing, he should have done it properly, : and solemnly and sincerely declared before a justice of the peace that he, William Thomas Locke Travers, had nothing to do with reports , or reporters, and that the New Zealand Times was a disgrace to the colony. That would have read much betters

A NEW literary venture will make its appearance at the beginning of next year. In reference to it the Otago Daily Times says : “ For some months past a correspondence has been carried On amongst men of literary tasses in different parts of the colony, with the view of bringing out a magazine winch shall supply, periodically, to the public of New Zealand that kind of reading matter which our friends at Homo meetwithinthe pages of “ Macmillan,” the “ Fortnightly,” or “ Fraser.” The movement originated in Dunedin, and an effort, we understand, was made by the promoters, some months ago, to induce certain gentlemen in Christchurch to co-operate with them in bringing out the proposed magazine. Although that arrangement fell through, the promoters did not relax their efforts, but energetically iset to work again to supply what they knew was a much-felt want in the community. Letters were addressed- to all those in the colony who it was thought were likely to contribute magazine articles ; and the promises of support have been such as to satisfy the promoters that their magazine, in point of literary merit, wifi be fully up to the mark. It remained for them to make arrangements for printing and. publishing" their periodical, and for securing a competent editorial staff. The difficulties they had to encounter in negotiating for these objects have, however, been overcome, and it is now decided, as will be seen by our advertising columns, that the first number of ‘The New Zealand Magazine,’ to be published in Dunedin, makes its appearance on or about the first January next. The editors will be five in number. They, are as follows ;—Q. A. Sale, M.A., Professor of Classics and English Language and Literature, Otago University ; D. Macgregor, M.A., M. 8., Professor of Mental and Moral Philosophy, Otago University; J.M. Brown, M.A., Professor of Classics, Canterbury College ; Bev. K. L. Stanford, M.A. ; and F. W. Hutton, F.G.S., C.M.Z.S. It is intended that the magazine,

which*.in the first instance,' 1 will-be-issued quarterly; shall, in general appearance, resemble- the ‘ Contemporary Keviaw.’ ,Under eu’ch auspiceS, we; have no hesitation iq predicting for (the /‘New Zealand Magazine a .successful career, as we'ffiel assured that there is within the colony a large class of persons who will hail with satisfaction the appearance, periodically, of that kind of reading matter which is suited to the pages of a magazine, but which the proprietors of newspapers are unable to provide.l’_-_-__^