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New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5234, 1 January 1878, Page 2

The Chief Postmaster informs us that the Post Office will bo open from 9 till 10 this morning for the delivery of English letters.

In order to give our employes a holiday to-day, the IST. Z, Times will not be published to-morrow (Wednesday). We have received a copy of “ Bradshaw’s Guide” for January. It is as usual admirably got up, and the time-tables have evidently been most carefully compiled. A meeting of the Board of Governors of Wellington College will be held on Friday next, the 4th inst., at 11 o’clock, at the office of the Board of Education. At St. George's Hall to-morrow evening Mr. Harry Stoneham will take his benefit, and will appear for the last time as clown in “ The Little Old Woman that Lived in her Shoe.” , A number of gentlemen connected with the temperance cause in this city meet this morning at half-past eight at Host Taffner’s new Temperance Hotel, Cuba-street, when the company will sit down to a social breakfast. The recently-appointed Inquiry Committee of the City Council held a meeting yesterday afternoon. Councillor Hunter, who was elected chairman, was authorised to engage a clerk for the committee, and a shorthand writer to take down the evidence of the various witnesses. The committee will meet again at 3 o’clock on Wednesday afternoon, and will then examine Mr. Hester, the late town clerk, and Mr. Page, the accountant. Members of the committee intend to meet daily, either iu the afternoon or evening, whichever may be the more convenient, and it is quite evident they mean to make the inquiry searching as regards the circumstances connected with the waterworks contract, and other matters which have lately excited a good deal of public interest. To-day being New Year’s Day will be observed as a general holiday, and as is u-sually the case on such occasions, there is plenty of choice in the way of amusement. The Caledonian sports at the Basin Reserve are sure to be largely patronised, and Lowry Bay and the Hutt will no doubt have a full complement of visitors. The railway will be open to Kaitoke to-day, and as this is a very pleasant place for a picnic, a number of people will probably take a trip there. There will be a picnic on a large scale to Ivilburnie of the pupils attending the Catholic schools ; and the “ Hutt Parish Fete,” in Mr. Kiddiford’a grounds, promises to be a very successful affair. In the evening “ lovers of music and the drama ” can attend the opera or St. George’s Hall. All that is wanted is fine weather to make the day a very pleasant holiday, and at the time we write there is every prospect of the skies being propitious.

The civil business transacted at the Resident Magistrate’s Court yesterday morning was unimportant. In a judgment summons, Bould v. Keiat, for £5 17s. 3d., defendant was ordered to pay the amount within a week, or in default one month’s imprisonment. A similar action was brought of Drs. Johnston and Bradford against J. Douglas for £lO 15s. 9d. Ordered to be paid within a mouth—failing which a month’s imprisonment. The Canterbury team, who have just won the interproviucial match at Auckland, will play at Wellington on Monday next. A Wellington tearn will be chosen from the following list. They are requested to meet for practice daily at 5 p.m. on the Basin Reserve after today :—Blackdock, Kennedy, Honvood, Knapp, I. J. Salmon, Armitage, Cross,. Farrington, Lockett, Fordham, Kember, Edmunds, Willis, Lyster-Kaye, Robinson, and Lambert. St. George’s Hall was largely attended last evening,' notwithstanding strong counter-at-tractions. The pantomime is nightly increasing in popular favor. Last evening the Fairies’ and Demons’ Marches by the children were received with great applause. The comic business by the clown and pantaloon keeps the audience highly amused, and sends the little ones home thoroughly satisfied with the entertainment provided for them. John Hempenstall was charged at the Resident Magistrate’s Court yesterday morning, before J. C. Crawford, Esq., R M., with drunkenness and fighting at the Upper Hutt. The prisoner had been convicted four times previously within six months, and he was ordered to pay 405., or go to gaol for seven days.— John McAllister, another old offender, was fined 305., or in default seven days’ imprisonment, for drunkenness and assaulting a constable.—James Gear and John Letheby were fined 10s. each and costs, for allowing their chimneys to catch fire.—Michael Duggan; on suspicion of lunacy, was again remanded for a week, as the gaoler stated that he was still in an excited state.—A protection order was issued by consent to Hannah Maria Tolley against her husband, Edward Tolley, the latter agreeing to pay her £1 a week for the maintenance of herself and five children.

The parish fete at the Lower Hutt, preparations for which have been going on for a long time past, is to be held to-day in Mr. K ddi- ' ford's grounds. Great efforts have been made to ensure its being a success, and to provide amusements and pastimes for the numerous visitors, who, it is anticipated, will be glad to avail themselves of this opportunity of enjoying a quiet and pleasant holiday in the country. The following is a copy of a cable message received yesterday by the Mayor of Wellington ;—“ If not sent you from. Madras, please note telegram received here and acquaint provincial Mayors : ‘ Your exertions, and those of committees in all parts of British dominions, have brought such liberal aid that, under present favorable prospects, we gratefully say collections may cease. Munificent contributions from Australian colonies excite profound gratitude. Total receipt all quarters, eightynine lakhs. Kindly repeat Mayors Sydney, Adelaide, Hobarton, other centres.’.—Fitzgibbon, Melbourne.” From to-day, -the first of the New Year, the shako and bushy hitherto worn by British troops are to he replaced by a neat helmet very similar to that used in the German army. The shako has a bronze spike on the top, and a bronze chin strap. Tea-leaves steeped, not bailed, for half-an-hour in a tin pan, and strained through a sieve, •will give a liquid useful to wash all varnished paint. It removes spots, and gives a fresher, newer appearance than when soap and water are used. For white paint, take up a small quantity of whiting on a 1 damp piece of old white flannel, and rub over the surface lightly, and it will leave the paint remarkably bright and new.

Medical men are somewhat concerned at the steady increase of lunacy which is going on, ns shown by the annual reports of the English Commissioners in Lunacy. This increase may be partly only apparent, and may be due to improved registration, but there is reason to fear that this is only a partial explanation, and that the number of insane persona is annually augmenting. In 1859 the returns gave a mean of one lunatic in every 534 persons. It is estimated that there is now one in every 369. There is surely room here for careful inquiry. A writer in the Anglo-American Times thus speaks of journalism as a profession It has been noticed how prone journalists are, especially in England, to depreciate their calling and the way in which the work is performed. Jourual'sra is scarcely permitted to pass as a profession, though, perhaps, the most important of any, and that, which now does the hardest work of all. It is ludicrous to contrast what journalists ate accomplishing all over the world with their reward; the magnitude of the task performed with the credit awarded ; and, curiously enough, the want of recognition is helped by their own action. In England, which more or leas seta the fashion to the world, innovations are opposed by the national sentiment, and make but slow progress. To the number of the four professions—arms, physic, law, and theology—prejudices work against additions. Whatever may be the change in society, whatever the importance of the new calling, it is difficult to got it recognised as a profession, and perhaps tie most remarkable instance of this is furnished in journalism. There is a great body of opinion against it, a prejudice all the stronger the stronger becomes the claim. That prejudice permeates the four professions ; it permeates society and is encountered all through politics.

Players in the cricket match to take place at Newtown to-day are reminded that Fenton’s coach leaves the Metropolitan Hotel at 10 o’clock.

The condemnation o£ the stage (says a writer in the New York Herald !) is restricted to its abuses—its licentious and corrupt performances. All have spoken its praises and worked for its reformation. Many excellent plays have been written by shining lights in the ministry. Cardinal Wiseman was the author of several plays, and his last work was a lecture on Shakspere. Bishop Bancroft gave private theatricals ; Bishop Warburton annotated Shakspere’s works. An actor taught Demosthenes to declaim, and Cicero has left the highest eulogium of the purity, genius, andability of Roscius, who made the first figure on the stage hy his art, and was worthy of a seat in the Senate by his virtue. Foote was the brightest wit of his times. Goldsmith said of Garrick that he was an epitome of all the pleasant things in man, and Johnson said that his death eclipsed the gaiety of nations. It was the virtue as well as the talent of the elder Joseph Jefferson that caused the erection of a monument to his memory at Harrisburg. By universal accord an actor stands foremost in the ranks of fame. His name, the world has decreed, shall never die. Where all the great men of the ages are grouped, where every eye is fixed, there reigns immortal Shakspere, and there will he ride on in glory through the ages, till time is swallowed in eternity. He it is who, in philosophy, statesmanship, valor, and worth, has left us nobler models than history, though drawn therefrom. In his writings every virtue finds its ornament and every vice its punishment, “Attious” in the Leader says:—“A gentle-’ man who has done a good deal to educate the taste of the public into a liking for colonial wines was expressing his profound regret the other day at the introduction into Victoria of the dreaded phylloxera vastatrix. “ I make no charge against any man,” he said, “ but it is, to say the least, a vtry remarkable coincidence that a leading man among the Good Templars—an insane teetotaller—should have been home on a tour through the districts in France where the vine disease is at its height, that he should have been through the Geelong vineyards on his return, and that now the plague should have broken out here ! ” Statistics tell us, says the World, that the numerical excess of women over men is but small—not more than two or three per hundred ; but this percentage, in the present state of the social fabric, is quite sufficient to disturb the equilibrium. Look at the question in a broader way ? examine the ranks which make no pretensions to belong, in the moat distant manner, to “society.” The tradesman, the clerk, the working man, from the highest to the lowest, all with families, have to meet this problem—-what to do with the surplus women ? It is not only a matter of employment or of earning a livelihood, serious as that aspect of the thing may be. What is to become of them, socially and morally ? What does become of them now ? Certainly they do not all fit into the ranks ; they do not all marry ; hundreds and hundreds must exist in some way outside and beyond all domestic ties. For a man there is always hope—some chance may at any time give him a lift ; but it is to be feared that to very many women there comes a time, and that in early life, when, though without vanity' they may call themselves handsome, the hard facts of existence crush out the hope of ever fulfilling their natural destiny.

Much fuss has been made over Mr. Home’s pretensions to the power of floating on the air without any other support, but the t ick was known in India in the first half of the fourteenth century. While Ibn. Batuta was conversing one day with the Emperor in the Imperial tent, two jogees came and made obeisance to his Majesty, who commanded them to show the traveller from foreign parts something he had never seen before. What he then saw, or thought he saw, he thus describes :—One of them assumed the form of a cube and arose from the earth, and in this cubic shape he occupied a place in the air over our heads. I was so -much astonished and terrified at this that I fainted and fell to the earth. The Emperor then ordered me some medicine, which he had with him, and upon taking this I recovered and sat up, this cubic figure still remaining in the air just as it had been. His companion then took a sandal belonging to one of those who had come out with him, and struck it upon the ground as if he had been angry. The sandal then ascended until it became opposite in situation with the cube. It then struck it upon the neck, and the cube descended gradually to the earth, and at last rested in the place which it had left. The Emperor then told me that the man who took the foi m of a cube was a disciple of the owner of the sandal ; and, continued he, “ had I not entertained fears for the safety of thy intellect, I should have ordered them to show thee greater things than these.” From this, however, I took a palpitation of the heart until the Emperor ordered me a medicine which restored me. There is quite a good deal of poetry after all in the surroundings of a farmer ; but, up to date, those engaged in the business in Australia have had but little time to investigate such matters. It is worthy of note, though, that we live in a time when the salmon of Northern Europe and America is found to flourish in Australasian waters; when Spanish sheep, transplanted to Australia, where no animal of the kind existed previously, are found to yield a fleece that surpasses in excellence that of Spain ; that flowers increase in brilliance and flavor by acclimatisation in soils vastly different from their native habitat ; that root crops, and grains, and the spices, do flourish exceedingly in this isle of the sea, supposed until recently to be as antagonistic as soil and climate could be to developing the finer touches of nature. They have not got proper notions of freetrade up in Queensland (says “ Atticus ” in the Leader). A \Jhinatnan bought an illegitimate boy, aged three years, in Victoria, from his mother, who was unable to support him, and entered into a solemn agreement to maintain, clothe, and educate his purchase, and bring him up in the faith of the Church of England. He was taking him home to the Flowery Band by the Torres Strait route, but when the celestial and his adopted or purchased child touched at Brisbane the law was put in motion. The Attorney-General applied for a writ of habeas corpus , the body of the young illegitimate was brought up before the Court, and in defiance of the bargain made in Victoria he wa- removed from the charge of his purchaser, and taken possession of by the Government. I don’t know whether Mr. Berry intends to interfere, but it is quite clear that if such proceedings are allowed to go unchecked the market for young Victorians will be destroyed. The Free Trade League should see to it. The Berry administration in Victoria have resolved to withdraw their advertisements from the Melbourne Daily Telegraph. A contemporary thus refers to the matter “ The Daily Telegraph announces an attempt being made by the Governmeut to gag it by ordering that, in future, all advertisements relating to the public service are to be withheld from that journal. Fully believing that the proprietors of that journal are quite capable of fighting their own battles with any Governmeut, we will say no more than that we condemn the system whereby the powers that be, from the administering Government down to the proprietors of public places of amusement, from time to time, endeavor to strangle the just and free criticism of the Press.” The telephonists are beginning to assure us that the time is not far off “ when a message may be sent to the postmaster of a district to summon the required correspondent in order that the confidential communication might be poured at once into a friendly ear without the intervention of a clerk or the neoesaity of a cypher.” At the late meeting of the British Association at Plymouth, it is reported that the telephone worked at freedom. Mr. Preece, the president, and Sir VV. Thomson talked with complete ease with Mr. Wilmot the postmaster at Exeter, who was even “persuaded to sing a few notes of a song,” and who declared that he heard distinctly the applause which was every now and then evoked in the crowded hall. The experiment was highly successful ; and Sir W. Thomson declared that

the telephone could no longer be regarded as an ingenious toy, but as a practical invention destined to work a revolution in telegraphy. The dryness of scientific exposition on this occasion was relieved, we are told, by a number of droll instances of telegraphic mistakes. One related how a party of ladies were reported to have arrived “all tight” instead of “all right;” and the abreviation of the clerk, who, wearied with the repetition of the word astonished the world the other day by making Sir Stafford Northcote talk of “ kids ” instead of “children,” was duly chronicled. The accuracy of telegraphic reporting is simply marvellous. The mistakes are reckoned almost in units, while on a single day 102,713 millions of messages have passed through’ the central office. ° Mr. Jefferson, says an exchange, has within the last few days set out for his own country, accompanied by his daughter and her husband, Mr. B. L. Farjeon. The novelist 'is going to be absent four months, and to give a series of readings.