WHAT THE “WORLD” SAYS.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 5658, 19 May 1879, Page 3

WHAT THE “WORLD” SAYS.

By “Atlas.”

I hope that no international objections will be raised against the interesting experiment which Menotti Garibaldi, with three thousand of his countrymen, is about to. try on the South Coast of New Guinea. He wants to start there an Italian colony, or rather a British colony of Italian emigrants, under the name of Italia. Thirty millioil live have already been subscribed towards the scheme ; four steamers are to be chartered ; enthusiastic adhesions are pouring in from all corners of the peninsula. Nobody but skilled artisans is to be admitted, whilst the most improved machinery of erery kind will be provided. I have little doubt that the venture will prove, at least industrially, a complete success. Italians, as a rule, are excellent settlers, and I have never seen one, either in Egypt, Australia, South or North America, Asia, and I may add, Great Britain, who was not a thriving or useful member of the community. If electric lamps or strong gas burners on the Sugg principle are to be used in our streets, we shall have to revert to the old plan of illuminating from the middle, and not from the aides, of our thoroughfares. The amount of lighting power wasted on the sides of houses is at present enormous; and one has only to look at the electric globes outside the Gaiety to perceiye how infinitely more useful they would be suspended in the middle of the Strand. The Empress of Austria took her final run with the Kiidares on Saturday. By the bye, a funny story is told of a war of words which came off at the meet of the Meaths on the previous day. A burly grazier and a diminutive Dublin doctor came to a fence almost simultaneously. The grazier hesitated. “ Push on ahead, sir, please 1” cried the doctor. The big bucolic man turned round, and laughingly said, “ I never knew a bantam yet that didn’t want to crow over every bird in the barnyard.’’ The ready repartee was fatal : “ I never knew a Cochin China yet that was worth the food it ate I” This is the best hunting anecdote I have heard since Horsman’s stay at the Chief Secretary’s lodge. Being out with the Wards one day he came to grief in a wide ditch, and' fairly stuck in the mud, “ Who the deuce is that?” inquired one jovial squire of another. “ Oh, it’s only Horsman studying the land question.” “Be me conscience, thin, it’s just as I expected—he can’t get over fixity of tenure !” ■ ... Winter resorts in England have fared badly this year, At Bournemouth houses which let formerly at sixteen or eighteen guineas a week are either empty or taken at half that sum ;- while at Torquay things are even in a worse state. In fact the financial depression has affected everything and everybody. I know of brand-new premises in the heart of the city which are given to the lessees for the current half-year rather than the property should be depreciated by an abrupt change of lease. As a sample of the wisdom with which we are governed note the revelation made in Lord Chelmsford’s letter of the 9th of February. After the Isandula disaster he (a tpodesfly but rather tardily suggesting that it would be expedient to. plqco tfie chief command in other hands, he goes on to say “In June last I mentioned privately to HJI.H. the FieldMarshal Commamling-in-Chief that the strain of prolonged anxiety and exertion, physical and mental, was even then telling on me. What I felt then I still feel even more now.” . Every one knows how difficult it is for an officer to decline to go , upon active service, and that the case is by no means similar to that of a statesman refusing office, or of a diplomatist hesitating to accept a mission. One would therefore suppose that the slightest hint of a general not feeling himself equal to a proffered command would be taken, and some one of the Inany ardent warriors who we are maintaining at a heavy cost selected in his place. There are certainly some men whose ability is ao great that you would rather, have them at their worst than others at their best; but not even the iqost indulgent friend would assert that Lord Chelmsford belongs to this category ; and it seems impossible to explain the perversity which chooses a commonplace officer, with shattered nerves, reluctant to command, when there were so many qualified candidates eager for opportunities of distinction. This is ! the latest from Oxford, and is genuine and authentic :

Examiner in Divinity Schools to Undergraduate : Just give me, in aa few words as possible, your general appreciation and opinion of the distinguishing characteristics of the twelve Apostles. ■ Undergraduate, in a patronising and unabashed tone : Well, sir, if you really wish to arrive at my private opinion, I have not the slightest objection in giving it to you. I have no hesitation in saying they were a very rowdy let. Examiner, much puzzled and scandalised : Pray, air, what do you mean 2 I do not understand. Undergraduate: O, pray don’t mention it! It is of course only a matter of opinion; but if you will refer to the Ist chapter of the Acts of

the Apostles, you will find that the lot fell upon Mathias ; and if that was not a disgraceful proceeding, X don't know what is. Result of examination not known. Conversation is no doubt, as a rule, purer than it was a hundred years ago. There may be, and no doubt there is, less swearing in guard and mess-rooms than formerly ; but young officers are probably not much more circumspect in their talk, when they are alone, than at any previous period. We are very fond of attacking our French neighbors and hurling at them accusations of immorality : the French stage—shocking ; French novels—horrible ; French home life- not to be talked about 1 Yet the French are now begincing to retort that statistics of illegitimate births, of murders, robbery, and violence, are the mirror in which, if we choose, we may behold cur true and particular visage. Morality of life is not loud-toned, does not easily take offence, is not fond of prating about itself ; and facts are at all times sounder premises on which to found a judgment than blatant assertions. O'i d"ed by these latter, England is a land of d-. co.' .cy, of religion, of high moral tone, where crf-res ought to be unknown, and vice only remarkable for its absence. Judged by facts, things are very much of a muchness all the world over : the immorality of great cities is invariably appalling, distress and misery are its inevitable and ghastly companions. The foreigner's defects may be more evident and more striking, but are probably, for that very reason, all the more harmless, as an occult disease is more difficult to cure than the common childish illnesses from which every one suffers in turn. We do not like our infirmities and raws dragged into the light of day and exposed to public contumely ; hence the impossibility of revealing poor-law iniquities, aristocratic misdemeanors, or corporate peccadilloes. All is for the best in this best of worlds ; and we are a very modest people, except on those not too rare occasions when we arc given to singing our own praises.