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Poverty Bay Standard, Volume IX, Issue 997, 10 November 1881, Page 4

The latest “new departure” in newspaper enterprise is reported from New Orleans. The Democrat of that city has fitted up a branch office on a barge, which having been towed up the Mississippi river to Memphis, is now floating down to New Orleans again, stopping at all points of interest on the way to gather information concerning the country along the river and for some distance back into the interior. The barge is sixty feet long, with twelve feet width of beam. Its interior accommodation comprises business, editorial, and job offices, compos-ing-room, kitchen, and stable for the horses used in making land.trips back from the river. It is practically a fully-equipped newspaper establishment afloat.

The N. Z. Times says :—Mr. Stout has written a letter to a Southern paper, in which he protests against “ the murder of the Maoris, on which, it seems, we as a colony are bent.” He says he is not aware that the Parihaka Maoris have done anything to make us commence hostilities, and thinks that, as the race is dying out, we ought to make its dying moments happy.” The statement in his letter that the colony is bent on war is a gross libel upon the Government and upon the colonists. The generallyexpressed hope is that the difficulty may be overcome without bloodshed and without a shot being fired. Mr. Stout must be well aware that the massing of forces on the Waimate Plains is necessary, as the Government could not ensure the success of its plans without some such demonstration, whether blood be shed or not. As to his not being aware what the Maoris have done to make us commence “ hostilities,” we should like to know what Mr. Stout would have advised, supposing the Europeans had indulged in the freaks of the Parihaka Natives? Yet he regrets that the Maoris are not treated the same as Europeans would be. The Government has no intention of commencing a war, but is simply taking the best means towards putting a stop to the systematic outrages that should have been put an end to long ago, and in this they have the sympathy of the settlers throughout the length and breadth of the land.

Long ago there was a saying, “ A lady’s stocking should be like her face, without a wrinkle; and like her reputation, without a spot.” This was rather pretty m the days when fair dames wore hose of the finest white thread or cotton, and when color for such articles, save the pearly white of silk or the delicately tinted Balbriggan, was unknown, but it can scarcely be so now, for the stockings are ribbed, striped, spotted, embossed and embroidered with so many cunning devices that the smooth surface, like the absence of color, is a thing of the past. Black hose, too, which formerly belonged to the agony paraphernalia of the deepest outward mourning, are now quite “ correct ’’—are even worn by young children as a contrast to their white dresses. To walk “ arm-in-arm ” in the streets was, in olden days, very usual; now, excepting during State ceremonies, a lady is rarely seen in the open air leaning upon a gentleman’s arm during the day. But that the fashion is not extinct, nay, more, that it shall be encouraged, is clear from the latest novelty in gentlemen s overcoats. A Viennese tailor has patented a new paletot, in which each sleeve is furnished with a furhned pocket, so that as the lady takes the arm of the wearer she slips her hand into this pocket as into a muff a nd « e cures the support of her without the risk of chilling her dainty fingers by exposure to the winter wind. Further should the lady thus supported be tempted to walk through grassy fields, another patentee enables her to defy damp, for she can purchase a pair of the newest goloshes, which are supplied with tiny musical boxes, and she can thus wed the soft words which fall on her ear to the tunes which accompany the tread of her fairy feet.