Random Notes.

Southern Cross, Volume 1, Issue 51, 17 March 1894, Page 12

Random Notes.

Twice within the past fortnight has a thrill of horror passed through our little community, the painful sensation in each case oeing caused 1 ) a similar fatality—the loss of members of oiir coeial circle by drowning. Mystery will ever shroud the causes which at Bluff swept into the unseen five strong, hardy, and experienced boatmen, but the feeling that the later loss of life on Monday last was seemingly preventable makes our regrets all the more poignant. Little thought of impending disaster was present in the minds of any when the Irene started on its last fatal cruise “youth at the prow and pleasure at the helm” —and we can but faintly picture the anguish of the bereaved when their beloved ones, who had left home but shortly before, full of life and gaiety and hope, were brought back cold and lifeless, Oh! the pity of it ! The knowledge perhaps that the hearts of every one in the community beat sympathetically for them in their sorrows cannot lighten the grief of those w!m suffer, but their loneliness of sorrow cannot surely be so severely felt. The young lady assisted by Dalrymple was saved, although he was compelled, through sheer exhaustion, to relinquish his hold. Bout could not swim. Young Lews was a splendid swimmer, and noble, though unavailing, use, did he make of his skill. His first thought, expressed in words that rang over the water, ■was —“Look out for the girls”—his last words the cheery sentence, “ The boat will Lc here in a minute.” So he disappears from our view, brave and self-sacrificing to the last. It is easy to be wise after the event, hut the question may well be asked here—Why so many fatalities in our Uoo Southland harbours ? With but a handful of people compared with larger ports, we can yet during the past few years shew' as large (or larger) a number of drowning accidents as they. Wellington, Auckland, each of these, I am sure, w ill show a much shorter roll of such fatalities than will Invercargill. Cause for this there must be, and it w r ell befit: our boating clubs and those interested, in this amusement to make the necessary enquiry. To assist such an enquire to a satisfactory conclusion, I might be allowed to suggest that before our Ircshwater sailors be allowed to handle any craft on our somewhat treacherous estuaries, they he required to obtain certificates of competency, and also that all small craft on these waters be required (as sea-going vessels are) to carry life-saving apparatus, such as lifebelts, &c. Only by some such means as

these apparently can lamentable catastrophes such as that of Monday be made to cease.

“ Exit Mr Gladstone ! ” Such is the burden of the lengthy cables received from Honae on political matters during the last ten or twelve days. The sunset of a long summer day induces a feeling of sadness in all who gaze upon the lust fading rays of the great luminary, and equally saddening must it be to those who look upon the close of the great Commoner’s career, ending as it does with physical darkness falling upon that piercing eagle eye. To each one of us, I might say, the cables from Home and our mail budget of news will almost cease to be from the same part of the world us heretofore. The political history of England, nay almost of the world, has been for the past half century but the life of one man, and that man William Ewart Gladstone. Whether or not we approve of the surprising and sudden change of front he exhibited on the Home Rule question, wo must perforce acknowledge bis greatness, and there is little doubt that, when lapse of time reduces to their proper size the political entities and nonentities of our time, the figure of Gladstone will stand out. large and massive like the few great statesmen and orators of the last century. What effect his withdrawal from active politics will produce upon his party, time alone will reveal, but coming events seem to be presaged in the uneasy submission of the irreconcilables, Tabby anil the extreme. Radicals, to the rule of Lord Rosebery. Gladstone furnished the cement which bound together the heterogeneous elements, and his withdrawal will, I tear, reduce his party to the veritable condition of a rope of sand. Consistency has never been a marked characteristic of the G.O.M. Yet in one thing we cannot but admire him. Eully conscious that “ Rank is but a guinea stamp,” he, unlike so many of our Rrummagen Colonial nobility, seems resolved to be known to succeeding ages by the plain name, greater than any title, of W. E. Gladstone. Yox.