LATEST TELEGRAMS

Wairoa Bell, Volume V, Issue 177, 23 December 1892, Page 5

LATEST TELEGRAMS

Auckland, Friday, noon. The Panama Scandals. The Senate and Chamber of Deputies have granted the Public Prosecutor authority to prosecute Ronvier, Roche, Arne, Aronst, and Duqui De La Fanconverie, members of Chamber, and Albert Grevy Remant, Beral, Davis, and Thebut, members of Senate, owing to the discovery cf their initials on the counterfoils of cheques ! 'So§ re ßhting the sum of three million three hundred thousand francs, alleged to have been distributed by the late Baron Reinach, in connection with votes on the Panama Canal Lottery Bill. Ronvier in a violent speech protested that he was perfectly innocent of the charge and was perfectly prepared to have his action scrutinised by the Court. He declared that while Premier he levied money on his friends for the purpose ef increasing secret service funds, and without this many members now in the Chambers would not have secured seats. Deroulet and Melliv -.y assailed Clemenceau for his relations with Herg, and accused him of selling his journal to foreigners, Clemenceau called Deroulet a liar. A due] is the outcome of the quarrel and seconds are making arrangements. Intense excitement prevails in Paris over the scandals, Quichard succeeds Count De Lesseps as chairman of Suez Canal Company. - The Paris correspondent of the e: Times ” foresees a revolution as the outcome of the Panama Canal Scandal. The duel between Clemenceau and Deroulet arising out of the Panama Canal Scandal has been suspended, the seconds being unable to decide course of quarrel. Bankrupt Marquis. lhe Marquis of Aylesbury is paying seven and sixpence in the pound, A Fiendish. Trick. F.ght of the officials at Carnegie’s works at Homestead deelare that of the four thousand free labourers employed there two thousand are prostrated from effects of poison placed in food by the cook, and thirtytwo are dead, J Was it Gambling? lhe Receiver in the estate of the Liberator Permanent Building Society states that the Society borrowe money at a rate of twenty two per cent to enable it to pay a dividend of five per cent. Large Steamer Wrecked. lhe Union Company’s (London) steamer Nubian, bound for the Cape, struck a rock at the entrance to the Lisbon harbour and sank. The passengers were rescued. The Cholera Again. A fresh outbreak of cholera has occured in Hamburg and the epidemic is a°-ain spreading throughout the city at an alarming rate. Invasion of the United States. ihe Committee appointed to enquire into immigration has secured evidence that during 1891 two hundred thousand Itaiiau socialists arrived in the United States. ' , Russia and Bulgaria. The Czar proposes to act jointly with France in regard to the proposed alteration in the Bulgarian Constitution and has advised the Great Powers not to recognise Prince Ferdinand’s proposal. The English Navy. The Globe states that Sir Vernon Harcourt, Chancellor of Exchequer, is pressing the Admiralty to adopt a policv of retrenchment and to largely reduce trie number of men at present in service. . The Fatal Boxing Match. Ross and seven others, who were concerned in the boxing match in which. Stewart the pugilist was killed, have been committed for trial on a charge of manslaughter. . The jury added a rider expressing the opinion that persons responsible for allowing glove contests are deserving of the severest censure. Ross was Stewart’s oppenont, and the other accused were the proprietors of Hall seconds and officials. „. No Scab in New Zealand. T 'prohibition against importation of snee F from New Zealand to New South Wales will be removed as soon as new regulations are issued. Gum Market. Ordinary £4B to £49 ; j ‘ oor ordinary £3B to £45 ; East £6B to £7O, *

ANOTHER GOOD MAN GONE WRONG

In my former cogitations in the Bell I have confined myself to incidents that havo taken place on the Wuiroa, At this time I am tempted to break fresh grotmd, and, whilst, keeping- to <1 country subie t. notice a townsaMus’s view on ■ ir io ’ in the i, . , \. : lent d to a dis c . .. pin:-. a Yuuuu' Men’s s.ncei.h't; c- c • • hi n versus Country' Life ' ; the vote went in favour of (he country. 6 Mercutio’ offers some comment, b it on the whole wonders at the ref. of the vote, and, to to > ’ i-v.-t *1: , -it.u sums up iii favour of un.u hie, nn/suy because of the privileges connected with the free access to the Free Library and Art Gallery and other similar places ; and with this the question is supposed to be settled. But there are some questions that refuse to be so quietly' settled ; very many times in the world’s history have the wise ones ‘ settled ’ cer- • ?• “fitisfaetion, as they i, ihey had time to » beg n some fresh work, t sui-recied,’ as full of life as n u. ~se is one in point. There are some opinions, on many subjects, that we may hold or not hold ; the influence on our daily life will be just nil ; the question we are now 7 treating is of a very different character, it is one of those burning ones that is agitating the whole of the English speaking world ; and we cannot afford to be sent wrong, even by 1 Mercutio.’ No doubt our make up as between town and country has been too much like a game of cricket, with this difference, that our town friends have managed to keep a perpetual innings, and we have had the pleasure of fielding for them. Virtually this is the picture that is continually being held up to our country youngsters, and it is about time to show up another side. The relative dependence of the two sections of people is better understood now than formerly : I remember a discussion on this subject in the Old Schoolroom in Monk Street ; one speaker, who knew more about a saw than he did about the question in hand, gravely told us that the country settler was dependent on the town folk, > where would he sell his produce hut for the town?’ The shout of laughter silenced him. Perhaps there are very few people who will say that we have no need of towns at all ; on the other hand there can be but few thinking ones who have not long seen the danger connected with the undue growth of towns in our new countries, and the tendancy- of the concentrated bodies of people to make things comfortable for themselves. In oiu- Cob in material matters, the country man is opening his eyes, and ere long will use the power that he already has to bring about a change. But without waiting for this, and forgetting for the time the £.s.d. side, it is, not difficult to shew even now the countryman has the best of the bargain, ‘ Mercutio ’ notwithstanding ; as we begin to draw comparisons we cannot i ! o better than have a good look at the very pictures ‘ Mercutio ’ talks about; the very name indicates that they are but copies of some-

thing else, _oftimes very bad copies ; at the best they fall infinitely short of reproducing the beauties of the subject dealt with, just as the test of the microscope does, but go on revealin*to us more wonders in the natural world, while the finest oil painting or statue becomes a rough affair subjected to the same trial So do many of the occupations of our city dwellers look rough when scrutinized closely 7, whilst, unfortunately for us, we have scarcely yet begun to realise the elevating, refining influences that really does surround ttie country man at all times. Like the boy, we have been so used to get our milk from a nice clean dairy, (sometimes forgetting to pay for it) that we loathe the getting of it from a. beastly cow. And yet when the microscope of common sense is applied the revelations startle us. If we ask ourselves what objects we are seeking- to gain in life wo can further ask if our mode of living tends towards the fulfillment of our wishes. We all like to bo healthy ; somebody repeats 1 a sound mind in a sound body ’ and forthwith sits down to an occupation that for many hours tends to destroy his body ; wir.h the freedom of God’s hills, and the fanning of God’s healthful breezees freely offered to him, he prefers to spend his working hours in the vitiated atmosphere of au indoor department, and calls this life ! The country man fills his lungs with fresh air continually, his appetite requires no seasoned unnatural diet; even the pitiless storms to which he is sometimes exposed do but harden him if he uses but ordinary care, and give him a tingling feeling of enjoyment that his town brother is a stranger to : the vital statistical tables tell unanswerable tales. When the ‘ Sound Mind ’—the intellectual part of the man i 3 mentioned, the country bumokin must of course take a back seat. Now for the microscope again. Take 11.113' or all of tlie occupations followed by ordinary townsfolk—-the list is too long to be particularised here and any' candid, intelligent individual will say at once that many of them tend to cramp the higher mental powers. Some of the occupations as they come nearer and nearer to the manipulation of natural products, may' help to enlarge the mind of the worker : but they all fall short of the farmer’s occupation, as that brings him face to face with the great problems of nature, and calls for the exercise of his best intellectual powers. It is no answer to this to say that the farmer has never ‘ caught on ’ to this estimate of his work : to our share we have to acknowledge the truth of the charge in too many cases ; but the acknowledgement does not by' any' means destroy the fact of the privilege. Talk about ‘life,’ the town dude uses tlie four le'tersas comprehending his senseless struts and tin-pot enjoyments ; the farmer’s own life is but tho presiding influence over multitudinous forms of animal and plant life. He has the power, by bringing the forces of his mind to bear, to so control nature’s oper - ations that to all intents ami purposes he liuis in so many objecis that give him pleasure, not only in the pecuniary reward for his labour, but in the intellectual triumph of his skill. This train of thought could he continued through a good

sized volume ; the reader is recommended to set up the mental microscope and pass specimen after specimen under its powerful searching influence. 1 Mercutio ’ may claim that his and other teachers’ occupations belong to town and country alike—granted ; the unfortunate part of the business is that too many of our teachers are living too close to the large bodies of scholars, and the influences act tho wrong way'. This leads me to answer another objection : Some readers will say, why do y®u not write your articles to Mercutio’s paper ? Try y-ourselves my friends ; the influences I refer to above will speedily convey your well thought out letter—not to the compositor’s room, but to the waste paper basket. Some years ago one of our country parsons complained to an editor about, the sensational garbage that filled too much of the supplement—murders, suicides, etc. The answer was that they had to provide i-eading of that description to satisfy the demands of the town artisan. When the welfare of the country y'oungster’s mind has to be set against the inclinations of the town reader, the providence (small p please) is on the side of the big battalion In this respect, as in many other troubles, the remedy lies in Hie hands of the country man when he will but use his powers. Old Akatafu.