SAN FBAKCSICO EDITORS.

Waikato Times, Volume VII, Issue 372, 1 October 1874, Page 3

SAN FBAKCSICO EDITORS.

The Artju? correspondent gives the following; account of the s 1 wet duel between two newspaper editors in San Franc S2O :—: — I had very nonr coni> to the conclusion that border ruffianism was oitmct in California, or atle.isf in San Francisco. Two decade* of *rowtu — albeit the growth h somewhat of a hot-hou*e character — wore thought to be sufficient to homogenise our population, and teach us the amenities and decencies of life. But in this it would seem that I am mistaken. The lively crack of the pistol is still heard m our streets, and the prompt and blood j satisfaction of the border prefoned, for real or supposed injuries, to the slow and alwaia uuceiifiin remedy at law. The last case of pistolling I have to record is — mirable dictu ! — betwpon newspaper men. It is one of the anomalies with us that journalists, who are always writing in favour of law and order and depreciating violence, should be the first to violate their own teachings, and resort for satisfaction to the very means the y condemn. " If they do those things in a green tree, what will they do in a dry ?" The people will cast aside the editorial precept*, and only follow the editorial practice. The case to which I refer mny be briefly Btnted. The brothers Do Young, Charles and Michael, lire editors and proprietors of the Chronicle, one of tho leading dailies here. B. F. Napthaly is the odilor of the Sun, a recent fungus on the dunghill of corruption. Between these parties, 2\a|jthaly on the one side and the Pc Youngs on the other, a deadly hostility exists, begotten partly from business rivalry, and partly from business antipathy. Tho Sun reeks with the foulest attacks on the De Youngs, and the worst epithets in the dictionary aro applied to themselves and their family, It was a filthy charge against the mother of the latter that sent Chnrles into the street one morning laab week, in disguise and with a revolver, to asiassinate the traducor. The parties met at the Post Office, and tired at sight. Several shots were exchanged within range of ton feet, and nobody hurt except a telegraph boy, who. happened to bo passing at the time. ' Tho antagonists were promptly arrested, and now the case is before the courts, where it will remain until tho public indignation is sufficiently cooled to warrant its quite dismissal. Then will come a fresh batch of newspaper charges, another abortive street encounter, arrest, tho farce of a trial, and all as before. ViTily, we are a grert people, and the Press is I the palladium of ourhbertiej.

Some curious itatistical returns have been prepared as to the relative prevalence of the practice of suicide in the different European armies. Suicide appears to be thrao times as prevalent in our Army as in the male population of the same age engaged in ordinary occupations ; in the Uolgian Army, again, it is one-fourth part more common than m our own j and in tlie French army one-third pait more common ; „in the Prussian army it is not quite twice as common m in our own, .and in the A ustro-Hunganan army more than twice as common. The prevalence of suicide even among our troopi whtfp serving in India is not quito up to the Belgian level. These figures mean, we snppose, first, that our army, in which there is no conscription, suffers less in this way than armies where the service is enforced ; next) that our troops have the kind of physique least liable to oppressive melancholy ; and lastly, perhaps, that the rnili • tary responsibilities thrown upon them are less wearing tlian mother armiei. The excess of suicide in the Prussian army is explicable enough, considering the extremely large proportion of conscripts to population, and in the severity of the duties imposed. In the Austro-Hungaridn army the still greater excess of suicide is probubly due partly to ethnological causes. Slaves are more disposed to suicide than Indo-European races. They have something of the Orionttl indifference to life, together with, something of tho Western impatience of grievances. I was sitting on an autumn day, loaking out from a room under Prince Louis's windows, cooling my thirst witU a. famous bunch of the Fontainbleau grapes that are still tenderly cultivated in the Arnenberg conservatories, when I entered into conversation with Fritz Richenbach, the •errant of Queen Hortense, who remained at Arenenberg from the time of its purchase till after the Queen's death, where he became valcl de place to Prince Louis, and was discharged only after tho Prince was a prisoner at Ham. I remember Prince Louis from hit early boyhood, lie said, he was about my age. After the Queen bought the chateau I was employed, as a boy, to carry earth in a hod for this plateau, (the garden under the salon windows). I tilted the earth out of tho hod over my shoulders. This vied to amuse Prince Louis; and once or twice, whon I was about to cast my hod, he pushed me so that I rolled over with it. After one heavy tumble, I cried, and this brought the Prince to me fit once, with that kindness ho always.had for us. Attends ! attends ! he called to me in a caressing tono, • and I will fetch you a good lump ol bread.' You may imagine that my tears wero soon dried when he came running out ot the house with it. Another day — it was years after — I saw him having a talk from his window with 6ome poor man who had strayed in from the high road. Presently, for I watchod, I saw him quitely drop a pair ot boots out to the man, and afteowards a waistcoat. He was always like that, Another informant on the spot described to me t lie Prinqc returning borne one afternoon on horseback in his shirt sleeves ; he had given his coat to a man in rags whom he had met on the highway. — The Life of Napoleon 111. By Blanchard Jerrold, A very extrnordiuary natural curiosity may bo scon at the house of Mr De Saxe, dentist, 80 Eussell street, Melbourne} aays a contemporary. It is tho curled root of a lightwood tiee, which has assumed the exact form of a monkey, with body, feet, tail, and head all in proper proportion. The tail, which has a very natural curl, is 18 inche* in length, and the whole thing is about tho size of a well-developed monkey of the common sort. Whon placed in a sitting posture, which the mimic monkay easily and naturally maintains, ;t; t is about a foot in height. Tho curiosity was found by a woodman in Fryer's Ranges. Wo wonder whether the foregoing would throw any light upon the Darwin theory.