MISCELLANEOUS.

Waikato Times, Volume VII, Issue 378, 15 October 1874, Page 2

MISCELLANEOUS.

A correspondent, writing to the Times, says : — • -T)iu ing the last fifteen years the prosperity of New Zealand has of course varied, and it has gone through one ppriod of very great depression lasting from 1867 to 1870, during which all trade and industry was in a veiy stagnant condition, and during part of which time I have known it comparatively difficult for working men to get continuous employment, wages | for ordinary hands in the country not being more than 15s to 20s per week, and found in board and lodging. With that exception there has been no time in my opinion during which a good labouring man, carpenter or blacksmith, could not have been honestly recommended to go out with a certainty of obtaining good wages and a fair prospect of bettering his condition. During the last three yeara the colony has been in a most flourishing condition, mainly owing to the high price of its principal export, wool, and no doubt also to the large Government expenditure on public works, such as railways, &c. — so that, notwithstanding the large shipments of immigrants which have arrived in the colony during the last two years, labour has been exceedingly scarce and wages very high. During the last summer and up to the time of my leaving in our winter, wages for ordinary hands in the country were £1 to 25s per week and found ; shepherds, £52 to £70 per annum, with board and lodging; carpenters, 10s to 12s per day, finding themselves; and other wages in proportion. Old colonial hands, such as splitters, sawyers, &c, can always earn more ; but I think with the above wages, which I can vouch for, any man who can work has a fair chance of making his way up the social ladder if he would only resist the temptation of drink, which is the bane of the working man in New Zealand. He mnst, however, bear in mind that, although he will get good wages and plenty to eat, including as much meat as he likes to eat, he will have rough work and rough accommodation ; sometimes having drink out of pannikins, and eat off tin plates instead of crockery, and to live in a roughly built slab hut. To give advice to those of a higher class as to emigration is much more difficult : as a rule, I should strongly advise those who lun c formed their habits of life and have anything to lose, or have any decent prospects at home, to be at least most cautious in doing so. A man with small capital r and a large family, who has never been accustomed to work, and goes out to a colony thinking he is going to make a fortune farming, is usually most woefully mistaken. He is obliged to invest his money at once, and, in doing so, he has no experience to guide him in the choice of locality, soil, and most profitable method of procedure, and he will generally find that he loses instead of gains money. If after two or three years he has lost all his money, he will, perhaps, have gained sufficient experience to remake it, and then will, perhaps, do well in the end. lam sorry to say that in New Zealand I have known many who have started with some capital lose it. On the other hand, some of our richest men are those who come out to the colony with nothing ; but, in the latter case, they have been good steady, practical men, and men of that sort are sure to make their way. Mr Disraeli, speaking at the Mansion House,, said :—": — " We are now upon- the eve of a peiiod when we shall have more time and more leisure to consider the condition of affairs, and to prepare such measures as we think are necessary and adequate for the opportunities and occasions that await us." Judged by what the Government ha\e done under the sudden call made upon them to undertake theduties of office, they have effected all that could have been hoped from their most zealous efforts. When the session closes they may anticipate the satisfaction of knowing that their policy has rooted them more strongly in the confidence of their country, and that their conduct of foreign affairs has entitled them to the highest praise. " There never was a period," said the Prime Minister, '' in the history of this country, so far as my personal experience extends, in which Her Majesty's Government received from all nations, countries, Powers, and States, so many professions of friendship and regard as England has at the present moment." These testimonies have not been obtained by a policy of isolation. Mr Disraeli repudiated any notion of that kind. He recognised the obligation of England to hold itself responsible to European countries " with regard to any "bf the questions that may arise, and which may affect the fortunes of the world." No such question presses at the present moment, but it is satisfactory to have the Prime Minister's assurance that the policy of his- Government will not neglect them whenever they arise. — Post. It is well known thai many careful observers of the course of events on the Continent have for a long time feared the events of the Thirty Years' , War were in danger of being repeated. Of course, a new religious war could not possibly, in the present state of military science, be prolonged beyond a comparatively short period. The wax's between Austria and Italy, Germany and Denmark, Prussia and Austria, Germany and France, were short,, prompt, and decisive. If, however, religious fanaticism were imported into the struggle, there is no knowing to what imhuman lengths such a struggle might be prolonged. That there is cause for concern is clear from a quotation taken by the Cologne Gazette from a recent issue of the Neve, 4llganeine Zeitung, which states that the Ultramontaine papers are now ventilating the idea of a general religious war. In the steps of the Baierische Vatet land follow also other papers — the Schlesische Yolks Zeitung, for instance, which writes :—": — " If the conduct of war should in this instance become, for the first time, inhuman, a certain portion of the Press is in a gi*eat measure guilty of this, for it in all lands of Europe — nay, beyond the bounds of Europe — unceasingly incites 1 against all who consider the Catholic faith as the highest good^ scv that a kind of international religious war, which no one considered possible, does no longer lie beyond the range of possibility." Another awful murder, similar in almost every detail to the Mitchelstown murder, has been committed in the southern district. An old woman named Power was brutally murdered near Tallow, county Waterford, a few miles from the borders of the county Cork on August 1. She was nearly 70 years of age, and resided in a lonely locality by herself. She carried on a little trade in small articles, and had the reputation of having put by a little money. A neighbour called to see her and found her lying dead, her head shockingly beaten in, and a shovel covered with blood lying near the body. An attempt had been made to set fire to the house, but it failed. The son-in-law of the deceased has been arrested. The box in which she was in the habit of keeping her money was broken open and whatever it contained carried oft". The same day a farm-house, near Eathconnac, was entered by robbers. The farmer's wife, who was alone in the house, was murdered, and £20 stolen. This is the third crime of the kind committed within a foi-tnight in that part of the country, the circumstances of each murder being almost exactly similar. It is believed that they are all the work of the same hands. No arrests have been made. A barbarous wife murder has been perpetrated in the county Mayo, within a short distance of the scene of the late bank robbery, and two miles from Newport. The perpetrator of the crime is a man named Doherty, who is stated to have been indisposedfor some time, and, it is thought, labouring under mental aberration. Early on August 9, seemingly in a fit of frenzy, he seized a stool and attacked his two children, seriously injuring

one. He then turned upon his wife, killing her instantly by a blow on the head. Doherty was imnie liately arrested and conveyed to Mayo prison. Paul Boynton, a somewhat noted pearl-diver of Atlantic City, is soon to go to .New York to make arrangements for what might reasonably be termed a hazardous undertaking. C. S. Merriman, of New York, the patentee of the life-dress, has offered 500 dollars to Mr Boynton to make a &ea-voyage in his suit, in order to clemonstiate to the public its merits as a life-preserver. He has accepted the proposal, and on or about the 25th of September he will be carried from New York by an outward-bound steamer to a distance not less than 200 miles from land, when he will be dropped and left to the mercy of the waves until he shall meet a passing vessel. He will carry with him in a rubber bag sufficient rations, consisting of dried meats, <fee,, for one week, as well as a good quantity of fresh water. He will also carry signal-lights and flags, with a sectional staff twelve feet long for raising them, all of which are to be stowed away in the unlimited portals of the rubber bag, which is about two feet square, and is little or no inconvenience, strapped to and floated at the side of the swimmer. The feat by many may be considered as deliberately challenging death, but Mr Boynton is very sanguine of success, and even says th'it he would willingly allow himself to be left a thousand miles out, if necessary, without the slightest fears regarding his safe recovery. He places implicit confidence in the Merriman life-suit, and feels an anxiety to have its merits thoroughly tested and laid before the public. In order to accomplish this object he has chosen the mentioned date as the one when he will be most likely to encounter the severe equinoxial gales. A very simple pantograh : — Schnaus suggests the use of a fine rubber cord, about fifteen inches long, supplied with a loop at each end, and having on it ) a small white bead, sliding upon it with gentle friction. By securing one end to the table by a pin, and passing a pencil through the other end, and drawing its point over the paper with the right hand, keeping the string stretched, and causing the bead to describe the outline of a simple drawing placed beneath it, a tolerably good copy of the drawing will be produced, bearing any desired proportion to the original, according to the position given to the bead on the string ; thus if the bead is in the centre of the cord, the drawing will be double the size of the original. The best results are only obt tamable after some practice, and by employing a finer point than a bead. George Brown, the champion oarsman of America, has challenged Joseph Sadler, the English champion, to row him an international sculler's race five miles (two and a-half miles and return), for the sum of £500 a side, and the championship of the world, on a suitable course in either Ireland or America. If the race be rowed in Ireland each party is to pay his own expenses ; and if in America he will allow Sadler £60 for expenses. The race is to be rowed dui-ing September or October. With the challenge was forwarded £50 sterling as forfeit. Some curiosity was caused on the Boulevards at Paris the other day by the appearance of three women attired in a singular costume, viz., large Zouave trousers, closed by gaiters, small grey paletots tximmed with black, and tall felt hats, who were stopping at the Grand Hotel. On inquiry they were 0 found to be Miss Walker, an American medical practitioner, and two of her pupils. The lady is about 50 years of age, and the apostle of the emancipation of women in the United States, and belongs to the sect of the Bloomerists. She is said to be on her way to Turkey, where she has just accepted the post of private physician of the Sultan's seraglio. A case of great importance to newspaper proprietors was decided by Vice-Chancellor Little, at Liverpool. Mr John Vaughan, editor of the Liverpool Leader, had been summoned before the registrar to answer questions as to the soui*ces from which he obtained information appearing in the Leader on the f Civil Service Association. Mr Vaughan refused seeadily to disclose his informant's name, taking the responsibility of the articles upon himself; and aftei many adjournments, the Vice-Chancellor yesterday decided that he was not bound to answer the questions. There has just been completed at Greenwich Hospital a ma&sive and conspicuously-placed stone monument, at the western comer of the hospital grounds, erected by the surviving officers and men 1 to the memory of those comrades of Her Majesty's I ships Curacoa, Miranda, Hamer, Esk, and Eclipse I -who fell in the war in New Zealand in 1863-64. ■tf n the centre, on a prominent part, ai*e the words F^' New Zealand," and in gilt letters on the sides are given the object of the monument and the names and r£nk of those whose memory and deeds are sought to be preserved. Grandmamma : " Well, Charley, and what ' bare jou learned to-day ?" Charley : " Pneumatics, grama j and I can tell you such a dodge. If I was to put you under a glasa receiver and exhaust the air, all your wrinkles would come as smooth as grandpa's be«d !" <