PUBLICATIONS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXIX, Issue 8, 21 February 1901, Page 7

PUBLICATIONS.

The Christmas number of our esteemed contemporary, the San Francisco Monitor, is a decidedly creditable production consisting of over 30 pages, into which are crowded seasonable articles, interesting tales, and appropriate illustrations. We have received from Messrs. Angus and Robertson, Sydney, a report on their annual writing competition, open to pupils in the schools of Australasia. These competitions are becoming more popular year by year, as the entries for 1900 showed an increase of 101 over the previous year. Two hundred and fifty-one schools competed, and 142 gained one or more prize? . We notice that the Marist Brothers' school, North Sydney, comes second on the list with 16 prizes. A pupil of this school, Master Joseph H. A. Pyne, was the winner, in New South Wales, of the special gold medal for general excellence. Master Thomas Carey, Marist Brothers' School, Kilmore, was the winner of the gold medal in Victoria for general excellence, and Miss Martha Devery, of St. Mary's Catholic school, Nelson, was the winner in New Zealand. In the pupil teachers' competition Misses Cecilia Arnold, Hannah Leighton, Florrie McCarthy, and Evelyn Kelly, all of St. Mary's Catholic school, Nelson, got places. It is somewhat strange that England and Russia, the one the most progressive, the other the most conservative, should bo the only two countries in Europe to-day which do not use the metric system of weights and measures and decimal coinage. Even Russia, it is said, is likely to adopt the system very soon. It is alleged by those in favor of its introduction into the British Empire that under the metric system 'our present antiquated, cumbrous and methodical scheme of tables and our long, laborious operations in the compound rules would vanish.' Messrs Angus and Robertson, of Sydney, send us a handbook designed tor the use of upper classes in primary schools and others who may desire to become acquainted with the system. A study of the haadbook will certainly help to remove many prejudices and show the simplicity attending calculations by the metric system. From the Irish People Office, (Dublin, comes the Christmas number of St. Patrick's, a bright little journal devoted to light literature. This candidate for popular favor was started some 12 months ago, and since then has won its way by leaps and bounds into the homes of the Irish people. At present Ireland is inundated with the trashy literature which is so much in vogue at the other side of the Channel, a good deal of which is decidedly pernicious, and against which the hierarchy of Ireland have found it necessary time and again to warn their flocks. If the people will read light literature it ought to be healthy in tone and moral in character, and it was with the object of supplying a substitute for the imported and baneful article that St, Patrick's was started. That it has to a great extent succeeded is evidenced by the large circulation which it now enjoys, notwithstanding that it has been only a year in existence. The serials and short stories are by well-known Irish writers, and are racy of the soil. When the Irish people spend so much on the pernicious and unwholesome literature published in London, it would be base ingratitude on their part not to support a magazine such as St. Patrick's.