GENERAL NEWS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2392, 6 January 1909, Page 3

GENERAL NEWS.

An unrehearsed incident took place in Cathedral Square in the very early hours of New Year’s morning. The crowd that had gathered to see the old year out and the new year in had begun to display here and there .some signs of rowdiness, and the police in one or two cases had to draw their batons. AYhen someone espied Air Short the King's trumpeter. watching the proceedings from the balcony of the United Service Hotel ail instant demand was mule that lie play something, and it became so insistent- that Air Short procured liis trumpet and played a number of songs, concluding with “Heme Sweet Home” and '‘God Save the King.” The tolerably broad hint conveyed in these two airs was accepted by the. crowd, who, after heartily clieering the trumpeter, dispersed to their homes.

There are some drops -of acid in- t!io editorial comments of tile London “Times” on the New Zealand elections. 'Refercine; to the second ballot system, the “Times’’ mentions the introduction of the Absolute Majority Bill, and notes that “it is generally urged .against the system (of the absolute majority) that a large number of voters will find it hard fo understand.” Then conies the acid in the bland observation that “the counter--argument that the State cannot lose, and may even gain, by making the franchise indirectly conditional upon tho possession of a little intelligence is not perhaps of a kind to commend itself to any truly democratic cominnfity.” Equally neat is the opinion hat to a Government going to the country “with good prospects of .success” a crop of Independent candidates is objectionable for the reason that “the so-called Independent can-, didate, who is often of an accommodating turn of mind, evinces as a rule •a strong predilection for tho side which is likely to win. and tends therefore to split tlio Government vote.” This consideration, and tho fact that there were so many Government candidates out, led the “Times” to form on its own account tho opinion, generally hold in Now Zealand, which lies behind the remark that “it is no wonder that, on the eve of adissolution. Sir Joseph Ward carried a Second Ballot Bill through Parliament.” Sydney may not have a Melbourne Cun or a Tommy Bent, or a Henry Gainford, but it more than balances those enormous deficiencies by possessing absolutely the’best train system in the Commonwealth. To properly appreciate the efficiency of a Sydney service one has merely to make a martyr of him self on the Melbourne and Adelaide tram-cars for a few triiis. In Melbourne tho wretched suail-liko cars are painted in about different colors, .and they never seem to be going .anywhere in particular. Two or three conductors or heroes (lor they are covered with badges) shove the go-carts around the curves, and then, with a shepherd’s- crook, root, about in a dark hole in the street for something they appear to h-avo lost. Still, nobody troubles, and tho Melbourne man walks along to liis office or his work without so much as glancing back to seo if tho multi-col-ored tortoise is following.' But to go from Melbourne to Adelaide is to go from Bad to Worse. I went to a comedy show one night. Next day I patronised tho horse-trams, after which I felt like going to my first comedy show and demanding my money back. No circus was ever- to be compared to those cars. To see the two-storied vehicles run off the rails round thecurves, and the cool, Irvine-AVade-h‘ko drivers steering them back on again, makes a man forget his sorrows. By the way, Adelaide’s main streets are now thronged with workmen, who aro laying down the new electric tramways. I wouldn’t like to be in tho Holy City tho day those cars starts’ Something will happen. Such unprecedented' velocity coming ..all in _ one lamp will tako tlm Religious Capital’s breath away. Worse than that, the new cars will smite Adelaide in the back, and it will be taken to the hospital to have its spine amputated.— “GUrooney,” in the “Bulletin.”