MISCELLANEOUS.

Inangahua Times, Volume VIII, Issue 1297, 14 September 1883, Page 2

MISCELLANEOUS.

" The Goldfields" Committee reported that the mining industry having be-: come sd important,' necessitated that j the Minister of. Mines should in future sessious make> a- general statement in the House ; also, that the allocating of the £2500 for prospecting should beat . the rate. of ips^iu. the,poundon-the amount ianumtll^ ' expended, aiid that the payment .made .be on the certificate of the .^ou'nty, .ghairnian of: , the' district, ■tfhe^&n .euch prospecting is being carriea on ; also," that no claim for assistance towards' prospecting for gold and other dfiineralsi should' be recognised- unless the- wVtek 1 -! shall havje been sanctioned vpriflr-'to its commencement by theMcdnnty-'Coiincil of thedistrict.?' -■• ■ ? r.'&. vc. :. . : v -..'••.= The writer of ""Sydney Notes" in the Australasian' wMtes ' " For the same reason which in&rferes with appreciation bf-Judge Higin-botham's diatribe on * Science and: the Churches' I totally abstained from, the- Hon. Robert Stout's lecture on .' Inspiration' at the Gaiety Theatre last Sunday -evening. Mr Stout is advertised as a former At-, torney-general of . New Zealand. Having the inestimable pleasure of knowing one horsehair lawyer ih forensic practice here— ra privilege difficult. to escape from, as he is a near relative— ijeltonly too well able to anticipate and .' appreciate. Mr Stout's method without going' to the » Gaiety' to hear him. Besides, we are being overrun and , overridden with unattached and itinerant lawyers in all the Colonies. I think it was Mr Gladstone who said that the world could never expect to be without lawyers and doctors ; seeing that the lawyers are the high priests of dissent, aud the doctors of disease. But my humble contention is, let every profession and trade stick to its last Now, * Stout on Inspiration' is \ not an attractive advertisement. * Inspiration on Stout' would be far more intelligible, aud possibly more crowd compelling. The High Priests of Dissent seem at home when arguing a rule nisi for a new trial on 17 grounds, or when barbecuing an adverse witness, or cross-ex-amining some poor victim into a gibbering idiot. But on theology or (which they most affect) atheology, the horsehair style is out of place." Bakers (says- the New. Zealand Times) have occupied much attention in Parliament lately,. and the Adulteration Prevention Bill, which passed through the Lower House recently, will subject this class of traders to strict penal regulations. Loaves are to be suld in specified weights, so" as to be easily distinguished — namely, 21b, 41b, 61b, or 81b loaves. Each loaf must bear the baker's initials as a brand. The penalty for a breach of these regulations is £5, and all penalties recovered are to be paid to x the local authority. The necessity for some amendment, was pointed out by honest bakers, who found that honest trading waa handicapped by the ease with which loaves could be sold under weight. Our reporter saw a " 21b loaf" weighed a few days ago, it being sozs under weight. This loaf came from one of the largest bankeries in Wellington ; and the unfair profit made at the rate of sozs to the 21b loaf would be very large on several thousand loaves per week. Some idea of what an earthquake in the neighbourhood of the Straits of

Sunda is may' be ~ gatherea from "the following brief narrative: — "Around the Papandayang, one of the loftiest mountains in Java, no less than 40 villages were reposing in peace. But in August 1772 a remarkable luminous cloud enveloping its top aroused them from their security. But it was too late. For at once the mountain began to sink into the earth, and soon it had disappeared with the 40 villages, and jn'ost of the inhabitants, .oyer, a. space of 15 miles long and six broad. Still ' more extraordinary, the most remarkable on record, was an eruption in Sumbawa, one of the Molucca Islands, in 1815. It began on the sth day of April, and did noi cease till July. The explosions were heard in one direction 970 miles, and in another 720 miles. So heavy was the fall of ashes at the distance of 40 miles that houses were crushed and destroyed. The floating cinders in the ocean, hundreds of miles distant, were two feet thick, and vessels were forced through them with difliculty. _ , he darkness in Java, 300 miles distant, was deeper than the blackest night;- and finally, out of the 12,000 inhabitants of the island, only 26 survived. the catastrophe." " Social wreckage" forms the subject of a short but highly interesting article in the "Contemporary Review" for July, which deals with the anomalies of the present social condition of England, and aims at pointing out some methods by which at any rate a portion of them may be rectified. The state of affairs at one end of the social scale is thus summarised by the writer:— -"In the wealthiest nation in the world one in every thirty-one of our countrymen is a pauper ; this moreover, without including any of that vast number of destitute persons who are maintained in charitable institutions or by private benevolence. In the richest city in tbe world there were in one year 101 deaths from actual starvation, in full sight of well-stocked shops. There are over 500,000 convicted summarily before the magistrates, of which nearly 100,00 > are guilty of personal assaults, about 2500 being aggravated assaults upon women and children. There -are- extensive districts in Loudon, Liver pool, and all our large towns, where our people are living in little more than half the area of ground required for a corpse, and which they could claim if they were dead. In Liverpool alone there are some 10,000 or more children who are neither properly fed* clothed, nor housed." During the past, week (says, the ..Lyttelton Times) four men have on different nights called at ? the .Police Depot and represented that *;th©y : had ..exhausted, all their efforts to obtain employment without success, rand had, as one of theih put' it, "no bed, no money, and no work." Their object in visiting tha police-station was to see if they could obtain cheap board and lodgings for a time under that comprehensive statute, the' -Vagi-an't Act; but as -they were of a class, superior to persons who are . commonly recognised as vagrants, .the.police = re£rain«|l from '.takings action, . ...Thg K %?i- ; Jjpwever, serves' 'to show t£atV<t]W%i9 somethipg^enuine^it.thft^entuji^diployed agination. "' •} *'./, ~Jr The Hoihow's caVgo of f resurrected Chinamen has caused wine trouble, and it reliance is to be placed in the^ following paragraph it'would seem that after all'the trouble the bones of the dead are likely, never to reach their native Canton. The paragraph, which is from the Sydney t own and Country, is as follows: — "On the voyage Captain Bewley found to his great aonoyance that they had not been de-j livered on board in good order and j condition; and this is another instance of how the heathen Chinee can come the 'double over his white brother. Several cases of Chinkee were refused to be taken on board on account of their being too * high* ; but Johnny's 'no savee' soon got over that difliculty, and they were sent on board later on in apparently good order. On arrival at the quarantine-station these boxes were placed on board the Faraway hulk, but now nothing would induoe the skipper to receive them back again on board, and, of course, they will have to be dealt with by the authorities. It is probable tliat the health-officer will condemn the whole* cargo' of bones, and they will be relegated to -a grave in the blue waters bf the Pacific instead of being transmitted to Chinese soil. Meanwhile their freight to China is £4 per box, and the ship is answerable for their safe delivery."