.jpg)
Typo: A Monthly Newspaper and Literary Review, Volume 2
[trade dispatches]
The South Australian printers are grumbling at the action of a state school teacher, who with the aid of a press and a few small founts has been teaching the boys to print after a fashion, some concert programmes, &c., having been turned out. (We should like to see a copy.)—The Minster of Education promised to inquire into the matter, but thought too much was being made of it.
The Mataura Ensign fills a column with a humorous report of a cricket match at Gore—Bankers v. Press. The detailed score shows that two players only scored a double figure—10 in each case—and these were on the press side. The 0 figures so frequently that the comp. must have had to look up a second upper-case. The Ensign is diffident in criticising the bankers' play, lest it should give an « overdrawn account » of what took place. There seems to have been a good day's fun, though nobody « broke the record. » Both sides had two innings, and the total score was Press, 62: Bankers, 60.
Mr Scobie M'Kenzie, M.H.R., recommends the appointment of a committee of newspaper men within the House, to translate the laws « out of the vile jargon of the lawyers into the Queen's English. »
The first volume of Cassell's Picturesque Australasia has appeared, and fulfils the promise of the prospectus. It would be superfluous to note that engravings and all parts of the mechanical work are good. We do not like the arrangement of the ten plates all together at the beginning (in reverse order, too), notwithstanding explicit printed directions to the binder where each one is to be placed. The two New Zealand articles are ably written and well illustrated. Prof. Tucker contributes a chapter on « The Vanished Wonderland. » Like a true Aucklander, he ignores all the rest of the colony. « There are two routes to Ohinemutu, » he says, and proceeds to describe the two Auckland lines, giving no hint of the equally good if not better route from the south. It is remarkable that among the many Maori names and words in the article there does not appear to be a single instance of mis-spelling. But the English compound « tea-tree » uniformly appears as « ti-tree » —an inexcusable blunder in a work of this kind. The article on Dunedin is contributed by Mr R. E. M. Twopenny, who incidentally hits off the characteristics of the principal New Zealand cities very fairly. It appears to be only the Aucklanders who are afflicted with that species of myopia which prevents them seeing anything beyond their own provincial boundaries.—All the Australian colonies, and New Guinea also, come in for one or more chapters.
Two quasi-scientific hoaxes are now on their travels. One is the « Star of Bethlehem » story. Some imaginative individual identified Tycho Brahe's variable star with the « star in the east, » and gave it a « period, » announcing that it was due in 1886. A good many people have since been looking for it, and an American paper last year announced that a « Professor » at one of the observatories had seen it in the zenith (in a certain constellation which in that latitude is never more than a few degrees above the horizon.) Baxter, the notorious English prophecy-monger, took up the story, and profanely announced that the star which heralded the New Dispensation had now returned to mark the Queen's jubilee year! The Bell, a week or two ago, published a sensational letter from an American who had « seen the star » —a splendid object before sunrise, and occasionally visible in full daylight. This was quite true—only the observer did not know the planet Venus! Tycho Brahe's star has never disappeared, and is still visible with a good telescope. Its « period, » if it has one, is unknown, and its connexion with « the Star of Bethlehem » is a pure fancy.—The other « yarn » is too much for most of our contemporaries, and only occasionally straggles into light in a carelessly-edited paper. A « microbe » « two millimeters in length, » is destroying the railways in Germany. It has two glands in its head, secreting a corrosive fluid, which has the quality of converting steel into a nutritious diet! It is new to science, and the German savants have named it the Rail-ophagus. The whole item is very rich; but the technical name of this unusually large « microbe » is delightful.
That Mr Fish should abuse his natural enemies, the newspapers, is no marvel. But to find Capt. Russell take a similar line is surprising indeed. On the 30th November, in the House of Representatives, however, he spoke as follows: « It is a very dangerous thing to say a word against the press; but if ever there was an engine of extortion and an engine of bribery, commend me to the press of New Zealand. I believe that the amount extracted by the newspapers in the shape of election advertisements is four or five times their worth. » What the hon. member's personal experience may have been, we know not; but his sweeping charge was most unfair. A general election is a very costly affair to the leading newspapers. They are put to great additional expense in reporting the interminable speeches of candidates in all parts of the district, giving them sometimes what is practically a free advertisement of seven or eight columns; extra skilled assistance has to be engaged; and the return, in the shape of advertising and printing, in most cases bears no proportion to their outlay. Just at present, too, advertising and printing charges have been reduced to an unprecedented extent, and some of the best-established concerns in the colony are being conducted at a loss.—In the Upper House, speaking on the Education Bill, the Hon. Mr Scotland also had his fling at the press. « He thought the bill entirely uncalled for, and as the outcome of the blatherings of an ignorant populace, supported by an ignorant press. An editor of any miserable rag in the colony, prompted by frequent pulls at his whisky bottle, sat down and wrote an article against our railway system. » It is quite clear that the hon. gentleman has never been on the staff of any respectable newspaper. In that case he would have learned to confine himself to the point under discussion, and to have expressed his ideas—when he possessed any—in becoming language.