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Typo: A Monthly Newspaper and Literary Review, Volume 2
[trade dispatches]
From Messrs Coulls, Culling, & Co., Dunedin, we have received a large and well printed tear-off monthly sheet calender.
Nos. 1 to 3 of the Wellington Watchman are to hand. It is the same size as the late Truth, but is better printed, and is in other respects an improvement on that erratic organ.
The Gazette-Journal Company, of Hastings, Nebraska, have sent us a large and beautifully-printed illustrated catalogue of all kinds of stationers' sundries.
Will our contemporaries, in quoting from or referring to this paper, kindly omit the definite article? There is (or was), at Syracuse, New York, a trade paper called The Typo; there is (or was) at Baltimore, Maryland, a paper entitled The Typo's Guide; but there is only one Typo.
The Napier evening papers are great on Scripture history. It was the Telegraph, not long ago, that equipped « David in Solomon's armour, » and now the News brings an unwarranted charge against the same historic monarch. After telling its readers that « everybody knows something of the Bible, » and has heard « the oft-told tale of Naboth's vineyard, » it proceeds: « David was a landgrabber, it is true; but the modern landgrabber can give him points. » (!)
The New Zealand Musical Monthly is to hand, and bears out the favorable notices of the southern press. It is a quarto of twelve pages, in a tinted wrapper, which in somewhat unusual fashion, is paged consecutively with the rest of the number. This will « bother » the binder a little. Is he to bind in the wrappers, or leave gaps in the paging? The cover has a good engraved heading, with a neat rule border. The typography throughout is good. A lithographed portrait of the assistant bandmaster of the Invercargill Garrision Band is published as a supplement. It is satisfactory, in a country where so much bad lithographic work is turned out, to be able to note that the portrait is very good. A first number is seldom well furnished with advertisements; but in this respect Mr Algie's paper has made a fair start. It deserves to succeed, and we hope it will.—No. 2 contains as a supplement a piece of band music, arranged for the various instruments.
No 7 of the Wellington Catholic Times is to hand. It contains 32 crown pages, and is printed on toned paper. The advertisements are numerous, and do credit to the energy of the canvasser. The paper is printed by Lyon and Blair, and it is needless to add that the work is good. The The in the title (5-line pica) is very « loud » for a catch line. The pages of advertisements and reading-matter are alternated— a convenient arrangement for scrap-book compilers. The paper is well sub-edited, and contains a very large quantity of general matter, including correspondence from various parts of the colony. The Napier man has a grievance. The newspapers and directories do not give his church precedence! Why should they? There is a « scientific » defence of Christianity, and « The Truth about the Liquor Question. » When we meet with a heading « The Truth » about anything, we expect to find the contrary, and so we do here. The writer has seven lines of his own, and a column from writers of no authority on the subject. The facts are fictions, and the « science » is sixty years out of date. As the paper will give employment to a good many hands, it will be a boon to the trade in Wellington.
On January 2nd the London Times celebrated the hundredth anniversary of its foundation.
In the R. M. Court, Napier, on the 16th February, T. E. D. Fox, who had pleaded guilty to two charges of embezzlement of sums of money collected by him on behalf of the Hastings Star, was sentenced to three months' imprisonment on each charge, the sentences to run concurrently.
It is not often that we meet with a more remarkable coincidence in names than is found in the following recent Australian telegram:— « The Hon. B. R. Wise has been compelled, owing to private business, to resign his position as Attorney-General. It is expected that Sir Robert Wisdom will succeed Mr Wise. »
This is the portrait of an editor, sketched by himself:— « Any person who may have noticed a distracted-looking individual careering round Hastings-street last night with a bull pup of peculiarly ferocious demeanor, a Colt's revolver, a club of formidable dimensions, and who may have been frightened at the wild expression in the eyes of the individual in question, may rest re-assured. That individual was not mad, he was simply the editor of the Evening News. »
The Hon. John Bright is about to receive a crushing blow, the effect of which, at his advanced age, may prove very serious. The following resolution is to be forwarded to him: « The New Zealand Protection Association considers the ill-advised expressions used by the Hon. John Bright, m.p., in answer to a letter addressed to him by Mr. C. A. Stock, of Normanby, as an insult to the intelligence of the people of New Zealand. »
A contemporary has a reference to « the reeling sensation in mining circles. » From the context we infer that « ruling » is intended.— An East Coast paper reports that « three youths named J. Allen, W. Rusden, and J. Redfern, were charged with breaking and entering the premises of Messrs J. Wright and John Dale. » The emphatic J is significant only as indicating that the printer is « out of sorts. « — Reviewing a new guide book, the Western Star said: « It will open up to the now iniquitous globe-trotter the as yet comparatively unknown beauties » &c. In the next issue, the editor explained that he had written « ubiquitous. »
In our last we mentioned that New Zealand journalists were invited to the centennial press banquet in Sydney. As a rule, press men are too fully engaged to accept hospitality of this kind, and the Auckland Star was the only New Zealand paper represented. But a humbug named Morgan Morris secured an invitation on the representation that he was the proprietor of « an influential Auckland journal, » and duly turned up at the meeting. Mr Morris was recently the proprietor of a blackguardly halfpenny sheet called the Echo, which died before it had completed its first year; and having nothing better to he quietly took a trip to Sydney. Some friends in Auckland, who wondered where he had gone, heard with mingled feelings of his latest appearance.
A youth named Cornelius Ahern, studying at a Jesuit college, who has taken honors at the Melbourne University, has, we learn from the Advocate, contributed to the college review an article on « Catholic Literature. » The lad is not out of his teens, and his essay is a piece of immature dogmatism. « Every penny spent in 'non-Catholic' literature, » he says, « is a contribution to the cause of infidelity »! Afterwards, he acts the part of the candid friend, for anticipating the objection that the « literature » he recommends is of a very inferior order, he replies that « this is not universally true. »
There is something inhuman in the nature of the creature to whom insanity and death are matters of jest. In a northern contemporary we read: « A Rear-Admiral plunges a red-hot poker into his abdomen and dies in great agony. He must have been a rare-Admiral, but now he is cooked. » Also, the following ribaldry:— « The howling of the Gospel Temperance Mission Workers' Union on Sunday evenings on the wharf would make the fishes weep. The chairman said they would sing 'There is a fountain filled with blood,' during which a collection would be made. » If some of the ' wharf-rats' who were invited to tea could interview Mr Robson in an empty room for five minutes, there would be several fountains filled. » —And a column more of similar purulent matter. These extracts are not from foote's freethinker, nor joseph symes's liberator, nor the organ of a hell-fire club. They are from a religious weekly—a sample of « Catholic Literature » in New Zealand! Cornelius!—until you find us something better than this in exchange, we will refrain from burning our library.