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Typo: A Monthly Newspaper and Literary Review, Volume 4
[trade dispatches]
A newspaper to be entitled the Egmont Settler is announced to appear at Stratford, Taranaki.
Mr R. S. Hawkins has purchased the Wellington Evening Press. We hope that in his hands the paper will prove a great success.
The impending political struggle is affecting the press, and a new paper is announced to appear in the Rangitikei district. It will need to be a well-conducted concern to hold its ground against the Advocate.
The Brisbane Worker has kept clear of the rock on which the Trades and Labor Journal of Melbourne was shattered. It is in plain newspaper style, and makes no attempt at « sumptuous » printing.
« The Trades and Labor Advocate, of Sydney, » says the Worker, « was a smart paper, and captured a libel suit before it was out of long clothes. But it tried to run on advertisements, and got so badly left commercially, that it died at the New Year. »
The Lithographische Rundschau, an excellent weekly, published by Herr F. Schlotke, Hamburg (publisher of the old-established Journal jür Buchdruckerkunst), has been discontinued, after an existence of about five years.
Mr G. M. Reed (says a Melbourne letter) vacates the editorial chair of the Standard. Mr Reed came last year from New Zealand, where he is known as an able journalist. It takes however something more than a smart leader writer to make a second Melbourne evening paper a commercial success.
The Wellington Press states that the magistrate who instituted criminal proceedings for libel against the Reefton Guardian and failed to proceed with the case, has been requested by the Government to resign.
A Parisian journal has informed its readers that « Lord Wemyss-Reid, » « Scottish peer, » has decided to issue a weekly newspaper devoted to the support of home rule for Ireland, under the title of The Squeaker.
Always on the watch for press items, we noted a paragraph from a Wairarapa paper that « a large number of cases of a very bad type » were in the district. No printer who has seen some of the local papers would dispute the truth of this statement. But the item proceeds to state that they are « supposed to be la grippe. » A « sell »!
Two lady journalists, the Misses Emilie and Georgina Hill, have established a woman's printing works in Westminster Bridge Boad, London, where women can be trained as compositors, proof-readers, shorthand writers, and reporters. The Westminster and Lambeth Gazette and Woman will be printed on the premises.
A Christchurch correspondent of the Ellesmere Guardian reports that a new evening daily is to be issued under the auspices of the trades unions. We have some doubt as to the correctness of the report, which is not mentioned by our own well-informed correspondent. The four existing dailies in Christ-church (and the two great weeklies) more than occupy the field already.
The Manawatu Standard says:—Mr S. Crombie Brown, who in the Parihaka days gained a somewhat singular reputation as a journalist in New Zealand, is now in Melbourne as manager of a « patent automatic electric fire alarm company. » Of late years the world has not gone well with Brown. He is one of the millions at whose door Fortune has knocked disregarded, and on whom the outraged goddess has turned in revenge.
From past experience the Manawatu Times anticipates « a certain amount of 'rag-planting' » in view of the approaching general election, and adds that those tradesmen who support these political 'rags' with advertising will be very foolish. « They will only be issued to serve the meanest political ends. » As a general rule, the existing newspapers, whatever side they espouse, allow full scope for discussion in their columns, and the starting of temporary political sheets on the eve of an election, with the object of diverting support from the local organ, is an action both unbusinesslike and mean.
The Grafton Examiner (New South Wales) came out with an apology after the recent floods for being late, and for not appearing at all on the previous day of issue. « We are sure, » remarked the editor, « our readers will grant us a little indulgence on this occasion, especially when we state that the water was nearly nine feet deep in our office, and the confusion caused by such an invasion of our premises can be readily imagined. » Our imagination is scarcely equal to the task. The printer, however, who could publish a newspaper a day or two after he had eight or nine feet of water in his office, deserves credit for his pluck.
In the District Court at Invercargill a few days ago it was sought to set aside the sale of a printing plant by E. H. Whitmore, bankrupt, to his daughters, on the ground that he was insolvent at the time, and that the object was to delay and defeat the creditors. Judge Rawson decided that fraudulent preference was not proved, and refused the order.
The Tauranga Times has imported a typesetting machine which is said to be capable of doing the work of six compositors. This is, we believe, the first composing-machine introduced into New Zealand. As the office is small, and the field of the newspaper very limited, the proprietor's enterprise is more conspicuous than his judgment.
The proprietors of the Wellington Post have been served with a writ at the instance of Henry Roberts, printer, and footballer, claiming £505 damages for alleged libel contained in a paragraph published on February 11th, imputing that he had been guilty of dishonorable conduct by offering to secure to the Wellington Football Club the services of four of the Poneke Club for a monetary consideration.