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Typo: A Monthly Newspaper and Literary Review, Volume 5
[miscellaneous paragraphs]
A Chicago contemporary defends the intolerable divisions En-glish and En-gland, and finds fault with the new edition of Webster for dividing in the English fashion after the g. ؟Is it possible that Americans pronounce the word « En-gland »? If the Chicago style be correct, we should also divide La-pland and Newfoun-dland.
The Daily News some time ago chose to be sarcastic at the expense of a firm of artistic stationers who had endeavored, and with considerable success, to supply something better in mourning stationery than the heathenish black-edged horror so long in fashion. The News will probably rejoice to hear that in India the new line is considered « the thing » for wedding invitations.
Mr Champion draws the following conclusion from the results of the late strike in Australia: « It has conclusively shown that the most gigantic federation of labor, unless it is handled with a greater strategic ability than is at present available in Australia, will break like an egg against an ironclad when faced by the resolute opposition of employers who are also federated. It has shown that, difficult as it is for employers to sink their rival interests against a common enemy, they will do so, and receive public support in the most democratic countries, so soon as labor makes a demand which the public holds to be arbitrary or unfair. It has shown that a community composed of men of British descent draws the line very firmly at demands based on the idea that any power outside Parliament should coerce a man into striking, and has no sympathy with methods forbidden by law. »
In the House on 10th July, Dr Newman asked « If the Government will call for tenders for the right of advertising upon stamps and telegraph forms. » He believed that £5000 a-year might be obtained in this way from certain foreign distillers and patent-medicine proprietors.—The Postmaster-General said that he quite agreed with the hon. member. If the Government could obtain money by so doing, it was very desirable to do so, and any offers in this direction would be favorably entertained.—We have already written strongly on the subject of this miserable and disgraceful suggestion. Overtures of the kind were made to a former Government, and were very properly rejected. At the very time that a bill is before Parliament for the suppression of objectionable advertisements, the Government purpose establishing a State Quack Advertising Agency. ؟Is the colony thus to advertise its abject poverty (or meanness) to the world?
Our article on spelling-reform has been freely quoted, and generally with approval. The Waipawa Mail, which copied the whole article, anticipates that the reform will be accomplished within the lifetime of the present generation. We would like to think so, but similar sanguine anticipations were indulged by Dr Ellis and the Phonetic Society half-a-century ago. The reformers, however, were in advance of their time, and though they had the approval of the most discriminating of their literary and scientific contemporaries, their efforts met for the most part with ridicule of a very asinine description. Dr Ellis himself sank a small fortune in the Phonetic News, and shattered his health by the enormous labor it imposed upon him. The general spread of information, and the more practical form that education has assumed in the last half-century, are gradually clearing the ground for the reform. Unless the alphabet is introduced into the schools—as has been successfully done already in some cases in Great Britain—private and isolated effort is not of much avail.
page 119
The immense volume, « Lloyd's Register of British and Foreign Shipping, » including a statement of all the mercantile and war vessels of the world, containing nearly 2200 pages of tabulated matter, royal quarto, and involving over two million impressions, was turned out complete by Messrs Darling & Sons, London, in seven weeks. Two hundred tons of type are used in this one job.
A circular has been issued by Mr S. Percy Smith, of Wellington, proposing to found a « Polynesian Society, » on similar lines to the Asiatic Society, to afford a means of communication between those interested in the study of the inhabitants of the South Sea Isles, and with a view of the preservation of information relating to them in a permanent form. A periodical in connexion with the proposed society is also contemplated.
Of the unfortunate French printer-poet, Hegesippe Moreau, the Printing World says « He was successively a compositor, a proofreader, an usher in a school, and a vagrant. He left only one volume of poems, to which he gave the collective title of Myosotis. He certainly failed to obtain a living either as a printer or as a poet. Yet it is his brother typos who have collected the funds for the statue which is to be erected to his memory. »
The Dunedin Globe has been distinguishing itself in characteristic fashion. It brought some serious charges against the management of the Seacliff Asylum; a costly official inquiry was held, and they were found to be baseless. Then it published an alleged conversation between two gentlemen concerned in the inquiry; and Mr Fish brought up the subject in the House. The Post says: « A more utterly disreputable proceeding could not well be imagined. It is a discredit to New Zealand journalism. The matter becomes more serious when a member of Parliament brings the subject forward in the form of a question to the Government. Worse still is it that the Government should appear inclined to give a serious reply. Things are certainly coming to a pretty pass when journalistic or political spies travel in railway carriages and jot down for press publication private conversation which they manage to overhear, and when the information so obtained is used in Parliament for political or other purposes. The whole history of the proceeding is revolting to any honorable mind. »
A London correspondent writes to a contemporary:—Mr Rudyard Kipling has been expressing himself with dissatisfaction about America, and it has been resented by the press of that country with characteristic indignation. « We must be cracked up, » said Mr Hannibal Chollop; « we are a model to the airth, and must be cracked-up, I tell you. Our backs is easy ris. We must be cracked-up, or they rises and we snarls. We shows our teeth, I tell you, fierce. » This attitude, it appears, is still retained by certain journals. A New York paper thus expresses itself as regards Mr Kipling:— « He came into this country through the back door like a scullion, and went out unobserved as if he had wiped his boots upon the hostess's curtains. A Rajpootana stripling, who uses the Queen's English like a gargle, thinks it necessary to put on the airs of a London swell when he comes to measure the impact of a people with a continent. » And yet there are people who assure us that Martin Chuzzlewit was a caricature.
Mr P. H. Calderon has exhibited at the Royal Academy an historical picture which, once seen, is not easily forgotten. Thanks to the illustrated handbooks and newspapers, the principal Academy works are now in a measure accessible to all the world, so that distant readers know just what the picture is against which the hue-and-cry of indecency, malice, and stupidity has been raised. Had Mr Calderon merely added one more to the annual shoal of conscious Eves, smirking Venuses, or bathing Susannahs, no complaint would have been heard on the first score; but the subject being historical— « St. Elizabeth of Hungary's Great Act of Renunciation » —the picture has made some people very angry. The lady is represented as kneeling, completely naked, before an altar, her robes and regalia lying on the floor, while stern-faced ecclesiastics and nuns in a holy rapture contemplate the supreme act of humiliation. It is admitted that Elizabeth did « strip herself bare, » but it is explained that the statement is to be accepted figuratively. The onus of proof rests with those who make this assertion. Religious enthusiasm still leads at times to strange aberrations, as exhibited in the case of Laurence Oliphant; and in mediæval times, when mortification of the flesh was regarded as the crowning virtue, the scene illustrated would come well within the range of probability. Nor need the act of penance, indecent as it appears to modern ideas, detract from the character for charity and virtue that has caused the Thuringian lady's memory to be honored through six-and-a-half centuries.
At the Resident Magistrate's Court, Invercargill, on 5th August, a book-fiend was defeated, and there is a general feeling of grim satisfaction in consequence. One A. T. Kerle sued Robert M'Nab for £2 10s for Brett's Early History of New Zealand. The defence was that the canvasser represented that the work was by Dr Hocken, of Dunedin. The Bench gave judgment for defendant on the ground of misrepresentation, and refused an application for a nonsuit. In a second case, plaintiff's counsel elected to take a nonsuit.
The shearers' trouble is over, both in Queensland and New South Wales, an agreement having been drafted which includes freedom of contract, and permits non-unionists to work without molestation, favor, or intimidation on either side. The arrangement gives complete satisfaction to both parties, and could just as easily have been arrived at eighteen months ago. The dissatisfied ones are the vampire brood who made handsome incomes out of the strike, and who succeeded in keeping up the warfare while any money remained in the treasury.
At a late meeting of the Hawke's Bay Philosophical Institute, the Bishop of Waiapu read an interesting paper on the Native Press of India. William Carey, he said, was the first to cast movable types in the native characters, aud therefrom to print books. It was on the 18th May, 1801, that the first sheet of the Bengal Testament was printed, and it was only since that date that the printing-press had been introduced into India. It was in 1818 that the first vernacular newspaper was printed; in 1880 there were 230. The lecture was illustrated by numerous oriental books and manuscripts, one of the latter being a splendid copy of the Koran in three languages, written in colored inks.
At 1 a.m. on the 4th inst. the Dunedin Globe office was found to be on fire, and the front office, editorial room, and machine-room were destroyed before it could be extinguished. The firemen on entering the building found clear evidence that it had been deliberately fired by some one well acquainted with the premises. Not only had three separate fires been kindled, but the gas had been turned on, and an india-rubber tube used for the stove had been introduced into the drawer of the editor's table. When the entry was made there was a strong smell from the escaping gas, and everything was ready for an explosion. In a few minutes the flames would have been beyond control, and as the building is in a crowded block, one of the largest conflagrations ever known in Dunedin would probably have resulted. There were insurances amounting to £1500 on the building, and £800 on the plant. An inquiry has been held, and a large reward offered, but no clue has been found as to the perpetrator. The company have dismissed the editor and managing director, Mr Freeman Kitchen. He had reported that the concern was losing at the rate of £50 per month; but an official audit of the books shows that during his term of management the actual loss was £172 10s a month. The rest of the capital has now been called up to enable the publication of the paper to be continued.
Sometimes a luckless shareholder in a joint-stock newspaper kicks, but his struggles are as ineffectual as those of a Picturesque Atlas subscriber in the clutches of the Book-Fiend. Mr F. Fulton, Napier, was lately sued by the Evening News Company for £2 10s due on his shares. Since defendant had been beguiled into signing the application, he had had a dismal and monotonous experience of calls, and at last refused to pay any more, on the ground that the company was failing to comply with the essential provisions of the Companies Act. His story was that when he took the shares up he was an insurance agent doing business in Napier, and under arrangements with a client of his who happened to be mortgagee of the plaintiff company, he went to collect £20, insurance premium owing by the company. That sum was promised, and he said he would not press for it until quarter-day arrived. When that time came, Mr Naphtali, one of the previous proprietors of the paper, and a promoter of the company, came round to him and said, « Here, I'm not going to pay you £20; you will have to take five or ten shares. » As he could not get a settlement in full, he had to take some shares—on the understanding that he would get all the insurance business of the company. This year, as the policy was not renewed, the arrangement had not been carried out. As he could gain no information as to the position of the company—no meeting having been called or balance-sheet presented—he had refused to pay further calls. He had now served the company with notice to produce certain books, which they refused to do.—The Court said that the fact of defendant's name being on the register was sufficient to establish his liability. As for the irregularities, if shareholders objected to them, they had their remedy.— Judgment for amount claimed, with 15s costs and 21s solicitor's fee.