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Typo: A Monthly Newspaper and Literary Review, Volume 5

[miscellaneous paragraphs]

To catch the outgoing mail, and to avoid the Easter holidays. Typo is published this month two days in advance of date.

« Hansard » for the six-days' session is to hand at last. Its delay has been caused by the unconscionable time occupied by members in touching up their speeches for publication.

The result of the Opotiki libel actions is telegraphed just as we go to press. Mr Bates, of the Herald, was found guilty of libelling the Rev. T. J. Wills, and was ordered to come up for sentence when called on. Mr Wills, charged with libel, was found not guilty.

Australia, in which term it includes New Zealand, is according to the St. Louis Printers' Register « the home of the most progressive printers in the world. » Manufacturers have been a long time in finding this out, and but for Typo, many of them would still have been unaware of the fact.

The Government have found it necessary to dispense with the single wood-engraver employed at the Government Printing Office, the largest publishing establishment in New Zealand. He is an excellent hand, and his salary was £3 per week, which is more than the country could afford. At the same time a new office has been invented—Chief of the Stock Department—for a gentleman down south, who is quite unknown to the pastoral interest, has never been in the public service, and is to be placed over the heads of all the experienced officers. He has no claim whatever on the country; but probably—like « Mr Ballance's young lieutenant » —has claims on the Party which they cannot afford to overlook. It is the people, however who have to afford the salary.

It may be smart business for a newspaper to get hold of a cabinet secret and publish it to the world. Such things have happened in England, and the clerk or other official who has sold information which should have been kept sacred has invariably, when detected, been dismissed in disgrace. A publication of a private state matter took place this month, for which it would be difficult to find a precedent. Two women having been sentenced to death in Christchurch for the murder of an infant, ministers took into consideration the propriety of advising his Excellency to commute the sentence, which was ultimately done. A week before the case was laid before the Governor, the Lyttelton Times announced that he would be advised to exercise his prerogative in the matter, and the special information was taken up by the press association and published in every newspaper in the colony. A part from the personal discourtesy to the Governor, the divulging of ministerial advice to the press or public before he has decided upon it is a most unexampled proceeding. The singular part of the affair is that the paper which was favored with the special information is one in which the Minister of Justice has a personal interest. It is due to him that the matter should be inquired into, and the grave breach of confidence brought home to the responsible party.