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Typo: A Monthly Newspaper and Literary Review, Volume 6

[miscellaneous paragraphs]

An enterprising burglar in Berlin lately found a new and original way of adding to the ordinary profits of his profession. After each burglary he sent a full account of it to one of the daily newspapers, and for this he received payment in the usual way. But he tried his plan once too often. The editor got suspicious, and gave information to the police, who soon found how this amateur reporter was able to beat all rivals in the way of early information. The result is that he is now in safe custody.

Mr H. H. Jackson, J.P., of Stonestead, near Greytown, disputes the late Mr Parnell's claim to have founded the eight hours' system in New Zealand. He says that the men of the New Zealand Company's surveying staff, on board the ship Cuba, which left St. Catherine's docks on 29th July, 1839, and arrived at Port Nicholson on 1st January, 1810, discussed the matter on the voyage, and decided on an eight hours' day. Ten hours was at first proposed, but one Arthur Heywood, who had been a member of a socialist community in Cambridge, said that eight hours was the time worked there, and was quite sufficient. When the Aurora arrived, on the 22nd of the same month, with more workmen, they were notified that eight hours was the working day. So with the Oriental, on the 31st, and the Duke of Roxburgh (in which Mr S. D. Parnell arrived) on the 19th February. This seems to dispose of Mr Parnell's claim. Of the twenty men who inaugurated the system, four are now living: Charles F. Webb, Wellington; Robert Wyatt, Masterton; Charles William Keys, Hutt; and H. H. Jackson, Greytown.

page 95

An American journal has given an original and suggestive definition of the word « news »: « Any heretofore unprinted occurrence which involves the violation of any of the Ten Commandments. »

A New York jury has aequitted a number of Idaho miners charged with conspiracy and murder; they having wilfully caused an explosion attended with great damage and loss of life. In the opinion of the jury the act was not a crime.

A Texas editor has been going into economics. He says: « A bushel of corn makes four gallons of whisky, which retails at $16. Of this, the farmer gets 40 cents; the railroad, $1; the United States, $3; the manufacturer, $4; the vendor, $7; and the drinker, 60 days and the delirium tremens.

The United States government has placed certain inebriate institutes into the category of licensed liquor dealers, and each branch has to pay a retail licence fee for dispensing its specific. As the nostrum is simply masked whisky, of a high alcoholic strength, the state is quite right. There is only one cure for alcoholism that has ever proved a success—to discontinue the poison.

In the Contemporary Review for September, Mr John Eae has an important and instructive article entitled « The Growth of Industrial Peace, » in which he describes the valuable work done by boards of arbitration. They have been established in the iron trade since 1869, and have been so successful that strikes are unknown, and « the very disposition to strike seems to have died out. » It is to be regretted that other branches of industry are not so far advanced.

The Nelson Mail philosophically remarks: « Fashions come and fashions go. We shall probably have a period during which the government inspector will be a very important person, but after a time people will get tired of him, and it may come to pass that it will be allowed once again that Adam Smith and his school knew something about the true principles of commerce, and that Mr Bright knew something about the true principles of liberty. »

A curious congress of deaf mutes—the first of its kind—was lately held in Hanover; the discussions being carried on, and resolutions passed, in the manual alphabet. One subject that came under consideration was whether lip-reading or the language of gesture was to be preferred. The usefulness of both methods was admitted; but it was decided that lip-reading alone was objectionable. Not only was it excessively fatiguing to incessantly watch the mouth of a speaker, but it had been found to have a kind of hypnotic effect.

Mr William Mitchell, writing to the Wellington Press, gives some reminiscences of « interviewing. » He narrates how, on news arriving of the death of Bishop Selwyn, the Auckland Herald sent a reporter to Sir George Grey's club at midnight. The veteran statesman was awakened from his sleep, and obligingly gave his reminiscences of the Bishop, which appeared in print a few hours | later. The Herald interviewers, he adds, now go in couples—one undertakes the cross-examination; the other takes the shorthand notes.

Canon Knox-Little, in a sermon preached recently in London, on the power and responsibilities of the newspaper, maintained that the modern newspaper was a terror to evildoers because of the publicity which it gave to works of evil that would be otherwise shrouded in the dark. It might not give an exact picture of contemporary history, but above all it witnessed to the solidarity of mankind. He appealed to the congregation to support high-minded newspapers, and pointed out the dangers which attended those writers « who felt that they must say something, therefore said anything. »

« The Spectator, one of the best papers south of the line, has nearly £2000 owing from defaulting subscribers. What incorrigible heathens many professedly Christian people are in the matter of paying for religious papers! » So says the N. Z. Methodist.' Tis the same everywhere. A late issue of the Catholic Times had two leading articles: « Retrospective, » and « Denunciatory. » The first reviewed five years of hard work; the second spurred up delinquent subscribers. It set forth pretty plainly that archiepiscopal long-suffering had reached its limit, and defaulters would soon learn privately what kind of rod was in pickle for them. Typo could tell much the same story as his religious contemporaries. Every subscriber has had his statement of account—but alas! how few have responded. Printers, of all men, should know that periodicals are not produced automatically and gratuitously. A wink, says a classical proverb, is as good as a nod to a blind horse. We need not give the original Latin.

A strolling angler on the banks of the Waipahi lately came across the following notice, which answered its intended purpose: « No purson is aloud to iruspus heir. »

The forests of the old world are now being demolished at a startling rate—not, as might be supposed, for building purposes, but to feed the printing press. The Paris Petit Journal, with its daily circulation of over a million, consumes each year 120,000 fir trees of an average height of 66 feet. This is equivalent to the annual thinning of 25,000 acres of forest. So says Mr Arthur Pearson, in the Search Light.

The Catholic Times libel case has been partly paralleled at home, where the officers of a labor union connected with the shipping trade have got into trouble over a circular issued to the unions, charging Messrs Pink with offences against unionism, and calling upon working men not to buy their goods. The circular was signed by the secretary, and bore in addition the names of the president, vice-president, and treasurer of the federation. These latter gentlemen, on Messrs Pink taking action for libel, shabbily left the secretary to bear the brunt, expressing « entire disapproval » of their own circular; and, moreover, had the impudence to ask for their costs when an injunction was granted against the further issue of the document. It is scarcely necessary to add that their application was refused.

There is in Taranaki a very useful institution known as the Taranaki Scenery Preservation Society. Its objects are, among others, to endeavor to preserve beautiful scenery or historical sites, whether public or private property, and to prevent the unnecessary destruction of bush, especially along the banks of rivers and in steep places. The object is a worthy one; but the society is just half-a-century too late in starting. The whole tendency of legislation, both of parliament and local bodies, has been, and still is, to destroy every vestige of the beautiful flora and fauna of the country. Stringent « improvement » regulations have converted magnificent forest-clad mountains into barren steeps on which nothing of higher grade than lichens will ever grow again; and the vile carnivora of Europe, imported at vast expense, are rapidly extinguishing our native birds. It is a harmless amusement for a minister of the Crown to write sentimental stanzas on « the passing of the forest. » It would be more satisfactory to use some practical means to conserve the wreck of natural beauty that remains.

Eight months ago we recorded the death of an old friend and brother, A. C. Cameron, of the Artist Printer, and now we mourn the loss of another—Mr John Bassett, of the Printing World, who has been cut off at the early age of 29; leaving a young widow, to whom he had only been united about a year, and who has our sincerest sympathy. We knew that Mr Bassett had been seriously ill; but hoped that he had recovered. In his last letter to us (13th October) he wrote: « I am much better, but our winters are very severe …. Friend Cameron found the worries of business too much for him. He might have lived for many years longer had he continued to steer the fortunes of his old paper. » The same letter also contained a very gratifying account of the rapid progress of the Printing World; but we fear—being as yet without any information beyond the fact of Mr Bassett's decease—that in his case, too, the strain of business responsibility, at a time when absolute rest was essential, has shortened his days. When a veteran of four score and ten, like the late David Bruce, passes away, we see no unmeetness—the life's work is finished and rounded off. It is more sad in a case like that of Brother Cameron, when one departs in the midst of busy and useful occupation; but even here our friend had passed middle age, and left a grown-up family. Saddest of all does it seem, when a life full of promise is cut off just when it has found its appropriate work, and a long vista of usefulness opens before it. We, who for a while longer remain, echo the words of an aged poet:

Like clouds that rake the mountain summits,
Or waves that own no curbing hand,
How fast has brother followed brother
From sunshine to the sunless land!

In such a case it is difficult to realize that all has been ordered for the best. But a life, brief if measured by years only, may have been far otherwise in respect either of work achieved or burdens borne.

God giveth quietness at last!
The common way that all have passed;
He went, with mortal yearnings fond
To fuller life and love beyond.

Yet it is with a keen sense of loss that we realize that we shall no more see our friend's handwriting or look for his printed words. And that feeling of loss will be shared by all members of the Craft which he adorned, and which he loved so well.