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Typo: A Monthly Newspaper and Literary Review, Volume 2
[trade dispatches]
Sir Julius Vogel has gone to England. He will endeavor to form a company to issue a « picturesque atlas » of the colony. An Auckland publisher announces that he has in hand a work of similar character. This kind of literature is somewhat overdone already.
The discovery of the Australian silver-mines bids fair to prove more of a disaster than a gain. To the share-gamblers it has proved a windfall—some of them having accumulated large fortunes in a few weeks. In the large cities there has been an unprecedented inflation in land values, and wild speculation in buildings. To New Zealand it has been a temporary relief, hundreds of the floating population having rushed to the diggings, already crowded, and where bitter disappointment awaits many of them. So far, one mine only is paying dividends. A smash is impending, and as is usual in such cases, the ruin will come upon the toilers and producers. There are already signs of the collapse. The fall of shares in one day represented three-quarters of a million sterling in Sydney alone, and at least an equal amount in the other colonies.
Prize-fights are a recent feature of our social development, and are now of almost daily occurrence. For this disgusting state of things the press is chiefly responsible. « Filthy lucre » again. The practice brings in a few advertisements; and for the sake of pot-house gains some of our contemporaries have opened a regular prize-ring column. The Napier Telegraph, which is certainly not a « goody » paper, comes down heavily on the press association for telegraphing reports of the fights. It says: « The telegram can only be regarded as a cheap advertisement for a degrading and disgraceful exhibition. Wherever there is a sufficient number of blackguards to provide enough gate-money, a couple of brainless athletes will be found to fight for the spoil. Idle, and absolutely useless as members of an industrial community, these prize-fighters should be discountenanced by every one having the slightest pretension to respectability, or possessing a spark of self-respect. »
Early this month was published one of the most remarkable documents ever issued from the Government Printing Office. Headed « New Zealand, 1888, » and having the exterior semblance of a Parliamentary paper, it had a blank in the place of the ordinary statement to that effect, and possessed neither imprint nor the customary memorandum of the cost of printing. In substance it was equally curious. It contained the minutes of the meetings of the protection caucus lately held in Wellington by certain unknown « delegates » whose expenses our Government so liberally paid, and the suggested tariff which was the outcome of their deliberations. The latter was so unsystematic and muddled in form as to require some study to make out its bearings; but its general tendency was to raise our present import duties from fifty to one hundred per cent. over present rates. We intended to note some of the items affecting printers and stationers, but it would be a waste of space. The « proposed tariff » is already as dead as Julius Cæsar. Not only did the free-trade papers cut it up, but the very protectionist bodies the « delegates » were supposed to represent fell unanimously upon it as soon as it appeared, and tore it limb from limb. There is no general principle underlying the protection dogma. When protectionists formulate a tariff upon which they can agree, it will be time to seriously consider their proposals.
Several of the French railway companies have resolved on having all their printing done on green paper instead of white. The reason assigned for the change is that black letters on white paper have proved trying to the eyesight of their employès.—Our opinion is that the change will prove a serious mistake. Injury to the sight in reading and writing may in nearly all cases be traced to imperfect lighting, and the use of tinted paper will only aggravate the evil.
A travelling correspondent of the Yeoman, whose style we think we recognize, writes from a South Island town: « Newspaper offices always have an attraction for travelling newspaper men. It is a common saying that when a newspaper man gets a holiday, he forth with hies him to the nearest newspaper office, and spends his holiday by poking about as usual among cases and type. So with newspaper men generally. They gravitate towards the first office they see, and strike up an acquaintance with the local newspaper men, knowing from experience that they are generally the best able to show you round. »
For some years past an eccentric individual at Waipawa named Golder « the king of the prophets, » has been publishing amazing predictions, besides which those of the notorious Baxter are insignificant. Some of Mr Golder's prophetic deliverances verged so closely on the blasphemous and obscene that no printer would take them in hand without expurgation, and it has been a standing grievance with Mr G. that he has had to « reduce his revelations to the level of the brainpower » of his printer. Lately he bought some type, &c., for himself, and constructed his own press. As might have been expected, he soon got into trouble. Some of his publications were of so horrible a character that the police have seized his plant—Mr Golder having neglected the important formality of registering his press.
That the Auckland Bellman would speedily make his mark upon the Herald was only to be expected. Application having been made to the city school committees to grant a half-holiday to allow the scholars to attend a football match, it was properly refused. In a leading article on the subject, after referring to the committees in the most contemptous terms, the Herald hopes « that the boys will assert themselves, and that they will take a holiday, » and further calls upon the parents to « back them up. » The besetting sins of our colonial youth are impatience of proper restraint, and undue devotion to so-called « sports. » Here we have a deliberate and malignant attempt to work upon their worst qualities, and to organize a general revolt against constituted authority. It is to some men a congenial task to sow dragons' teeth—the harvest of anarchy and crime will be reaped by others in years to come.
No feature of modern printing is more satisfactory than the gradual substitution in all departments of definite system for the guesswork and hap-hazard formerly in vogue. The latest reform comes from America, and relates to the « scheme » of job-founts. As all our readers are aware, American founts are proportioned to A's; but hitherto every founder has had his own proportion, and some by making up more A's than were required, made their founts appear cheaper than they really were. A committee of the Typefounders' Association took the matter in hand, compared all the existing schemes, and counted the proportions of letters in a vast number of varying jobs. From these data they compiled a standard uniform scheme, which is now in process of adoption by all the principal foundries.
The latest organization to misrepresent the working men of New Zealand is called the « Knights of Labor. » They lately sent a deputation to the Premier to demand work in the cities for the unemployed. On inquiring the reason of their objection to employment in the country, the deputation had the effrontery to hint that working men could not trust their wives to conduct themselves properly in their absence! And they also considered it « degrading » to sign papers to allow their wives to draw their wages. Sir H. Atkinson gave the slanderers a deserved setting-down, telling them plainly that he did not believe them, and was shocked at their statements; and adding that « if the men were half as pure as the majority of women, the world would be a far better world than it was. » The deputation were evidently fair representatives of that class who will not take a job on any terms if it is more than ten minutes' walk from a liquor-shop. It is surprising that bona fide working men allow themselves not only to be taxed but foully slandered by loafers of this stamp. The poor fellow driven by necessity to work below current rates is branded as a « rat » and boycotted, while the drunken demagogue who never does a day's work, and whose family is supported by his wife's labor, can live at his ease and figure as a representative of « the working classes. »