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Typo: A Monthly Newspaper and Literary Review, Volume 3
[miscellaneous paragraphs]
The Colonial Bank of New Zealand has brought out a new issue of notes, containing one or two novel features. They are printed in different colors, according to value, but all « rainbow » fashion, in three different tints shading into each other—a notion open to criticism from an artistic point of view, and hitherto chiefly in favor for playbills. The different values are on different sized papers, the larger the value the larger the note—to avoid, one of our contemporaries sagely remarks, « the risk of alteration or forgery. » Of course, it is for no such purpose—a bank-note cannot be tampered with in the same manner as a cheque or promissory note. The object is to prevent the annoying mistakes in counting, by which £5 or £10 notes are sometimes paid away in mistake for £1.
We do not know how the law of libel would answer in the class of cases for which it is presumably intended. They are not uncommon, but rarely come before the courts. The late case of the Taranaki Herald, however is one more instance of the hardship it is capable of inflicting on respectable and well-conducted newspapers.
The New Zealand railway commissioners have deprived newspapers of the privilege of having their parcels conveyed free in charge of the guards. They must now pay parcel rates, and rightly so. Newspaper proprietors as a rule are not paupers, and do not require to receive charitable aid from the railway department.
Readers of The Times must have noticed for some months past the peculiar appearance of the thinner letters—the i and the 1 appearing as if separated from the rest by a hair-space. The fact is, that an aliquot system of widths has been adopted—on the same general principle as that of Benton, Waldo & Co., already fully described and criticised in our pages. The change is a step in advance—we are only sorry that it has been so clumsily carried out.
Miss Amy Levy, who committed suicide lately at the early age of 27, was a writer whose career in many respects resembled that of another gifted Jewish lady—Grace Aguilar. In early life she developed intellectual powers out of proportion to her physical strength. She was educated at Cambridge, and at the age of sixteen, before leaving college, had contributed to the Dublin University Magazine a poem entitled « Xanthippe. » She published several successful novels and poems, and was a contributor to Temple Bar, London Society, Atalanta, the British Weekly, the Jewish Chronicle, the Sunday Times, and some Cambridge University papers. In « Reuben Sachs, » a novel of Jewish life (like other Jewish authors who might be named) she did not give a flattering picture of the Hebrew people, and its publication appears to have been resented by her friends. Overwork and mental strain on a constitution not very robust seems to have led to the morbid state of mind which caused her to destroy her life. She left written directions that her body was to be cremated
The Rev. Julian Edwin Tenison-Woods, who died at Sydney on the 7th ult., was a man of mark in the scientific world—an accomplished linguist, musician, and artist, and one whose perfect courtesy and kindness of heart made him universally esteemed. He was the son of the late Mr J. D. Woods, of the Middle Temple, who for forty years held a leading position on the literary staff of The Times. Early influenced by the « Tractarian » movement, young Tenison-Woods at the age of 18 cast in his lot with the Church of Rome, and joined himself to one of its austerest sects; but the discipline told so severely on his constitution that he had to leave the order. He came out to the Australian colonies, where he engaged in journalism, and soon became known as a scientific man. His bent, however, was to the church, and in 1857 he was ordained a priest, and engaged extensively in missionary work. He was an enthusaistic geologist and naturalist, took part in several scientific expeditions, was honored by various learned societies, and became the greatest authority on the coal deposits of the southern hemisphere. His scientific studies embraced a wide range, and the number of his published works is nearly two hundred, some of them of great importance, the illustrations in all cases being from drawings by his own hand.
Some of the « natural history » paragraphs that go the rounds—especially of the more sensational kind—are of a very suspicious character. From time to time we read of the Arbor Diaboli, a carnivorous tree, found in central Africa, Mexico, and other out-of-the-way places, which devours men, and is adored by devil-worshippers. In a professedly scientific book issued in America, and run by book-agents, dealing with the World's Wonders, there is a brilliantly-colored lithograph, showing a party of idolators immolating a human victim by throwing him into one of these trees. The strange thing is, that botanists know nothing of the plant in question. « Worse than the Stake » is the title of a column article now going the rounds, vividly describing the frightful death of a gigantic soldier who is killed « inside of two hours » by the bite of a Mexican spider or « tarantula. » We would not care to say that the story is a lie; but we confess that we do not believe that a spider as venomous as a rattlesnake exists either in Texas or out of it. All spiders bite, and some are poisonous. Of those known to science, the little katipo of New Zealand is perhaps as bad as any; but no authentic case of death from its bite is known. It is commonly believed that the venom of the Italian tarantula produces a nervous complaint resembling « St. Vitus's dance, » but the fact is not established. If there is so exceptionally deadly a spider in Texas, how is it that the best scientific works dealing with such subjects make no reference to it?