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Typo: A Monthly Newspaper and Literary Review, Volume 4
[miscellaneous paragraphs]
Parnell has to pay the costs in the Scotch action against The Times. The amount is £500.
A Wellington comp who got drunk and into bad company, charged one of his boon companions with cutting his head open with a stone. The Press says: « 'I'm come here to state what I know, and I'm not going to be bluffed,—there's too much of that foolery in the Court,' said John Tierney in the witness-box in the Supreme Court this morning. He was being examined by Mr Haselden, and this was the sort of answers he gave. Mr Bell, the Crown Prosecutor, did little better with him, and he answered in much the same strain the questions of the Chief Judge, who said if an ignorant person were in the box such answers would not be wondered at, but from a compositor they expected something better. »
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In the Resident Magistrate's Court, Dunedin, on the 10th inst., Mr Carew gave judgment in the case brought by Stone & Co., to recover £10 paid under protest on book-covers. His Worship decided that book-covers were not stationery, and not liable to duty.
The Sydney Telegraph says: An exhibition is to be held in London in May next of stamps from all parts of the English-speaking world. The Postmaster-General of New South Wales proposes to send to the exhibition specimens of the stamps used in the colony from the earliest date. A history of the post and telegraphic systems of the colony is also to be prepared and forwarded to London. Dr Houison, Mr C. Potter, (Government printer) and Mr Lambton (Under-Secretary Postal Department) have been appointed a committee to take the necessary steps for preparing and forwarding the exhibit.
The Parthenon, the new Sydney magazine, edited by ladies, has had to defend a libel action. It started a competition for girls under seventeen, as to who should furnish the largest number of words from the letters in « regulation. » One Miss McKinney, after diligently studying all the dictionaries she could find, sent so formidable a list of words as to distance all competitors, and astonish the editors, who found some hundreds with which they were quite unacquainted. They therefore sent a list of the doubtful words to Professor Scott who replied that they were « mostly obsolete. » The editors, however went further than the Professor, and published a paragraph disqualifying Miss McKinney on the ground that « with deliberate intention to make a big total » she had « used quantities of words that she must have invented herself. » The young lady's father was justly indignant, and brought the action to vindicate his daughter's character, asking only for nominal damages. A verdict was given by the Judge for one farthing, with costs on the lowest scale.
The following is from the musical contributor of the Star:— « A good many people have asked me what on earth I meant on Monday in my notice of 'Romeo et Juliette' by saying that its mood is monstrous. These innocent persons seem to think that whatever appears under my signature in the Star is written by me. This is a mistake. I merely supply a manuscript sketch, which the printers fill in according to their own fantasy. I believe I did make some such trite observation as that the mood of the work in question was 'monotonous.' The compositor, feeling that the adjective lacked force and compactness, and having his own opinion about Gounod, altered the word to 'monstrous.' When the proof-reader came upon the phrase, he naturally exclaimed, 'What on earth does this mean? This must be one of Di Basseto's deep things—one of his originalities—one of those inspired utterances which distinguish him from the vulgar critics. It must be displayed in capitals in a line by itself.' And display it he did forthwith. I was on the roof of an omnibus in Oxford-street when I read it. The next thing I remember is standing at the counter of a post-office, with a superintendent politely but firmly informing me that that they were not allowed to transmit messages couched in the terms I had employed. »