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Typo: A Monthly Newspaper and Literary Review, Volume 4

[miscellaneous paragraphs]

Color-blindness is increasing among French chromo-lithographers. It is attributed to their being engaged in printing long numbers in the same colors—the primaries being the most injurious to vision.

A railway servant in Christchurch became so depressed in view of the probability of a general strike, and its consequent mischief, that his mind gave way, and he had to be taken to an asylum for treatment.

The Christchurch Branch of the Typographical Society have passed the following resolution: « That while having been quite prepared all through the recent labor crisis to follow the lead of the Maritime Council Council, this Board heartly approves of Mr Millar's manifesto declaring against a general strike, believing that the boycot will be found efficacious in bringing about a satisfactory settlement of the dispute; and, further, this Board hereby expresses its entire confidence in the executive of the Maritime Council»

page 93

Every social movement leaves its mark on language, and the present strike is no exception. The offensive epithet « blackleg » has disappeared from all respectable newspapers, and the term « free laborer » has taken its place.

Justice, the new Auckland weekly, adopts the same tone as that of the itinerant lecturers, whose orations at the present juncture have contributed to maintain the present mischievous upheaval of society. In a late article, it declares that « there is neither dignity nor delight in labor… The horny hand is a disgrace, and the tin dinner-billy a mark of shame…. Labor, under present conditions, is a curse; and man's sin is, that he endures it. » And more in the same strain. If the unpardonable sin of the present age is honest toil, then the editors of papers of the Justice stamp, and the tramp orators who preach socialism to workmen out on strike, are indeed righteous!

Australian orators and traders affect to regard New Zealand as a kind of appendage to the Australian group of colonies—oblivious of the fact that it is twelve hundred miles nearer the American Pacific coast, is a direct trader with the rest of the world, is more enterprising, and in proportion to size, vastly more productive than its big rival. In the N.S.W. Parliament lately a member referred to New Zealand as « an outlying island. » In the Typographic Advertiser, some time ago, in a column of nonpareil extolling « Australian Enterprise, » New Zealand is accorded three lines: « In the offing, twelve hundred miles from Sydney, lie the islands of New Zealand, with the large settlements of Wellington, Auckland, Dunedin, Christchurch, and others." The article was really the advertisement of an Australian supply house, and New Zealand was no doubt designedly depreciated. The « large settlements » are four cities, with an aggregate population of 175,000, and with daily papers far superior to those of any American city of equal population. Some of our exchanges address Typo « Australia. » This occasionally leads to a détour of 3000 miles. The mail steamers call at our ports on their way to Australia, carry the papers on and leave them at Melbourne or Sydney. There they are sorted out from the Australian mail, and returned by the next boat. The Pacific is an ocean of magnificent distances. From Wellington to Melbourne is half as far as from Liverpool to New York.

« An Old Comp, » writing to a Napier paper, contradicts our statement that « while every Union newspaper in New Zealand takes an independent view of the labor question, the labor organs, without exception, are produced in rat offices. » He says, « Typo makes a mistake here, and I proceed to prove what I say, » and warming as he proceeds, « Typo is a false witness, and should not be quoted. » And yet his proofs bear us out completely! The Lyttelton Times, he says, « is a labor organ, and pays the full rate. » To call the oldest-established newspaper in New Zealand a labor organ, is ridiculous. We classed it as « independent, » and for so doing our critic charges us with falsehood. We will put the Lyttelton Times into the witness-box. This is its testimony: « If the unions only make the blockade sufficiently complete, they will effectually destroy the cause of Unionism. It is a great experiment. So it is a great experiment when the bush-man, who wants to saw off a refractory branch, gets astride, and saws away at the part between him and the stem. The branch goes, and so does he. Against the complete boycot, the newspapers of Australia are crying out one and all. They ask what would be thought of the employer who hounded men out of every employment from one end of the country to the other. They condemn the boycot as the worst form of tyranny, they stick at no form of expression. But the unions are doing more to kill the complete boycot than any homilies of newspapers, or pulpit orators, or platform speakers. They are showing by the boycot that the boycot is impracticable. The boycot has only to be made a complete blockade, and capital has only to remain completely inactive. These conditions must be fatal to the weapon which is too ugly to be used. Its ugliness will not deter men from using it. Its imperfection will. » This is pretty independent writing. « The Herald in Dunedin pays its journeymen the full rate of wages. Here in Napier the labor organ pays the full rate. » If the writer had been candid enough to state how long the two last-named had been society offices and paid full rates; and what kind of pressure brought them at last into the fold, he would have given valuable testimony in confirmation of our paragraph. He might truthfully have added that a month under union rules killed the struggling Dunedin paper outright. It is significant that the first concern of the Globe, the Herald's successor, is to satisfy the trade that it is not conducted on the old principle. « Our house » (it says) « has been cleansed in other respects. We are freeing ourselves from the odium of utilising boy-labor, having dispensed with seven lads, engaged Association labor at full rates, and obtained the sanction of the Typographical Soeiety to our modified arrangements." What the seven unfortunate lads are to do does not appear. That is their concern.

The New York weekly Nation completed its twenty-fifth year on 26th June. During the whole of its career it has been under one management. It was the pioneer American literary review, and still holds the leading place.

The New York World, of 11th May, had about one-third of a page printed in red, entirely surrounded by black, which was done from one plate at a single impression, on a rapid rotary press printing 24,000 eight-page papers per hour. This is the first time that this feat has been accomplished, and the process was invented and carried out in the World office. During the seven years of Mr Pulitzer's management, the paper has been a magnificent success.

In its issue of 8th June, the London Weekly Times and Echo made the following announcement: « We discontinued our Sporting Notes last week. They will not appear again. We must, of course, still continue to give results of races—a newspaper cannot pick and choose its news; it is obliged to record a race as it does an execution, or any other disagreeable or disreputable occurrence. And we shall of course, gladly publish, as hitherto, all intelligence about healthful, manly, and innocent sport—such as cricket, football, and the like. But we do try —after an imperfect fashion enough, doubtless—to hold up a standard of life in these columns which the world may profit by; and we do not see that we can, consistently with that effort, any longer pander to the vile and dishonest gambling instincts which are so craftily taken advantage of by the 'noble sportsmen' who live on the betting public. »

It is strange what uncouth substitutes are proposed by those who object to Maori local names. The Wellington Education Board lately refused the application of the Mangaone Committee to change the name of the district to « Pleckville »! The hideous title has, however, been adopted by the postal department, probably because the euphonious and appropriate Maori name (which means Sandy Stream) is not an uncommon designation, and is scarcely distinctive enough. The whole local nomenclature of the colony will require revision at an early date, when there will probably be a grand clearance of Palmerstons, Havelocks, Gladstones, Stubbsvilles, &c, and a wholesale reversion to Maori nomenclature. Not only are names such as we have quoted multiplied to an inordinate degree; but some districts are known officially by two or three different titles. The port of Napier, for example, has three. Its official designation in the department of Customs is « Port Napier, » its postal name is « Port Ahuriri, » and to the telegraph department it is known as « Spit. »

The following is an extract from the report of the New Zealand Survey Department for the past year, by Mr A. Barron, Superintendent: « The two printing machines have been kept fairly constantly at work, and have turned out 926,623 impressions of 907 separate printings. The hand-presses, being mainly engaged on circular work and preparing for machines, have turned out 62,421 impressions. A new lens and camera, capable of taking negatives 30 x 30in., have been obtained; but in consequence of the press of work they have not yet been set up. The department has now an establishment capable of printing every kind of lithographic, photographic, and some of the process work of older countries. The work done will compare well with that of larger places, and but for the necessity of great economy in the drawing portion might be made as good as the best. It is sometimes vexatious that so little time can be given to working out the details of photographic processes; yet, in the midst of a constant flow of work, Mr Boss, chief of the lithographic office, occasionally finds time to make a step forward in something new. »

A Napier paper is responsible for the assertion that « Fame, the sire of Dudu, is in foal to Torpedo. » —It is not every North Island journal that can afford to laugh at outside ignorance of New Zealand geography. A Wairarapa contemporary heads a telegram relating to a tragedy at Whatatutu, 36 miles from Gisborne, « The New Plymouth Murder. » —One of the labor organs recently referred to the « Maritime Bouncil. » The moral concealed in this Little Cryptogram is apparent. —An itinerant lecturer is reported to have said that the duty of the press was « to disseminate facts in a pure unvarnished light. » —Some comical stories were told by members of the New Zealand Parliament in justification of the practice of personally revising « Hansard » proofs —a privilege sometimes availed of so liberally as to disguise their speeches beyond recognition. One member who « had been congratulated himself on having kept Mr Saunders out, » read in the proof that « he congratulated himself on having escaped from the sawmills. » The same gentleman, having quoted Thorold Rogers, found his quotation attributed to « Poor old Boger. » And Mr Vincent Pyke, having asserted his firm conviction that port-wine was absolutely necessary for some constitutions, found his elixir of life transformed into « pork-pies »!