these colonies. How often the legitimate influence of the Press is frittered away, in petty local squabbles, in pandering to narrow prejudices, in fomenting little quarrels, and fostering a strait-laced Pharisaism, all the while neglecting to teach the broader, nobler lessons of the big, broad, throbbing world outside the isolated narrow-minded circle in which the local rag is too often, alas! the weekly apple of discord, instead of being the fruit of the tree of life. The lunatic was declared to be a sane man by the authorities at Wellington. Doctors do differ, always have differed, and probably always will differ. It being dull season with the papers, the case of the lunatic formed the subject of a leading article. The medicos who committed the man at Wanganui took up the cudgels in their own behalf. And now a very pretty duel is raging between the two sets of medicos, while the Press acts as judicious bottle-holder, and pokes up both sides with its traditional impartiality.
Coming through the Straits, we encounter "The Rip," a current running like a mill race, and a very fast and powerful mill race at that. The little "puffer" of a steamer sturdily sets its stout stem against the mad turmoil, and bravely ploughs it way through.
The coast is, as usual, bare and uninviting. The same serrated backbone of hills, with sharp-edged spurs, abrupt ravines, conical mounds, and here and there a bare gable end, where some landslip has collapsed into the sea, exposing the in-
