Taking up a few points not included in our examination of the Roman Catholic Cairns district alone, where at present the the south, though hot, % not nuheulthy.—policy, we uow notice the troubles which plantations, including those on the Johnstone tal the Herbert,—either the portions of the Johnstone and the Herbert referred to are geographically included in the Cairns district or they are not. If they are, their verbal inclusion here is tautologous; if they aire not, it is inadmissable,—conld be conntthe fryers of tice hands.—Why not sheth Juuitds Why call in an outsider to keep count'? It hints an inadequacy to cope with the number which it is the writer's express object to avoid. There are not less than 2,500 sure mites of trap: shrub which wait fo be cleared—It is most pathetic to think of the dumb scrub waiting thus, with self-snerificinl resign tion, for its own extermination for the good of 1 However, the anticipation Of the coming of the prospective planters is the most hopeful sign the writer hus yet pointed out. Much of this as it stretches in-
Herberton—this activity ascribed to the land toward the rich mineral district "f scrub is certainly lifelike but not strictly in keeping with the stationary state of body and mind credited to it in the last sentence. But perhaps it intends to be back again where it belongs before the planter arrives -—~is cooered with cedur,—that the scrub should be covered with a tall growth of cular is, we suppose, possible. "We wonder whether it be what the writer meat—ut which the timber vale alone is not easy to timate—we should think not, indeed That "the timber value.... is not easy to estimate" is a statement that carries "uviction of incompetency on its face. We would suggest to the writer, to try to estimate the timber value, in' which) attempt he might be more successfal—Single specimen trees have been known to wield 000 supesficinl feet.—-Why superficial Square" feet is an even more technical pinase and a terier one. Besides the choice of a word for its sornd is one of the well appreciated details of the literary art. Sounds stick. The word superficial here Javan ringolsupertciaity behind it, alight dut better avoided—aid 7,000 isn ordinary measirenent. Of what? Of single specimen trees or of the collective cedar of the ous sentence? 'The ellipsis is a trifle too eccentric. They aceraye generally 600 supergiciul feet to the ton—What' do? The '"pecinien trees or the "cedar"? Gran. matically it is the specimen trees, but this is probably not what the writer means, as it is searcely worth while to average specimen trees, and besides to offer them alone for inspection casts grave doubt on the present-Ability of the rank Bilo end laryearal ties wuit only for the country to be opened order tobe put upon the market.-—The cedar, it seems, is not to be left behind by the scrub in devotion to the coming man. Bur whereas the 2,300 miles of scrub are a iit in the matter, there appears to be division of opinion among the cedars. Besides these there ave many kinds of pine, and the silky ntl: und the bean-tree wre also cainable.
Why draw attention by this luke-warm after thought to the comparative insignificance of the silky oak and the so-called bean-tree? Bathetic postscripts like this standing where one looks fur a general climax in the array of argument, give a weak, ineffective look to the whole column." On the Burdeken, at Mackay, at Bundaberg and south of it there exist large quantities of virgin fxd. - Ho ho! then the other was not virgin after all! The scrub and the cedar have grown there since its abandon-
Good heavens! An_ itinerant climate What sort of a substitute takes its place when it goes "south 7" Or does it leave nothing behind? A country without a; climate is as awful a thing to contemplate as a man without a shadow. However, The inhabitants of Mackay aren claim for their climate that it is one of the most lightful in the world. They might certainly claim that it was the oddest in the world, though others might doubt its delightful: ness. It would seem to be the only instance in nature of an actual void. It should teach some of us who think we are hard off ith a changeable climate to be devoutly thankful that we have any climate at all. Nothing appears to be wanted for the develop ment of the country but labour dul capital.—Ani we hasten anxiously to suggest some substitute for a climate, anything, to fill the void when the other "leaves." these ave allowed to come in unimpeded by prokibitice legislation the future can be sourcely dowhtful.—But unluckily it is far more than doubtful, being quite impossible, that anything should come in, unimpeded or impeded, under prohibitive legislation. This sentence touches the depths of hopelessness. At present, as one of the successful planters observed to me, the colony is suff ing chiefly from too much fatness of land avd no people to use it.—This reminds us of what the little girl said of the uses of pins: many people through not swallowing them "That they had saved the lives
only that the humour is not so patent in the successful planter's speech, and, couched as it ix, deserves quotation marks, unless the writer proposes to father it, in' which case we need simply point out its lack of gramm CTpon the cost alone vegetation rons of orer rust areas of fertile soil, cud snakes and alligators wore disport them: wires in solitude.—This must he a scene worth the trouble of tourists to hunt The rivtousness of the vegete i proved catching to the snakes nud alligators whomwehadal ways thought peculiarly slug-sish creatures, Possibly the fact that they "disport themselves in solitude" may explain this. Fent must take no mean practice to make a snake or an alligator an adept in the art and while still tyres each would naturally prefer to experiment alone.—Where a population ax thick as the populetion of Equpt might subsist—on the sportive sunkes and alligators no doubt, easily caught while engrossed in learning to. disport themselves.
Here unfortunately the quotation ends. Were given nu more of this remarkable:
know not whether to say advertisement But we love not omitted in our review a single word of what the paper inted. We trust that we have pointed hi ita few ut the reasons that duced the writer of the article to recognise it as "an admirably clear, well-composed letter."
Perctvar Lowers.
{Perhaps Mr. Lowell would have been more lenient had he known that the writer of the slip-slop letter which he criticises so justly is a lady.—En.}
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.