THE INS AND THE OUTS. A WRITER in a recent number of Frazer's Magazine, discoursing on "the comparative stupidity of politicians," attempts to show that, in the universe of created intelligence, they are not the highest in the scale, and quotes, as an authority, Miss Martineaux, who, in her autobiography, has recorded her sense of the mental and moral inferiority of the political men of her day whose acquaintance she made. She observed in the politicians a much lower type of mind and character, expressing itself even in a certain vulgarity of manners.

"There is no doubt," says the writer, "such a thing as the force of stupidity, which is often more powerful in human affairs for the moment than any other. When intellectual dullness is united with moral rectitude, the combination is pretty nearly irresistible. Either without the other is a power of the first magnitude; both together are fate. The fact is, that

the training of affairs, invaluable as it is, seldom bears proper fruit, unless the affairs are a man's own, or when the consequences of failure are sure to come upon him in a rapid and crushing manner. The merchant or capitalist whose ventures depend upon his personal vigilance, the engineer or military commander, cannot afford to take things easily-action is forced upon them-they must either succeed or conspicuously fail. In politics, usually, the state of things is entirely different; the prudence which is taught is rather that which shuns difficulty and dreads failure. The education of practice in Parliamentary politics is therefore, for the most part, an education in the arts of inaction, evasion, and delay. A career in which character may be a substitute for capacity must, it is argued, from the nature of the case, be pursued on a lower intellectual level than those in which intelligence and cultivation, and general

or special knowledge, are absolutely essential."

These are rather sweeping terms, and we cannot endorse that refinement of reasoning which would prove that the pursuit of politics retards intellectual development. The field which opens to the politician is too wide to cramp his intellect. But where no patriotic feeling exists as an incentive to exertion, the absence of a personal interest in the thing to be achieved is undoubtedly calculated to produce lukewarmness; and a personal interest in politics is mischievous in its results, since, in New South Wales, that interest lies, not in the ordering of public affairs or the quest of political fame, but in the attainment of place and pay. The consequence is, that the one thing to be done is not the passing of an all-important measure, but the oust-. ing of the party in power. Hinc ille lachrymæ. It is not the dullness or want of capacity in our politicians of which we have reason to complain, but their want of patriotism. Now is the time for newly-elected members to show the stuff they are made of. The rubber between the Ins and the Outs has been played out. The cards have been dealt afresh.

Are the miserable petty tactics which have brought such discredit upon our representative institutions to be repeated ad nauseam, until each Member of the Legislative Assembly has in turn occupied a seat on the Treasury Benches? Or will those honorable gentlemen who have taken no part in the late struggles for office join in giving the new Government such a generous support as will enable them to carry through at least an instalment of the legislation for which the colony is languishing?

A DOUBTFUL SPEC. THE alleged discovery of a minute particle of gold, imperceptible to the naked eye, in a small parcel of black sand said to have been forwarded to Sydney direct from the coast of New Guinea, together with the calculation arrived at by an eminent geologist that a piece of water-worn quartz, about the size of a lump of chalk, if obtained in bulk, would probably yield the magnificent return of two penny weights to the ton, out of which the charges for freight, crushing, and exchange, would of course have to be paid, have been sufficient to fire the enterprize of certain Sydneyites to such an extent that a meeting was held on Tuesday evening last to consider the propriety of chartering a modern "Golden Fleece" to convey a band of adventurers to the new El Dorado. Pause, reckless youths, ere you commit yourselves to this wild-goose enterprize. Have we not in this country deserted reefs by the score, which will yield ounces instead of pennyweights to the industry of the miner, that you must dare, on such slight grounds, the malaria of the New Guinea Swamps, the hostility of the natives, the scarcity of food, and the "thousand natural ills" which accompany the prospector in a strange land? Are not the rivers of Turon and Sofala better than all the waters of Papua? Wait at least until the value of the discovery has received further confirmation. The solitary particle of gold which has raised all this clamour, putting the finest point upon it, can hardly be called a "good spec." Calm your ardour, oh, too sanguine reefers, and we will undertake to give you "Once a Week" the latest and most reliable information from the land of mystery. Old miners should know, from bitter experience, that the colour can be obtained almost anywhere, in places where even a Chinaman cannot eke out a living.

In the words of the poet we say to you,

"Oh, formose puer nimium ne crede colori !"

MY BALLOON ADVENTURE.

Ir was Boxing Day. The weather was warm, not to say hot. Having finished dinner, I thought I would visit the Albert Ground for an hour or so, and see the adventurous Wells, the hero of four hundred ascents, make his four hundred and first in his mammoth Montgolfier balloon.

I strolled leisurely to the grounds, more out of necessity than choice, for the busses that passed me were full inside and out. Full, do I say-they were literally crammed with perspiring families and the inevitable baskets that infallibly proclaim the metropolitan householder en route for his holiday picnic.

Not unbesprinkled with dust, I reached the Ground. The first thing that attracted my attention was what looked to me like a Brobdignagian pudding-bag in extreme agitation. On inquiry, I was informed the pudding-bag was the leviathan of the air in which the worldrenowned Professor was to make his four hundred and first ascent. The leviathan didn't look like the balloon of my imagination. The corded network, the brillianthued silk, the pear-like form, were notnought but many ells of whitey-brown calico stitched into a vast pudding-bag. That was all. And how the pudding-bag lunged and struggled to get free!

I walked slowly up to the mammoth Montgolfier, my hat stuck on the back of my head, my hands thrust down in my breeches' pockets; and, witnessing its eccentric swayings, I mused on the absurd folly of men who would risk their lives in anything so airy as an half-inflated pudding-bag.

My thoughts were suddenly checked. A hand was smartly laid upon my shoulder. Turning, I beheld one whom by the cut of his jib and the fashion of his speech, I took to be a man of the genus Yankee. Big consarn, that! eh! stranger?" Rather," said I.

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"W-a-a-ll, yea, considering the country. But a big consarn! Pshaw! Why, in 1876, in Boston, there was a big consarn went up. I tell you. He were a bouncer, he were. Three hundred people went up in her, band of music, refreshment bar, and all that; the whole fixing went up, stranger, from Boston, bound for Philadelphia for the Centennial. And a fine time we had of it. Went in one hour, four minutes, and three-eighteenths of a second."

"Why! what!" he continued, "Consarn your picture, stranger, ye look as if ye didn't believe me. Wa-a-ll, considering you don't see much out here, I reckon it is a purty hard nut for you to swallow."

Having thus delivered himself, the Yankee complacently rolled his quid over, and eyed me with a look in which curiosity was blended with contempt. At his invitation, we walked over to the bar at the Grand stand to wet up. The Yankee asked for a mint julep, but finding even its name unknown to the unpoetical barmaid, he tossed off by way of consolation a miserable modicum of hot brandy (not brandy hot.) With a deep sigh he imbibed it, as if to drown a disappointment rather than to satisfy a desire.

To "stretch" is the Yankee's hugest pleasure. His eyes will glow, his mouth twitch, his nostrils dilate with the excited eagerness with which he concocts and delivers his confounded yarns. My new acquaintance "stretched" muchly on my behoof. When we had liquored up, the advertised walking match was on, and a large crowd were anxiously watching the contesting "peds." My Yankee poohpoohed the exhibition, and tried to make me swallow a yarn to the effect that in the States they had a man named Weston, who could walk-walk fair, sirree-his fifteen miles an hour, for twenty-four consecutive hours!

"Stranger," quoth he, "it's a fact. Saw it done." When the cheers of the crowd announced the victor's triumph, he added, "Now, sirree, I'll bet you a few of your pounds that I could have won that 'ere race. I'm a walker. That's the kind of hair-pin I am! Fact!"

To this remark I could not take any precise exception; so, as I said nothing: my silence was accepted by the Yankee as acquiescence in his claim to be that particular kind of hair-pin: and I saw on his face the look of happy contentment which his consciousness of having found a stranger whom he could rope at will and to whom he could lay it on heavy, had called forth.

We had another stroll around, and took stock of the happy pic-nicers, of the monte-table sharps and flats, of the "sensation packet" vendors, of Corydon flirting with Phillis, of the Richardsonian drama and Mr. Bartlett's rich comicalities. The crowd about the Mammoth Montgolfier at last brought us up, and the hum of the eager hundreds drowned the Yan

kee's chin music for a while-a blessed consummation. The aereostat (I believe in correct terminology) was swaying about in the breeze pretty considerably, in its motions scattering the onlookers right and left. After I had been watching the operations of the rope-men and the volunteer corps of larrikins that were pretending to assist, the Professor got into the clothes' basket which did duty for a car, and looked about inquiringly for some one to accompany him to the upper air. No one responded to that inviting glance. I turned to my Yankee acquaintance, and gently nudged him.

"Now's your chance," said I.

Says he, "Do you raelly think now that I'd go in such a small fixing as that. Why, sirree, I'm a man as wants elbowroom. None of your cabined cribbed confinement for me. No, sirree! and he turned upon his compatriot in the clothes' basket a look of infinite disgust.

Minutes passed. No one stepped forward to the acting-car. The balloon began to lift, displaying an infinite capacity for mischievous gambolling.

The Professor suddenly cried,

go!"

"Let

The crowd, however, wouldn't let go. There was a disposition, in not a few of the bystanders, to hang on to the lines, in the hopes of obtaining an aerial flight on a small and a cheap scale. The Mammoth wouldn't be balked. It made a furious bound, and dashed at a telegraph pole which it snapped in two like a carrot. Things were getting exciting. Even my philosophy of "laissez faire" was stirred. I rushed towards the aerostat-got near to it-so near that a brick dislodged from a chimney coping by its impulsive aspirations fell on my favourite corn. The great balloonist and noted parachuter was now on the roof of a semi-detached villa wildly gesticulating. I thought that now the real start was to be made, so bravely grasping a line, the only one that still trailed upon the ground, I went in for a flight, believing, however, that the crowd would soon haul down the balloon.

Up went the Mammoth Montgolfier! One rapid glance revealed to me that no one was in the car, that no one but myself was on the rope!

I was alone!!

Higher went the leviathan of the air. The rope I held was wound round my hand. I couldn't free myself.

Before I could collect my thoughts, I

was high up above Sydney, suspended in mid-air, bound for — --?

The view beneath me was exquisite, but I was in no poetical mood to be won by vision of the sea-locked city, fair though it was exceedingly.

In my ears rang the shrieks of delighted Arabs, who possibly imagined that I was a part of the performance, and that I was about to enact some wonderful acrobatic feat in mid-air.

I tried to reach the clothes' basket by the hand-over-hand movement, but failed; never having been remarkable either for strength of muscle or athletic skill. My efforts awoke the cheers of the mob below, who evidently thought that now, if ever, the show of aerial funambulism was about to begin, My thoughts, I can assure you, were rather that it was about to conclude.

I could not reach the car.

I could not continue my grip on the rope for many seconds longer.

To drop was certain destruction.

"His end was pieces," I could see my epitaph. Inevitable death stared me in the face. I can't describe my sensations. My eyes protruded from their sockets: cold sweat broke out all over my trembling body.

Then suddenly came the supreme moment. My hand-grasp relaxed.

I shut my eyes, murmured a prayer, and fell-fell-oh, merciful heavers ! fell

have been preventable. The matter appears to us to be of so much importance that we purpose devoting, from time to time, if not from week to week, a few columns to the examination of the causes of the loss of our character as a healthful city, and to the inquiry how these causes may be removed; and we entertain hope that, in the popular form in which our remarks will be presented, there may be something that will attract the general reader, who dares not face the perusal of the ponderous, though valuable, Reports of Commissions.

It has become known, then, that, speaking roundly, the death rate of Sydney is double that of the country, and also that it is nearly onethird higher than that of London; and this is notwithstanding our superior climate, the absence of grinding poverty, and the fact that our city population is very largely re-inforced by arrivals of young persons in the full vigour of their lives, who have passed the perilous age of early infancy, and should have, humanly speaking, a long life to spend among us.

From the absence of official records we cannot give the death rate of Sydney forty years ago, but from the memory of not quite "the oldest inhabitant," we have it stated, that Sydney then barely maintained one doctor, and that half a chemist's shop (Mr. Noss sold groceries in the other half) supplied all the drugs then required; that, in fact, births, vaccinations, and broken bones furnished all, or nearly all, the calls upon medical time.

Prominent among the causes of unhealthfulness stands, without doubt, the facts of our increased numbers, of the close manner in

which we pack them, and of the mode of collection and disposal of our sewage, to which this increase of our numbers has led us to resort. Much may also be due to the fact that during these years new houses have become old ones, and like our old Infirmary in manner, though not perhaps in degree, unwholesome from the emanations of many human beings in sickness and in death. It may be also that from having been a comparatively poor, and therefore frugal and industrious people, we have become rich, sensual, and indolent, and that our vices lash us for departures from rules of right well-known to all. It may be that the race of competition has led to much adulteration of the necessaries, or quasi-necessaries, of our so called civilization, and that the love of cheapness has been dearly indulged in. Or the thirst of wealth has sought its unrighteous gains in the poisoning compounds vended in the names of places and commodities to which they are entire strangers.

That the habits of a cold climate have been brought with us to a hot one, that there is an indifference to personal cleanliness, a disposition to wear clothing that saves washing, and so keep about our persons, till worn out, garments saturated with the issues of the skin is unquestionable. There can be no doubt that this indifference extends to our dwellings, that while we do not, with our forefathers, keep the same rushes on our floors for years, we do keep the same papers on our walls, often covering them with new paper over the old

that we continue, against the law, to slaughter animals in the citythat our food, or much of it, is kept in unwholesome shops, near to rooms