RANDOM SHOTS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXVI, Issue 10, 12 January 1895, Page 2

RANDOM SHOTS.

Borne write, a neighbour s name to lashEome write—vain thought! fo* needful cash, Somo write to please the country clash, And raise a din, Tor me, an aim I never fashI write for fun:

Schoolboys, and often children of an older growth, are wonb to revel in tales of bloodthirsty pirateß and more or less truthful yarns of encounters with piratical crews in the Eastern seas. Some of my readers may rashly conclude thab such banditti now only exist in, the imagination of the storywriters. If so they may easily undeceive themselves; the genus pirate still exists. Oust let therri pay a visit to Rotorua. Here the aboriginal pirate may be found in all his native glory. Appearances are - proverbially deceptive, so is the pirate of Rotorua and Whakarewarewa. His whole appearance is mild and beguiling ; hia piratical attire consists generally ■of a dirty shirt, a pair of trousers and a Bhorb black pipe; and his most effective weapon of offence is the toll-gate. He toils not neither does he spin, yet not even Solomon could extract more hard cash from the pockets of visitors bo his demesnes in a given time than can the Maori denizenß of the Hob Lakes dißtricb. Their expressions of amity cover a base design to empty your purse and leave you only your return railway tidteb. ■ ■*"

As you approach their regions of sulphur and hot springs and vile smelling chemicals, they Will make a 'call' of about half-a-crown a head to start with, apparently just to see how the paheha likes parking with his coin. If he 'parts' pleasantly, then they may make a levy of another halfcrown a head just to see how he likes that. Then they strike him for a guide, the sum demanded being apparently a variable quantiby according to the appearance, wealthy or the reverse, of the visitor. If the tourist ia a man of money—and the pirates are nob long in finding thab out — the guide costs two shillings a head or so; if only the humble excursionist from Auckland, one • hereni' satisfies them. Then the guide—who reminds one of Mark Twain's übiquitous Italian guide Ferguson —hurries the visiting party at a break-neck speed over the hot springs and pasb the geysers and mud-holes, With the evident intention of cutting their tour short, bo that he can get anobher party of Bightseers at similar rates of remuneration, If he should happen to be a financial genius— as most Maori guides are—he will generally manage to extort & little more ' backsheesb ' on the way, and a packet or two of cigarettes. Moreover, he hurries one away from the best sights, as if fearful thab overmuch gazing will damage the geysers, ■which don'b generally work overtime. Then he will gather a mob of about Bixty of hia young cousins and sisters and brothers, and eeb them to work diving for pennies—the pennies, of coarse, being provided by the tourist, who endureß the plucking process with commendable patience.

The level-headed youngsters are fond of exchanging coppers for silver, explaining thab bho ' hikapene' ia easier to hold in their capacious mouths. Of course the visitor quickly bhrows all the coppers back again, and the little brown imps have both pennies and silver—ab which device the pakeha is, in duty bound, very much amused. Ab Waiobapu bhe solitary pirate who acts as caretaker is even more successful than ab Whakarewarewa. He t extorts six shillings from each visitor, and on getting them to & Suitable spot within his wonderland he levies blackmail to the extenb of another •two bob.' Ib is certainly about time thab something was done to reduce the exorbitant toll charges made by bhe Maoris of the Thermal Springs District, bub so long as the plucking operation i 3 performed on their native heath, ib is difficulb to see how the powers - thab -be can alter things. Besides, the practice of tourists of giving them everything they asked for has not tended to produce moderation in their demands.

Shall the totalisator take the place of the pulpit in this colony? is a subjecb that might fairly be discussed by mutual imprOvemenb societies during next winter. The practical test of success nowadays is finance, and while we find that the amount invested on the gamblingmachine continues to increase year by year, we are ab the same time brought face to face withtheunpleaaant fact that the churches find it more and more difficult! to make the income equal the expenditure. In one particular creed tfeis year the Christmas offerings in Auckland at three • churches were nob half as .much as they were bhe previous twelve months, and I am informed thab one chief shepherd spoke very plainly to a portion of hie flock on the eubject lasb Sunday. No doubt ib hurts his feelings to see thab the totalisator gains in devotees, even as the church funds fall off. Formerly the Uhurfih demanded a tenth, bub the * tote' gobs more than thab, and bhe offering is made willingly. Perhaps donations to the Church do nob show results so plainly, or is ib thab people prefer to lay up breasures on earth and run the rink of thieves breaking ia and stealing. The "straits to which some churches are pub to make ends meet, ia ahown by bhe facb that begging circulars are now senb to people in Auckland from Dunedin, asking for jusb one shilling's worth of stamps towards some church that is in wanb of funds.

A Wairarapa clergyman, referring to the drop in wool and the calling up of the Bank of New Zealand share*, consoled his congregation by the remark that though these things for the moment meant temporal; logs, they would, under grace, result finally in spiritual gain. It may be so, but lam afraid if New Zealanders were.given the choice they would elect to have a good wool clip and no calls. It's a wicked world we're living in. The trustful faith of our forefathers," which enabled them to accept the worst ills as a wise dispensation of Providence ia not so widely diffused in this nineteenth century, and the parson who has the courage or coolness to stand up in his pulpit and assert that a bad wool clip and a bank call may result in spiritual gain will surely be regarded as behind the times. I regreto very much that the reverend gentlemen did not proceed to explain in what way these misfortunes were to ultimately work out in spiritual gain. I don't suppose he meant that such terrible bad luck was calculated to send men 'on the drink,' a somewhat common spiritual gain too often succeeding man's misfortunes, and 1 am at a loss to arrive at any other Conclusion myself. A • bad wool clip and a bank call might be a very just punishment for the misdeeds of many an unhappy colonist^ bub 1 am really very much disinclined to believe that the whole of Chose Who have been rearing ehoep, or investing in bank shares, were eondssaned ta a cruci|iiop oL.the,flesb,to

make them more humble and thankful generally for small mercies. I don't think the reverend gentleman who gave utterance to this remark has any interest either in a sheep farm or the B.N.Z. If his.salary were reduced by one-half, he would probably be inclined to believe Providence had made a mistake.

A touching incident which occurred in one of our suburbs the other day might have been entitled, 'Ye Tender-hearted Manne Killeth Ye Catte.' The scene was a quietl household in a quiet street—quieb save for the hosts of garrulous-Thomas cats which rendered miserable the lives of the householders. At last, one gentleman, the head of a hoflso, by dint of strategy, captured a large and fat feline, which be resolved to slaughter to encourage the other cats. Being a tender-hearted man, however, with conscientious scruples on the subject of cruelty to animals, he hesitated to massacre the cat in the orthodox manner by taking it down to the harbour and drowning it in a sack weighted witha big piece of road metal. After due consideration, he purchased a shillings-worth of chloroform, and with the assistance of a trusty female servant he proceeded to make away with the cat with due regard to its sensitive nerves. They tied the cat in a potato sack so that only its " head waa visible. Then, holding chloroFormed clothes at arms length they dabbed the Btupefying liquid on to the terrified animal's nose and whiskers until it gave a long-drawn ga3p and, as the lady novelists say, swooned away. Then the valiant cab-slayers emptied the remainder of the bottle down its throat, narrowly escaping being chloroformed themselves. Then they dug a deep grave at dead of nighb and interred the cab therein, carefully heaping it over wibh stones. This done the tender-hearted householders breathed again. But the sequel is to come. Two days afterwards, on opening the back-door, he was confronted by the self-Same cat, which quietly walked in and book a seat on the kitchen table ! The householder fled. He has nob been able to look that cab in the face since.

As is said bo be always the case in a certain ultra-mundane locality, indicated in polite circles now-a-days by periphrasis, the chief topic here since Christmas has been the heat; Never does the burden of work seem so irksome as in these sweltering days when the thermometer mounts into the eighties, and the baked pavement burns the soles of our shoes. And the actual heat is rendered more difficulb of endurance when one thinks of the Christmas holidays all gone, alas!—and contrast those bright, breezy days when we loafed away the hours as careless and happy as princes with our presenb miserable existence in muaty offices or shops. Ugh ! how the rough touch of the harness galls as we pub ib on for another year. Will nob even the mosb industrious confess to a feeling of reluctance in putting his head through the collar once more ? ' Groat is labour ; it will make you dearer to gods and men,' sang Hesiod thirty centuries ago; and long before thab day and down to the presonto poets have sung and sages have preached the divinity of work. On a cold winter's day I can embrace such a doctrine with my whole soul, but when the thermometer is so elevated I drop my Carlyle add take up wise old Samuel Johnson, who held thab it was folly for a man to work if he did not need to do so. Probably, some may imagine that to 'Zamiel' in his corner, temperature and seasons matter little. There could not be a greater mistake. As he drives his stubborn quill across the paper, he feels the heab as much aB his neighbour bhere who wields a pick-axe in the streets. fie sweabß in a more literal sense than ever Horace did to write his shortlived lines. If he could muster up enthusiasm for any continuous effort he would certainly devote himself to a crusade against work of any kind in these days. He would raise a banner inscribed 'Idleness,' and would lead the thousands who he knows right well would be too ready to follow him away from the dußb and din of the city. In some foresb of Arden wo would pibch our camp under the greenwood tree, and live there merrily until the cooling season warned us ib was time to bo back to town.

What is hospitality? asked the Town Clerk, when Mr Malfroy telegraphed to him that the two hundred Arawaa were about to visit Auckland, and looked to be hospitably entertained. Remembering the extravagant and quixotic interpretation which uncivilised communities give to the word, ho very naturally became alarmed lest he mighb bo expected to conform to some standard that would tax the city's resources rathor severely. To feed two hundred mouths, probably hungry ones too, at a few hours' notice is no light task. To repeat the thing for several days on end is decidedly an onerous business, and add to that) the providing of the owners of the mouths with sleeping accommodation, and the making of oneself generally agreeable to them all round for that time is not a work to be coveted. The Town Cleric and the Mayor saw a terrible duty staring them in the face if the Maoris put their broad native interpretation on the word hospitality. Not only was there the expense, but there was the doing of the agreeable. Heaven only knew what it mighb mean. Neither gentlemen, I understand, are pakeha - Maoris in any sense, and to carry on an animated conversation with dusky wahines in broken English or mutilatod Maori, to lead a long sauntering procession of wondering aboriginals through the streets from daylight to dark, and probably to take part in the haka at night, was anything bub a happy prospecb. No wonder Mr Philips telegraphed urgent to Mr Malfroy, ' For goodness' sake what's hospitality,' or something to that effect, and hung on tenter hooks till the answer came. Then he breathed freely. Fortunately, the Maoris had put the civilised, Christian, Nineteenth Century interpretation on the word, nob their poor, da-rk, savage one. They were coming with money in their pockets, so the European heart! of the city which would have been :cold had they come coinleas warmed towards them. When it waa clearly understood that ib was only European hospitality, nob the savage article, they wanted, a sigh of relief went up from the city.

When a year and a-half ago our legislators graciously determined that Jane should be as good as her master at the polling booths, as Jack had been before, feminine New Zealand rejoiced, while masculine New Zealand patted itself on the back and admired its own generosity of spirit. We were a most advanced colony indeed ; so liberal, so unprejudiced ; an example to the world, a precedent to the ages. In thia pre-eminent and vastly satisfactory position fate has not permitted us to remain long, for South Australia, walking in our footsteps, has done all we have done and has done more. South Australia has gone the whole bog. Not only has she enacted that women may vote for the election of members to Parliament, bub she has declared in her statute book that they may be members themselves. New Zealand was something with her female franchise and her lady mayor and all that. Now she sinks into the shade beside South Australia. How we shall await, how all the world will await, the next election there, and howj anxiously will one read the proceedings of the Parliament! should there even be so much as the flutter of one petticoab in it. The burning question' .among jgolifcical ladieajn New Zealand will,

of course, now resolve itself into this, 1 How can we mosb Bpeedily emulate South Australia.' The example of that colony will be a spur to them, and they will never drawrein till they place their sex on the benches, in Wellington. Probably then they may nob halt. I rather fear that the goal to this race which the ladies have started on is further than we poor males can dream. But let us not anticipate the downfall of our sex if it must come. If it is inevibable, then let us endure patiently, and commend ourselves to the mercy of the rising sex, who will doubtless treab us as leniently and with as much consideration in the long future as we treated them in the past. If our reign on this planet is coming to a close, let us bequeath to posterity a reputation for those mild and gentle characteristics which will mosb distinguish the men of the future.

The Rev. John McNeill and his colleague, Mr Burke, declare New Zealand to bea glorious country with only one blot on it. Loyal Aucklanderß will nob be surprised, nor sorry, perhaps, to learn that thab spob is Wellington. The evangelists found the Empire City 'cold and unsympathetic,' and were almost tempted to shake the dusb of the place off their feet. They would certainly have had a contract to do that unless they had taken the Wellington wind into their partnership ; but let thab pass. Thai) Wellington is cold and unsympathetic to everything oub3ide ibself we have had ample testimony. Auckland, Chrisbchurch and Dunedin are, severally or collectively, nobhing to hej. She is selfish and wrapped up in herself, and looks with a greedy eye on any good thing that may befall her rivals. I had hopes of her reformation ab one time, bub I have none now. If aho listened nob to the voice of the evangelist, ignoring those visions of celestial inheritances whicn he presented, how is ib bo be expecbed thab the merely terrestrial beaubies of Auckland could awaken her sympathy. We have nothing to look for from her or hers, and ib is well thab we understood this thoroughly. Ib affords an explanation for many of the goings on in and oub of Parliament.