RADOM SHOTS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXVI, Issue 268, 9 November 1895, Page 4 (Supplement)

RADOM SHOTS.

BY ZAMIEL

Bomo \W_t-- a neighbour s name to lash j. owe write—vain thought! for needful casH, Some write to please the country clash. And raise a din. Forme, an aim Ine*er_a3h— I write for fum

A Stock subject for a.gumenb jusb now is whether .peculation in mining shares or horseTacing ia the bigger gamble. The racing man haa no qualms of conscience against putting a few pounds into 'the mine.,' but amongat those who are to beseen lon 'Change' aro a great many who have a 'holy horror' of horse racing, Of the racecourse, tbe totalisator and all connecked therewith. The turfite aaya one ie aa big a gambler aa the other, and ond" leaa arguments are adduced on either side. There.is another who holds aloof from both mince and horße racing, bub speculation in the former is making bhia class a rapidly diminiahingone, and one cannotgoany where nowwithoabbeing compelled to listen to talk about stocks and shares. The truth of the matter ia that there's- a great deal to be said for horae racing, and a great deal more .of gold mining, tha latter being the greatest agency ih tha production of general prosperity to any country. The 'mining boom' has already done wondera for bhia parb of bhe colony, lb has trebled our output of gold, and placed Auckland far and away ahead of all other mining diebriebs in tbe colony ; ib has populated formerly barren waabea, raised the value of property, and broughb workmen of many callings inbo acbive demand ab good wages. The mining localities are hives of eagerness and enterprise, and the results obtained so far are so encouraging that the 'cuto foreign speculator continues with ua. Everyone having the good of the community aa a whole ab heart should feel called upon to do hi- utmoßt to enoofifage the development of our mining resources. There never was a goldmining boon- yet anywhere in which there wore -Tot unsuccessful as well as successful • Venturis and crooked dealings, bub aurally for thia We are not going to throw atfay the good things given to us. The honesty of a man's dealings in scrip 0t in horae racing to a largo measure t-tuat rest with hia own con-cie..<_o, and I think I may go so far as to say that one may indulge in either or both with such moderation and .with inch fair dealing as to be perfectly clear of any imputation of wrong doing. Whether you can make money in bhe contest with those who may be more experienced, and aharper ' investors,' ia another queßtion which each muab decide for himself.

Certain sections of New Sooth Wales society appear to havo been greatly shocked by the marriage of Sir Henry Parkes, tho other day, to his housemaid, a young woman of twenty-two summers. The case ogainab Sir Henry, aa ababed by bhose who bake excepbion bo his conducb, is thab no octogenarian has a righb to marry, much loss a girl just oub of her teens, and that no mart ' haa a right to marry hia housemaid. These, aa I nnderetand, are two of the Unwritten laws promulgated from the court ofHer' Majesty Mrs Grundy; and let him break them Who dare! Sir Henry has broken them, as he has broken other of Mrs Griindy'e laws in the pasb, and he musb, of course, submib bo whabever punishment bheir infringemenb carries with ib. Social ostracism of a severe type musb, I suppose, bo the fate of the woman who haa presumed to step so boldly from tho kitchen to bhe drawing-room, and bhe old man to whop ehe owos her sudden elevabion from plain Mary Ann to Lady Parkes, will certainly be laughed at both for lapsing into matrimony ab such a labe ebage, and for stooping co far in his choice. But really I entirely fail to recognise why tho lady should be ostracised, or the gentleman be made a laughing stock. Why on earth may a man not marry ab any age he likes if he has arrived ab years of discretion and can supporb a wife? Why, if he can geb any proper and fib peraon fco have him, should he nob take a wife to hia bosom ab three score years and ten jusb as ho would ab five and twenty . Thore is nob a ghoab of a reason. People call bhe three score and ten affair an indiscretion, but,good heavens! are all the marriages made between twenty and thirty discreet?

I toll you whab it is young ladies : tho men now aro getting so hard up, and the uncertainties of living are increasing ao faeb, bhab bhe average marrying age among tho male sex is advancing further on every year, and the time will come when no fellow will think of matrimony till his hair is becoming white and hia pockets more conveniently endowed with this world's goods. Then we have heard a greab deal aboub the mistake of a young woman marrying an old man. Bosh ! The older the man the better he will be able to take care of his wife; and in these advanced days when tho new woman is abroad, wivoß require a greab deal of looking after, and husbands require to know a greab deal before they can hope to know as much as their wives. Laßtly, why Bhould a man nob marry his housemaid ? Tbe main bhing in a wife, after all, is that Bhe should be a good housekeeper. It may sound groealy unromantic, bub it is perfectly true nevertheleaa. And in what better school could a wife graduate than in the kitchen ? 1 admit that many of the housemaids are not the moab desirable helpmates for a man, but once let it be understood thab men are going to make their selection from the scullery, and you will see a wondrous change in the personnel downstairs. All honour to Sir Henry Parkes for the greab, good, and democratic example he^ has Beb to Australia, and may he and his bride have all the felicity that is popularly supposed bo be the portion of lesß exceptional matches.

Mark Twain landed ab the Bluff on Tuesday and is going, to work his way northwards to Auckland. His mission in this world has been to make people laugh, and as I understand, this pregrination of his has thab same end in view. There are, no doubt, higher missions on earth bhab a writer of books may bake up,' bubab bhe same time let us nob undervalue tho man who makes us smile. The work that he does in the world may be of infinitely more importance to his fellow men than thnb of scores of those whoße business ib is to make us knib our brow and be sad. Wo have so much tragedy in life that we should be deeply grateful to anyone who gives ub a little comedy occasionally. There was excellent good sense in the instibubion of jester ab royal courts in the old days. When maj&sty was weary wibh the burden of State it was well bhat there was some one by who could drive away the cloud from his brow or lighten his heavy hearb wibh quips and cranks and #aaton wiles. Those merry counsellors in motley have all vanished, wibh wuCb else that was excellent in its daY But the (Sid order has given place to abetter, tend now—bhanka bo the printing pre«- and bhe school—nob only majesty, bub

the loweeb ecullion in bhe palace, may shake hie sides over bhe rarest wib. For my own parb I bhink the present stato of things preferable, but though I have apent many a bright hour over Mark Twain in paper, I shall nob regreb bo see him in the flesh. Ab the same time I do not pitch my expectations aa to whab he will actually be very high. I have been disappoinbed in more than one famous humorist when I meb him face to face. He wasnotthe funnyman I bad known in hia booka, and he knew thab he was nob. Bub he felb bound in honour and reputation to appear funny, and ended by appearing abrainod and unnatural. • He waa nob, used, like bhe jester of old, to fire impromptu wit-ici.ma ab you while you waited. He had to cater for a critical public, and did nob like bo be funny rashly. He had to cater, too, for a public thab pays for its fun, and he was nob prodigal of good thinga even when they mighb occur bo him. « * * •* * » * * * In Wellington a movement is on foob bo establish a domestic servants union. Mistresses please note! Tbe Bill of lasb session which soughb to guarantee Bridget a half-holiday every week was bhrown oub, and perhaps this ignoring of the rights of a large and powerful claes in the community on the parb of bha Legislature may bo the reason for bho new proposal. However that maybe, bhere are, I believe, undreamt of possibilities in a domestic servants union. In many houses tho domestics have had anything but a rosy time. They havo been too much tbe slaves of all work from whom everything haa been exacted and to whom libblo consideration was given. In the interests of those who aro subject to bad masters or mistresses we may welcome tho idea of combination. But there is another side to the matter. How will it bo when the union calls on its members to come oub oasbrike? Whab an übber disorganisation of our whole social system will we bhen experience. We shall have bo go breakfastles. to work and supperJeas to a Bheeblesß bed. And then when bhe strikers come back they will be so arrogant thab wo shall practically be their servants. They will demand concoaeionß we would never think of granting. Caps and every other veatige of uniform will be cast for ever aside, we Bhall be expected to use the prefix Misa, to supply beer and put up with unlimited policemen in tho kitchen and tbe larder. Alaa ! what is our civilisation coming to ? M** * * •• * « A ahort cable message published recently abated thab another party of male and female mißßionaries had Bet oub for China. That waa aboub the Bum total of the paragraph, bat underlying ib all is food for contemplation. Scarce have the piipera finiahed giving details of the horrors of the Kuchang massacre, than we are informed that the volunteers have Bet out to take the place of those who have fallen. Surely, hero is heroism equal to that shown by tho soldier on the babblefiold who steps forward to take hia fallen comrade's place in the front rank. In the caee of the misaionarins too, there is nob the excitement of the battlefield to lead them on. Nor ia the saoritice theirs alone, for there must be fathers and mothers, brothera and sistora who bade farewell to the roisaionary party with sad forebodingß aa to when they would meet again. One muac admire tho selfsacrifice shown even if the queetion is raised whether the game is worth tho candlo. Tako the Kuchong case for instance. It will take eomo years of patient work to undo the evils arising out of that unfortunate occurrence. Already a number of the offendere have been oxocuted, bub ib is doubtful whether that fact will tend to aid the efforts of the missionaries in any way beyond perhaps preventing the repetition of such conduct. But even suppo.ing the mission ia re-ostabliahed and bolstered up by British bayonets, will that be conducive to the work. Will the relativea of those who have been executed forgeb that bub for the missiontf_6ir friend, mightyetbewith them. After all, ib ia questionable whether it is worth while risking national embroilment to prosecute a mission work that co far at least has, as shown by statistic*, given very poor results. At the same time, no I atatrd before, one musb admiro tho spirit dis. played by those who have set out for the same field of labour. It is hard, of cour.e, to see what are the real reeults of mi.aiona, aa an influence is hard to trace, but when the excellenb work done by tho late Bi.hop Hill in this ciby is remomberod, ib would eeem that there would have beon greate. gain had he remained here amongst hia own countrymen, who wanted him, rather than go amongst niggers who noibhor wanted nor could appreciate him. Some how, when I see these losses at the oubposta, I feol inclined to think that ' Beginning firsb ab Jerusalem ' is the half of bho vorae bhab requires moßb bo be remembered.

There is, howevor, a kind of missionary work thab can be carried on hero. 1 refer bo the 'strangers within our gates,' the aliens whom we are so anxious to provonb from coming here bhab wo wanb special legislation and a high poll-tax bo keep bhem oub. It muat seem funny to the Chinese to see a people so eager to cave their souls and ao anxious not to havo their bodies too close. Still, when tho almondeyed stranger is sojourning with us, surely thero ia an opportunity to proselytise him. Yet, until recontly, nothing has been attempted in that direcbion in Auckland. I hear, however, now thab ab least one church in tho city ha» several Chinese amongst the congregation, and on tea meeting night the amateur missionary young ladies Bat ab the same table with the visitors from bhe Eaeb, to bhe inbense diegueb of some of bhe unregenerato young fellows, who nob, boing brands plucked from the burning, had to cool their toes ab another table and wish in their inmost h_ear.B thab for onca at all events, they tfSte Chinese, * * * **# * * *

Melbourne Cup week invariably offers so bempting a text bo preachers againsb gambling that it can hardly tail to be used by them to point a moral and adorn a tale, and to-morrow no doubt the occupants of divers pulpits in Australia and New Zealand will thunder out against • the vice which is sapping the energios of these young countries.' Yeb bhese sermons are little heeded. Tho whole of our life ia such a huge gamble, that when the preacher is heard denouncing these littli incidental betting saturnalias it receives little attention, preach he never co wisely. The whole aim ot modern life is to get gold as apeedily and aa eaeily aa poaeible—tho meana whereby it ia gained matters very little ao long aa one ateera clear of gaol. There i 8 a popular delusion bo bhe effecb bhat work is a noble and glorioua thing, and that man i 8 happiest when he is toiling hard for his daily bread. Tbia has been dinned into our eara by preachers, writers and speakers for hundreds of years, until we have oome to believe it as gospel. Tho other view of the question is thab work is a curse, and thab one's chief aim should be bo get money aa quickly as one can with the leaatexpendifcure tbat one can. Thia ia the chief reason why mci» rash to the Stock Exchange and the racecourse to gamble; they do nob like work. Ib is idle to say this is wrong ; people will nob listen to any objections raised onco they have made up tbeir minde to gamble. Ido not defend the practice of gambling bub I do say that it ie perfectly impossible to stop people from gambling in some form or other. The conditional of modern' life are to blame for this. If we were able to live like our primitive anceators, or like fche happy denizens of the Polynesian Islands, thore would be no inducement to gamble because there would be little need foi money in our daily life. Bub constifcabed as civilised society is in these days, 'to gamble in come form or other is becoming as natural as to breathe—and ib will nob decrease, ib will increase,

The inconsistency apparent in condemning one particular form of gambling and not another ia a feature which always strikes me when tha evil of betting is inveighed against. This is an advertiaement inserted in a local paper on Melbourne Cup Day, which I preaume waa paid for by some well-meaning, anonymouß individual out of hia zeal for the regeneration of tho human race :— •The races—(l) Betting and gambling; (2) unwholesome excitement ; (3) undesirable company in general; (4) the encouragement of vice ; (5) disappointment and Helfdi.guab, Booner or laber. Think bwice.' The pereon who inserted thab benevolent ' ad.' bhought eolely of horee raoes, yet he could have made a far better poinb had he substituted the words 'speculation in shares' for * the races' — not tbat anyone would have paid the slightest ab. tontion to it for all thab. Every word would apply with more force to speculation in mining shares, yet no one thinks of inserting advertisements in the papers warning people against the woeful evila of stock exchange gambling. The races occupy our attention for only a few days in bho year, bub every day in bhe week the scrip fever ia wibh us, and we can hardly avoid it, for everyone talks goldmining. Of the two evils—if ' ovils' they be—the horse racing and betting business is decidedly bhe less important, for it ongagea the attention of bub a compara bively Btnall proportion of the public, whereas tho mining fevor engrosses tho attention of all soctiona and classes of the people. Bub ib sounds much nicer to call ib ' legitimate speculation.'