RANDOM SHOTS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXVIII, Issue 246, 23 October 1897, Page 2 (Supplement)

RANDOM SHOTS.

gome write, a neighbour's name to lash, Some ■write—vain thoughts for needful

cash, . . Some write to please the country clash, And raise a din. For me, an aim I never fash— I write for fun.

The police are on the tip-toe of expectation as to what the new Commissioner from Scotland Yard is going to do with them, and there are said to be anticipatory shivers passing through some of the veterans who are not accustomed to innovations in constabulary duty as it is in Ne*/ Zealand. .The Commissioner is expected round here before long, and the force, ■will have to look up and brush the cobwebs out of their eyes. If they are to maintain, or retrieve, their reputation they must at all costs run in a few more burglars, and if we have a good sensational gory murder up this way, with the sanguinary assassin of course smartly arrested afterwards though armed to the teeth, it may improve matters from the police point of view. The public confidence must be restored at all costs.

It is said that the genuine Englishman when in trouble writes to the 'Times,' and it would seem as if New Zealanders had the same faith in Eoyal Commissions. We have from time to time had a good many Royal Commissions in this colony, but it is questionable whether they have repaid the cost incurred. I don't know that gumdiggers were much the gainers by the Gum Commission, and if all accounts are true sweating has not been abolished although a Commission inquired exhaustiyely throughout the colony some years ago into the ramifications of that pernicious custom. However, a Commission was wanted for the police, and of course the Government granted it. To refuse would look as if there was something to hide. It is to be hoped that among other questions the Commission will take evidence as to the requirements of the men, and also the quarters the single members have been forced to occupy for some years past in this city as compared with the accommodation provided in Wellington. The rate of pay which is offered, to stalwart young men to induce them to join the force might also be considered, likewise the length of time an intelligent man is likely to be m the service before he has the slightest hope of promotion. Another interesting question would be a return of the cost incurred during the last fivev years by the frequent removing of married constables from one station to another. In connection with this it might be as well to find out the actual loss to the men owing to their families being compelled to give up situations in order to move with their

parents to another station. The mlas even extended to our lady friends. One well-knownpolitical lady returned home the other afternoon in a state ©f virtuous indignation and informed her husband that she thought a police inspector might find a better way of spending his time than parading all day in full uniform up and down in front of Messrs Smith and Caughey's establishment in Queenstreet. The unregenerate worse half) nearly choked with laughter as he tried to explain to his wife that the Crimean veteran, though a fine specimen of a man, was still not our worthy local Inspector of Police. They say you require to live 'with men to know them, and if the members of the Commission when they come to Auckland will kindly lodge in the Police Barracks in O'Rorke-street for a night or two, they will not only know the men but also understand a little about the nocturnal visitants that hover round their heads to watch their slumbers at night. I fancy after spending one night at the barracks the aforesaid Boyal Commissioners would be inclined to ask as a favour that they might rest in peace next evening in the police cells as a pleasant change. Eats may be kept out of clothing, but there are certain creepy things that have avery strong tendency to return home in one's luggage.

The Englishman's good conceit of himself is proverbial.. It is amusing to notice how the average Britisher arrogates to himself all the noble attributes and consistently denies any of them to the unlucky being who has the misfortune to be born a Frenchman or a Dutchman. Like the hero of the song—

'In spite of all temptations To belong to other nations, He remains an English ma-a-an.' At the Ponsonby school inquiry into the caning case the other night a committeeman rose in dignity to protest against a remark of the chairman reflecting on the teacher whose conduct was under investigation, and said in ponderous accents that there was no need for the teacher to object to the chairman's remarks while there were 'eight British men on the committee' to see fair play. Whereupon the dominie sat down quite satisfied, but the chairman, who was the ninth member of the committee, glared at the speaker in silence. Of course it was to be inferred that the luckless teacher would not have got fair play if it had been a committee of Frenchmen, or Germans, or Italians or Americans; it was only with genuine sons of John Bull that his interests would be safe. Again, in the House of Eepresentatives, the other night, one Buchanan, M.H.8., in the course of a tirade against the Government and the Financial Statement, referred to the table in the Budget showing the disposition of loan money for 'reproductive and unreproductive purposes,' and asserted in his most solemn manner that if ever a 'cooked' account was placed before 'an assembly of Englishmen' it was one. I don't suppose Mr Buchanan meant the House to infer that to Englishmen alone belonged the peculiar joy of going through 'cooked' accounts, or that foreigners do not cook accounts, but it somehow sounds like that. Or, to look at it in another way, he evidently considered that only Englishmen would object to the culinary art being applied to figures, as if the 'demmed' foreigners didn't mind it in the least. The funniest thing about it is that Mr Buchanan is a Scotchman.

Some funny bicycle riding may be seen occasionally in our streets. The other Sunday two gentlemen were approaching each other in Ponsonby Road. The width of the street is, I believe, 66 feet, but it was all too narrow for these particular wheel- j men; so they went plump into each other, and as was the case with Mrs : Jezabel, 'great was the fall thereof.' They did not gather up twelve basketsful of remains, but each cyclist returned whence he came carefully carrying home his own busted machine. During- the same week another gentleman rider tried gymnastics on wheels in Karangahape Road. First of all he ran over a j little dog. The canine merely rolled over and then barked vigorously. The human being rose more slowly, and although he did not exactly bark with his voice he found he had done so no his shins, and the language he used probably voiced the feelings that the dog was giving expression to J in his own imperfect way. The | cyclist seemed to have been rather shaken up, because when he mounted again amidst the smiles of an unsympathetic crowd, his machine wobbled about just as if it wanted to :go to the Hagey Institute in order to be made aprohibitionist. However, down the street an inoffensive horse was standing tied to a verandah post. By this time the cyclist must have grown ambitious because he had I turned a dog over. He tried the same ! process with the horse, but the attempt was not what might be termed a success. The horse had every confidence in itself and remained upright, but the cyclist once more grovelled in the mud, as if he was a Klondike miner groping for nuggets in placer gravel. More cuss words followed. The cyclist was then told that there was a church round the corner that would not object to beingrun into, but he cast a withering look of scorn, and slowly risingwheeled his machine straight, because he walked alongside and held it up. Quite recently another cyclist was so impressed with something he j saw in ashop window that he made a bee-line for it and then went off to find a glazier to put in another pane of glass. 1 have been told there is lots of fun in the riding of a bicycle, and no doubt there is for onlookers when beginners first take to the roads. The 'staff of life' is popularly supposed in most parts of the civilised world to be bread, but in Tararaki it is butter. This flippant anecdote, which touches the Taranaki-ite on his most tender spot is from a Hawera paper : —'A schoolmistress up Kaponga way was lecturing her scholars on the value of gold, delivering herself somewhat ttmsly :—"Now, what is it that is so yellow, so precious, that is so necessary for our existence —that which makes our journey through life so easy, and the rich and poor so dearly % love ?" And that little class with one accord yelled "butter !" They were the sons and daughters of dairymen, but their hearts were true. Tenderly they carried the fainting teacher out, and put her head under the tank tap.' Butter is truly gold around the slopes of Mount Egmont.

Aucldanders have a public treasure of which they may well be proud in the Art Gallery, and the possession of such a collection of pictures gives us an enviable pre-eminence in this respect over other towns in the colony But I have often thought that tv«»— is one tnmg wanting in our Art Gallery, and that is a collection of paintings illustrative of important events in the history of this country. We have paintings galore of shepherd boys, milkmaids, German castles, Swiss peasants, and waterfalls, but what is wanted is something which will complete the gallery from a national point of view. Tourists and

visitors who come here generally make a point of looking over the Art Gallery, and it would be infinitely more interesting to them to inspect a series of paintings illustrating memorable events in the history of New Zealand than to find the place filled with, hackneyed representations of what they can see in any other collection of works of art, and of scenes with which they are -only too familiar. But apart from the interest which they would prove to visitors from abroad, there should be enough patriotic feeling amongst Aucklanders to ensure that our Art Gallery is provided with pictures which shall bring before us the leading- events in our short but not uneventful island story. The discovery of New Zealand by Abel Tasman two centuries and a half ago, the arrival of Captain Cook, the signing- of the treaty of Waitangi, and the hoisting of the British flag, the forestalling of the French at Akaroa some half a century ago, and other historical happenings, such as the landing of the Maori pioneers after their adventm-ous canoe voj rage from the legendary Hawaiiki —all of these are fully deserving of commemoration in a public art gallery, and of being invested with the most picturesque of detail.

There is abundance of material for the brush of the artist in such land marks of New Zealand history as these events, and there are artists amongst us who are competent to put them on canvas. Sums of money are frequently expended by those in authority over our public art collections for the purpose of procuring pictures from the hands of English and Scottish painters. If occasionally a small portion only of these amounts were devoted to the acquisition of good and accurate pictures of such of our national events as are worthy of pictorial record, the community would be the gainer, and we would in a short time have a gallery enriched with paintings which would be of infinitely more general interest and of real value than some the dubious works of "art" that at present cover the walls. We are too prone to fall- down and worship anything from abroad, and to ignore the possibilities at our own doors.

Knelt on the Floor, of Course. Mamma (confidingly): "Yes, Dolly, your father proposed to me on his knees." Dolly : " Oh, mamma, how shocking !" —"Funny Wonder."

Mr Alexander and "Poor Svengali." —The "Daily Mail" quotes a letter from Mr George Alexander from Innsbruck : —"I am having a delightful time and a thoroughly interesting holiday. As Cologne is mentioned in Carton's new play I had, of course, to journey there to work up local colour. I found 'Trilby' being acted at the Summer Theatre. It was a strange version. The actor who played Little Billee was evidently the 'star,' and the play was written round him. Every time poor Svengali tried to do or say anything Billee knocked him down. I feel sure if he had been an English actor he would speedily have joined the ranks of actor-managers."