RANDOM SHOTS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXIX, Issue 226, 24 September 1898, Page 2 (Supplement)

RANDOM SHOTS.

SAMUEL

Borne write, a neighbour's name to lash, Some write—vain thought—for needful

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

The year 189S will be memorable as I ® the one in which"* three undoubtedly *■ great men, after lengthy lives spent in x the service of their country, passed to ° their rest at a ripe age, after having c maintained physical vigour and mental 1( power long after the allotted span of « the life of the average human being. l Bismarck.Gladstone and Grey are three jj names that Avill long live in the memory of the Avorld, although in the case s of" the last of the mighty trio of £ statesmen remembrance .Avill remain longest where he most lived. Bismarck c by his- successful building of an empire, perhaps condoned to some extent c the methods adopted, for there is no- s thing like success to justify the means l nsed. Still Aye haA-e his own state- - ment. at the end of his labours, 'No one loves me.' Gladstone, on the ] other hand, was Avell beloved, for he < tried to adopt in statecraft the same honourable methods that individuals . should use, and all through aimed at 1 the betterment of the conditions of the masses. It is questionable, how- * ever, whether either of those two ' great men Avill leave such a distinct ] fmpress on the country in Avhich they " lived as Sir George Grey has clone in > New Zealand. Apart from his politi- < cal career, how nuAiy kindly memories - there are that cluster around the ( Knight of the Ka.vau? How many J men and women of to-day will remem- ' ber Avith pleasure the courtly Avelcome given them when as lads and lasses they visited Kawau, and Avere met op ! the" wharf by the kindly host? Then, ; too, what a debt of gratitude the . student of to-day, ancl also in the ? future, Avill OAve to the statesman who, ■ looking far ahead of his time, set aside princely endowments for educational purposes, to say nothing of the literary treasures of his own that he presented years ago to this city? The < pleasure seeker, too, must not forget i that to Sir George Grey he owes re- < serves set aside for the benefit of the . ' people, while the ardent but poor poll- i tician cannot forget that Sir George . first gave the right to men to vote, r_ and not property. Of Sir George it < might be said truly: i For knowledge is a subtle fore in man . •Which guides to lofty thought and and goodly act. : With self responsibility his guide, ; Anxious to gather wisdom day by day, So did he labour with a good intent. . Thinking of the greatness achieved by 1 these three great men Avho have passed _ away brings to the mind the Avords of . another great Englishman, who, like Sir George, wandered in neAv lands ; «»._ious to increase the British Em- , pire. I mean Sir Walter Raleigh, who : wrote, 'Oh eloquent, just, ancl mighty death, Avhom none could advise, thou hast persuaded; Avhat none has dared, thou hast done, and whom all the wbrld has flattered thou -paly hast cast out and despised. Thou hast ■ draAA-n together all the far-stretched greatness, all the pride, cruelty, and " ambition of men, and covered it all over with these tAvo short words, "Hie Jacet."' ; Sir George Grey's death did not , excite aadiat could be called a deep grief on the part of the colony, for the old man eloquent had outlived his period of usefulness, and like Bis- ; marck had almost lived too long. But the national feeling when the news of the veteran's death came across the ' ■wires was that a prince had fallen in Israel—a man whose like we ne'er shall see again. There is something lextracxrdinarv. and even romantic, . in the career of 'Ta Hori Kerei? as his old Maori friends were Avont to call him. Soldier, explorer, dictator, Governor, statesman, scientist, author, and a patron of a,rts and letters, he had run the Avhole gamut of public life and of varied experiences in the world. We can gauge the extent of Sir George. Grey's wide experience of men and the world by recalling the names of the great personalities Avith whom he had been brought into immediate contact. He was well known and appreciated amongst statesmen and men of letters and of science in the Old World, as he Avas in the new colonies of the Southern Hemisphere; and he was as much at home in the centres of learning and culture as in the midst of the rough-and-tumble life under the Southern Cross and amongst the tatooed cannibals and heathen priests and sages of Old NeAv Zealand. A man of infinite variety, nothing came amiss to his hand, from wielding the sword to law-making, and from quelling the insurgent Maoris by force of arms to preserving in imperishable form the rude cosmogony and traditional history of the conquered people of Aotearoa, the 'Great White Land? which he loved so well. Noav that New Zealand's 'Grand Old Man' is no more, no doubt innumerable anf2cdotes Avill be resurrected bearing on his characteristic diplomacy and sbreAvdness. If Sir George Grey had one gift more fully developed than another, it Avas the art of diplomatic and courtly tact in dealing with the varied characters with whom he was brought into contact in colonial life. If Sir George Grey* didn't want to give particular information or promises desired, not the most per- > sistent politician or deputation or ; interviewer' could drag- them from : him. In the gentle art of politely i 'bluffing' the newspaper interviewer . he had no equal. He would receive ; the newspaper reporter in the most j courteous and agreeable manner ima- i ginable, but he could never be induced : to say anything or pronounce an . opinion on a matter of public policy ] or of popular importance if it did not j suit him to do so, question the demon 1 interviewer never so wisely. ( „ • ■•' ■ • • i I remember a 'Star' reporter visiting * Sir George Grey in Parnell one morn- i ing some years ago in order to aseer- I tain his opinion on some important j political subject that was then agita- _ ting the Auckland public.' On the "*• scribe propounding the leading guess tion, Sir George, affecting not toJiear s the query, inquired most affably after f his visitor's health, and what he s jthought of the crisis in the East. Havr s ing listened _ with great apparent {jr

deference to the opinion of the neAvs- ] paper man, Sir George went on to I remark with great empressement that if things went on as they Avere going at ptrestent there was no knowing Avhere they would end, and that if the war-cloud burst there would undoubtedly be serious trouble somewhere. The reporter coincided therein, and then tried once more to get in his question. But the wily. statesman, at this stage, had much pleasure in directing the interviewer's attention to £ new book which he had just received on the subject of the NeAv Hebrides, and in which he took deep interest, The scribe inspected the work, and Ava's further favoured by his host with the opinion that .-'if. the NeAv Hebrides Avere not wanted "by the French, they would probably ere this | have belonged to England, and thus i have formed part of that great Empire, .tc. The reporter fully assented to his, and again endeavoured to 'pump' he G.O.M. on the burning question >f the day. The veteran knight, how_ver, was not to be drawn.' He artessly diverted the conversation to the wils of liquor amongst the natives of he King Country, and inter alia told i page or two of his reminiscences at Taupo or somewhere in 1843, or thereibouts. The paper man, in despair, 5-ot in his question in another form, jut the diplomatic Hori Kerei disposed >f the matter by saying in solemn and ong-clra.Avn tones that the matter AA*as one which deserved the deepest consideration and most careful treatment at the hands of the Government oi the day, and that this.great nation which had been established in the most favoured region of the globe, endowed as it aa-as with glorious climate and Avonderful resources —this young and virile people that was rapidly groAving up at the Antipodes— the people of this colony, he must repeat, would.in due course, and that before very long, show the nations of the Old World what a manly, free and independent offshoot of the AngloSaxon race, trained up in the paths of peace, with free institutions, a splendid system of education, and the disseverance of Church from S.ate, could accomplish; and that if they were true to their trust they would build up here a mighty nation which would ultimately embrace the island groups of the Great Southern Seas, and which— But at this stage the Aveary reporter regretfully took his leave', and the 'Star' that evening did not throw much light on Sir George Grey's opinions respecting that question of the clay. 'Lethe's Stream' has at last beem located. The true Waters of Oblivion are not to be found in the Elysium of old-world mythology, nor is the river Lethe to be found marked on the maps. But we have it right here in NeAv Zealand it seems, and in these prosaic days the waters of Lethe's Stream are being subjected to an unromantic chemical analysis. Mr Skey, the colonial analyst, according to a Wellington telegram, is making an analysis of samples of water taken from a river between Makihinui and Little Wanganui. The stream is a beautifully clear one, but the water has the effect of making every person who drinks it profoundly drowsy, and in some cases a weakness of the limbs has also been left.' Here is a new avenue of surcease from sorrow open to the world-weary mortal. He need not take to the flowing bowl, nor fuddle his brains with the nauseous opium, nor try cocaine or morphia. All he will have to .do will'be to pack up his SA\*ag ancl go and camp alongside that blissful creek with a pannikin —I mean, of course, a goblet. Then he can try and reduce the depth of that stream, and the longed-for drowsiness of complete forgetfulness will creep over his sad soul and he Avill be at rest. The Government ought to buy up the creek and start a Best Cure Home and Oblivion Sanatoriifm. We are threatened with a repetition of the Gasparini episode of some years back, Avhen the arrival in Auckland of an escaped reeidiviste from the French penal station at New Caledonia became a cause celebre. A party of four 'ticket-of-leave' men and two convicts from New Caledonia managed to esca.pe from Yerem'ba, on the coast of New Caledonia, on the 15th of August, and it'was believed that they intended to make for New Zealand. They got away in an eight-ton cutter named the Laura, which is their ark of liberty. The cutter should have made the northern coast of New, Zealand in less than a month, and possibly by this time the six escapees may be on our soil—that is supposing they escaped the perils of the sea. New Zealand is getting a very small country now, and it is not likely to prove a very safe hiding-place for six foreigners. But there is something in that bold dash for freedom of those convicts that appeals to one's sense of the adventurous and romantic. The spectacle of the escaped prisoners, perhaps steeped in the deepest crimes or only the victims of political' enmity, joyful in their new-won liberty, courageously staggering along southwards over the steep seas in their little craft in search of an Alsatia \vhere they may make a fresh start,«freed from the prison and the hard-labour gang, is one which might well give inspiration to the pen of a Marcus Clark. But New Zealand is not in that blissful condition pictured in the old rhyme of the South American poet: 'On no condition Is extradition Allowed in Callao.' And no doubt Messieurs les Kecidivistes will find there is rather too much extradition in this colony to suit their health. The question of the rival railway routes is affording fine opportunities for prospective candidates for Parliamentary honours to Avork up their chances in the next scramble for political plums. These Saturday night mass meetings no doubt serve to indicate how strongly the people of Auckland feel on this subject; but the gatherings are -not without their humorous points. Speakers bob up serenely at each meeting, and the front 'seats' are usually the same familiar faces. So far a bit of bad luck has attended.the mass meetings, for two out of three have been interrupted by firebells, while a fourth one called was squelched with heavy rain. Last Saturday night the bell accompaniment spoiled the effect of the carefully considered opening of Mr Shera's address. The speaker had just got as far as, 'I very much regret' when the Grey - street firebell went into hysterics. With great persistency Mr Shera thundered forth his sentences, but the bell was too much ior him, and he had to wait till silence reigned supreme. Then he started off again, only to be inter* rupted soon afterwards by loud cries

of 'clear the Avay? as the Salvage Corps' van.came dashing along. Such interruptions would have discomposed a less trained speaker, but in Mr Shera's case he got there all the same. Hoav the members at Wellington will like their defeated rivals wooing the people in their absence remains to be seen. That noAv celebrated Tvumi' —saurian redivious —down Gisborne way is at large once more, and the up-to-date St. George who went forth to catch the Arowhana dragon Avith a roll of wire netting and a.gun has returned minus his spiny-backed monster. The search for the 'Kumi' recalls the excitement of twelve years ago over the supposed saurian monster in the Waikato River, which, like the Avily 'Kumi? has disappeared, leaving not a trace behind. Gisborne was all agog for a time over the taniwha's successor, and a delirious spring poet thus improved the occasion in the 'Telephone' of the Poverty Bay Village; 'I am the great Kumi, the friend of the Moa, I've hidden for centuries, I'll hide me no more, I'm a wonderful monster,, all must allow, I'm thirty feet long, and can swallow a cow, I've a mouth like the blizzard, an eye like the sun, And teeth like two cyclones rolled into one. I've a hide like a bison, and feet like a sale, While thunder and lightning make up my tail; I'm four hundred years old, and still I am growing, When I will stop there's no telling nor knowing. Would you hear more of my movements so frisky, You'll have to supply a fresh lot of whisky.'