RANDOM SHOTS

Auckland Star, Volume XLI, Issue 31, 5 February 1910, Page 14

RANDOM SHOTS

•-ZAMOEIb

Eomf write n neighbour's name to lash ; E.inie thought—for needful cash; Some write to please the country clash, And raise a din. For mc. an nitu I never fash— I for fun. I am very glad that it has occurred ; to somebody at last to stir up the City j Council iibuut the state of the mud flats round the mouth of Cox's Creek. On several occasions I have wandered round the borders of Ponsonby and Grey Lynn in that direction, and I have always come away simply astounded with the state of things there. I don't wonder that Dr. I'urdy has told the City Council that this is a matter that urgently concerns Hip public health; indeed, I don't quite understand how the people unfortunate enough to live in that vicinity have pscaped so long. Of course, there has been a good deal of typhoid about there during the past twelve months, and what astonishes mc is that there has not been more. What are you to expect when you have two open drains running for come hundreds or feet or yards over a mangrove swamp without any means ol clearing the sewage away? I don't know what Mr. Bush means by sayin" that Cox's Creek cleans itself out. If ha ever goes round there on a hot afternoon, at low tide, I fancy he will come to the conclusion that there is a lot of extra cleaning up to be dons. How can you expect the tide water to flush a channel that runs out from a sewer ever so far above high.- water mark? ********** I observe that the Anglican Church Synod, now in session at Wellington, has once more made itself ridiculous by refusing women the right to vote at the' election of vestries and diocesan synods. Of course, it is shockingly ungrateful of, ■the Church dignitaries; because everybody knows that the women nowadays are almost the only regular attendants at church, and that they do the greater part of the actual church work. Where •would the churches be without the women and children who make Tip by far the largest part of the congregations. I think it is extremely forgiving and self-sacrificing of mothers to marshal their children in shoals to places o£ worship, when the spiritual rulers scornfully refuse those mothers the rights that are freely granted to men who never do anything for the church from one week's end to another. What would become of the churches I ■would like to know, if the women went on strike, and refused to do any more charitable work, or organise any more •bazaars, or collect any more money for ecclesiastical purposes till they got their i rights? The Primate doesn't do himself or his cause much good by cheap jokes about the "domestic" tendencies of the clergymen who have the moral courage to plead for justice to women. ********** Of course I know that the Anglican Church doe 3 not contain all the men who don't 'want women to have their right=. Why, even the Australian Political I-ajbaur Conference now sitting at Sydney doesn't seem inclined to accept the proposal to allow women to sit in Parliament, or to act as jurors, magistrates, and judges The argument is that it i≤ not desirable "'to cast any ■further burdens on women"; and up to a certain point I am inclined to agree ■witli it. But tie people "w&o always strengthen the women's rights cause most are the stupid men w!ho rise for the purpose of making perfectly futile and ridiculous objections to it. For instance, one salient member of the Political labour League aforesaid stated that "women got the franchise divorces had increased 25 per cent. It is a woman's place, pronoxmced this oracular male, to loot aftex the comfort of her Ibome and iusiiajid, instead, of wasting iher time en Parliaments and Municipal CotttktjH I suppose there -will always be men prepared to talk ruiHbisi about Sphere"; but when you come >fco estimating the effect of -woman's vote iby reference to tihe divoroe register, it seems to mc that yon. nruafc be reaHy hard jnp for en -argument against tie suffrag- ■ «£tes» <~T, y f 7 y y TTl'TlJrl'T'rT <Tfi is em&nis low extremes meet in "world of outs. The other day we ■received news from London that a new lioiel had been opened with the announcement that "tips" were, to be entirely abolished- No guest was to offer a tip, and aio waiter or porter was to take one; ana by latest; advices the place ■was eim£>ly packed with guests, fleeing from the in3atiable demands for "backsheesh," or rwnatever is its Western equivalent. This is in London; but at the very same moment in Berlin the waiters have organised themselves into a union to compel gnesta to respect the practice of tipping, and they have passed resolutions to enforce it. Up to 3/, the customer is expected to tip the waiter to the extent of 12 per cent; beyond 3/, ihe fine is reduced to 10 per cent; and if the bill comes to £5, the waiter's fee is a beggarly 8 per cent. The hotel-keepers have protested furiously; but the waiters will not give way, and between the upper and ffie nether millstones the tourists are being slowly but systematically separated from their coin. So what is forbidden in the Louden hotel is actually law in Berlin. It is not often that the liotelkeepers issue appeals to the general public not to patronise them; but something of the kind has just, happened in Berlin. I must admit that the manifesto in question is not addressed to any very large section of the nation, but it is very emphatically, indeed, pathetically, ■worded , . It is an appeal ta anybody who happens to want to commit suicide to <-h.?o-e some other hotel: and so far as 1 can mske out, this pretest has become a -aera necessity. In one day last month it appears no less than 20 attempts at self-j extraction were made in Berlin, and

nt-ar',;. an in hotels; and the proprietors naturally feeling that this sore of thing may worry the majority of their clients v. iio "still persist in l'r;ng on," have implored those who intend to shorten "life'= little span" to take the fatal step ■under somebody cisc's roof-tree. It is a enrious situation; and though one ■wouldn't like to be irreverent about so tragic a subject; doesn't it suggest painlul reflections about the amount of happiness to be secured by living ~ m Berlin or «t least in a Berlin hotels