PUMPED OUT.

Evening Star, Issue 8566, 13 July 1891, Page 4

PUMPED OUT.

TO THB EDITOR. Sir,—One sometimes wonders whether Parliament was conceived for our entertainment. Pick up a copy of 1 Punch,’ and notice how Mr Harry Furniss depicts its members, Indeed, it has been said Mr Gladstone would not dare to think of altering the shape of his collar without this artist’s permission. Its history, by means of the electric light, a screen, and suitable sketches is becoming an amusing platform subject for lectures, even more so than anything Mr Gilbert in his most extravagant mood ever devised. We are too matter of fact, perhaps, in those colonies to attempt anything of the kind; and then our sergeant-at-arms does not appears in court dress. It is amusing, though, to read your “ Special’s ” notes from time to time, flow some members are repeating poor old Charles Jardine Dju’s sayings about the bursting-up policy; but it never came to pass. There are as big estates in Victoria as ever there were in his day. Ours want breaking np though, bat by means of a death tax. Then some boo. member wishes us to believe members of Parliament could not be rude at a public dinner table; just as if they were better than us ordinary mortals—l won’t allude to what certain records would say. Strikes have been pumped out; and one hopes the incessant craze for blatant clap-trap oratory will, like tho pumps in a leaky ship, soon suck too. Let thrift be iooulcated; and when we remember the working men of England spend one hundred millions sterling per annum in drink and tobacco, we should pause and reflect, and say a great deal of poverty and misery is brought on by ourselves. In the old Victorian sixties we had bowling demagogues, long since pumped ont; and if a New Zealand Furniss from our native youth would only arise to depict the moralist exclaiming “ Thus didst thou !” with righteous wrath, as if the particular offence had never been committed by the very man burning with his most virtuous invective. How it would tend to elevate better manners and prevent the House going to the dogs altogether 1 “ Let as be judged by our actions."—l am, etc., Asmodbus, Dunedin, July 4.