THE ILL CONDITIONED PERSON.
In speaking on Sir David Monro's resolution re the granting of supplies by the House, Mr Yogel is reported in the " Independent" to have made the following remarks :— Coining next to the hon. member for City West (Mr Gillies), he had to remark that curiously enough ho had discovered the conclusion of the tale
to which the hon. gentleman treated the House the other night. It would be re- . collected that he supposed an heireas (the colony) had contracted a matrimonial alliance with a profligate person, who had gambled away her substance, and who, he led them to believe, would have to seek "fresh fields and pastures new." Thb was but half the stoiy. To make it complete, he (the speaker) must gy back some time. It appears that before the heiress contracted her matrimonial alliance, the gentleman who became her husband had the management, under the appointment of her parents and guardians, of her property. It was in consequence of the satisfaction they felt with his management, that the more intimate relation wa? contracted. But there was another candidate fur the management of the property— an ilkcouditioned, narrowminded fellow, possessed of some ability, but vindictive as aCorsican, and with the * temper of a demon. This person was always bragging about his worldly success and his interest in the country, and sneering at those lie supposed to be less richly ondowed. Well, it transpired that it was he who had spread the reports respecting the ill-management of the estates, and who tried to come between the husband and the heiress and her guardians. His (the ill-conditioned person's) notion of the management of estates was to keep an old stocking and a teapot, and to deposit in them all the little amounts he could scrape from the hardworked Treasury, and not to expend a sixpence on the improvement of the estates. But the husband, more farseeing, considered that expenditure on the estates increased their value, and accordingly he devised carefully-prepared plans for increasing the number of the occupants on the estates, for the construction of railways and other large works, and for subsidising the occupants, who themselves spent money in opening up roads ou the property. These measures of improvement the ill-conditicned person called gambling and rioting; and in an evil hour he persuaded a small majority of the parents and guardians that puch was the character of the measures, and after a great deal of difficulty he succeeded in obtaining charge of the property. It was due to the heires3 to say that she was true to her husband from first to last. The ill-conditioned person, on taking charge, devoted himself to trying to find out faults in the manager whom b. 3 hid succeeded. He spread about all sorts at tumors, and he seriously offended the occupants, not.only by withdrawing the aid offered them towards making their roads, but by twitting them with a want of independence and selfreliance in accepting such aid. Twentyeight days were sufficient to convince the parents and guardians of the mistake they had made ; and at the end of that time they summarily dismissed him. Such was his assurance, however, that on the very same evening he came back to the parents and guardians full of splnen, with a long list of aspersions against the magnanimous rival whom he had temporarily displaced. But the parents and guardians had had enough of the illconditioned person. The husband was reinstated, much to the joy of the heiress, and the very parents and guardians, who for a time had credited the libels against him, most rejoiced at his return. The story ends as theso stories generally do, the good wero happy, the bad character received his deserts. The heiress and her husband lived happily ever after ; the parents and guardians continued to repose more confidence in the man of their selection, and every year their belief in his integrity was moro and more confirmed. The ill-conditi< md person continued to try to sow mischief, but no one would listen to him. He moved about from place to place, everywhere detested, until at last the generous person he had endeavored to injure was the only one who had a kind word for him. The parents and guardians are the members of this Bouse.
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Bibliographic details
Grey River Argus, Volume XII, Issue 1326, 29 October 1872, Page 4
Word Count
719THE ILL CONDITIONED PERSON. Grey River Argus, Volume XII, Issue 1326, 29 October 1872, Page 4
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