THE NATURAL HISTORY OF MOBS.

Grey River Argus, Volume XV, Issue 1930, 13 October 1874, Page 4

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF MOBS.

[timaru herald, sep. 18] Horse-shows, dog-shows, poultry-shows, flower-shows, cat-shows, even babyshows, and barmaid-shows, have all been held with more or less success, and we think New Zealand affords a good opportunity just now to add to the list a mob-show. The chief elements which are requisite in these competitive displays are number and variety, with sufficient points of similarity in the objects exhibited to admit of comparison, and a high enough standard of positive excellence to make each article in itself remarkable. Now the mobs of New Zealand possess all these qualifications in an eminent degree. There is the Auckland mob, with its strong flavoring Peruvian of " Bark " always running in extremes, and led away by momentary impulses ; either disgustingly affectionate and grotesquely amiable, or else full of feverish solemnity and truculently angry. It has no fun in it all, and would be a very awkward mob indeed if it were not as cowardly as it is cruel ; it fears the policeman as much as it dislikes the Jaw and order which he represents. It is a very sentimental mob, always getting into a state of passionate excitement over matters which do not affect it practically at all. It reads newspapers and listens to orators. Its idols are rag, bone, and bottle merchants, gentlemen who have " been in trouble on the other side," and anybody who bawls very loud, and looks very dirty. It does not object to wealth so long as it has been earned by the c'e ' sweat of the brow," xjiid its possessors have taken no steps to remove the proofs. Many of its favorites are very rich, but they never wash the filth, off their lucre or themselves. These are the people who used to throw stones and mud at Sir George Grey in the streets. Is it asked — Why 1 What a funny question ! For nothing, of course ; nothing, that is, that they could comprehend. The Governor had had a difference with the Colonial office about hi 3 own and General Cameron's respective powers in conducting the war in Waikato. So he was a traitor, and deserved to be stoned. This is mob-logic. The same people afterwards wanted to draw him in a carriage from the wharf to Government House, and nearly smothered him with their unsavory attentions. He had not done anything, of course ; but General Cameron had not beaten the Maories, so it was only proper to deify Sir George Grey. Hundreds of people blubbered when he went away, and a great many more got tipsy from sheer grief. This is the mob which six months ago looked on Mr Yogel as something rather superior to an angel from heaven ; and lasb week conducted his effigy to the Barrack hill on a donkey, followed by a draggle-tailed procession, and preceded by a ragged man with a torch, and burnt him, or tried to burn him there ; shivering in their shoes all 'he while, be it said, because " Mishthur Inshpecthur Broham " had forbidden any demonstration. The Auckland mob is a drunken, unwashed, ignorant, idle, degraded, rnischevious mob, and can never be elevated or improved until the present generation has died out. It is the growth '< of many years and many causes. The 1 pauperism and depravity introduced with the Pensioner settlements ; the convict population which came from Sydney in the early days ; the occupation by the army during six years of war, waste, and idleness ; the camp-followers, and the scura and dregs of a force of ten thousand men ; the depression and misery which prevailed on the departure of the troops ; and the goldfields at the Thames, which brought a crowd of ne'er-do-weels by their first prosperity, but did not drive them away again by their subsequent failure ; all these and many more, have contributed to produce a canaille, which would at least get Honorable Mention, if it did not take a prize, at the mob-show which we have suggested. But there are several other very promising mobs in New Zealand, and it is not fair to judge till we have examined all of them.