“Beady, Aye, Ready!”

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume II, Issue 167, 10 July 1888, Page 1

“Beady, Aye, Ready!”

I(“ mr ” IN THE PBES».) Ready, aye, ready! Catch a weasel asleep ! The Governor of Victoria held a Council of War on Sunday ! The fleet got up steam and were placed in fighting trim I Submarine mines were laid, and the electric light wm kept going all night 1 Well, it’s a free country ! If people choose to make asses of themselves there’s nothing to atop them! The New South Wales Government feel no alarm at the sudden interruption of the cables!

Good! What brave fellows they must be, to be sure! Oh, it takes a lot to funk Sir ’Enry, I can tell you ! He’s a bad, bold old man 1 Yes, but the fun ie the superior tranquility of the premier colony! The Government of Victoria may get into a state of terror and rush about getting fleets and things ready, but the Government of New South Wales feel no alarm! They are quite above that sort of thing! The Victorian Government say they were’n’t in a funk at all, really ! It was only gammon! They say they merely used the occasion as a pretext for testing the alacrity of the forces ! Oh, that’s all my eye ! They were in a blue funk, but they’ve made themselves look so silly, of course they’re trying to get out of it now ! They can’t stand being laughed at! The best lark was at Adelaide, though! The breakage of the cables caused great anxiety there! It’s believed that the Chinese cut the cables as a preliminary retaliation for the persecution they're suffering in' the colonies 1

Ah, there’s something in that! Even a worm will turn I Only a preliminary retaliation, eh ? Yes, it's expected that a Chinese fleet will be down in a few days, and make chow chow of the AntiChineesuses!

I wish to goodness they would J No such luck I’m afraid !

Anyhow, they’re not going to be caught on the hop at Adelaide! They’ve put the Protector in fightiug trim and ordered the Permanent Force to remain in barracks ! Yes, that’s wise I If there's going to be any trouble, I should think the Permanent Force could'n’t do better than remain in barracks! Perhaps they wouldn’t be very permanent if they came out I is’n’t the whole thing a pack of childish bosh! Can you imagine grown people behaving in such an idiotic fashion!

Oh, I don't know! It amuses them and does'n't hurt anybody else I There’s one thing! It shows they're heartily aibamed of the Anti-Ohinese racket, and what’s more, they’re beginning to see that the colonies may have let themselves in for a very ugly thing by it! I wonder what they would have done supposing yesterday or on Sunday a thundering Russian ironclad and a couple of Chinese gun-boats had come into Port Phillip or Glenelg and calmly anchored within easy range of Melbourne or Adelaide!

They’d have crawled under the bed and stopped there, you bet! No, but really! Would they have fired on them and so precipitated a sanguinary engagement, and, perhaps, a bombardment, without even knowing whether war had been declared at all r

Goodness knows what absurd folly they might have committed! The chances are they’d have done nothing but rush about screeching, and let off torpedoes among themselves, and behave like fools generally 1 Nothing I should like to see better ! It would bring those bumptious humbugs to their senses!