LOOKING A GIFT HORSE IN THE MOUTH.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXI, Issue 6670, 4 October 1883, Page 4

LOOKING A GIFT HORSE IN THE MOUTH.

The Sydney Echo says: — "10,000 families of London dostinwl f.ir Australia ! Wo s-jarcely know hovr L .i take the iip-.vs. There wiil bo no difficulty in absorbing the 10,000, and w& shall lay up treasures of gratitude with the Mansion House people by accepting them. But what is the origin, what the cause of the movement? London crowding may be. London hasbeen crowding for many years, and London is so vast and so dense that tli 3 weeding out of 10,000 will hardly make a perceptible difference. Besides, this sending out is very well illustrated by reversing the old proverb. It ia letting out at the spigot and taking in at the bung. There is more emigration to London than to New South Wales in ev<?.ry year. The frosh blood, tho bright hope, and the strong purpose of tho world stream into the city gates and sometimes rise to the palaces and the towers, and at others sink to the slums. We may be sure the palaces and towers will not be drained for the purpose of supplying us with people ; and are we prepared to accept 10,000 families of the slums ? They are going to drain their great cask a little, bufc will it be only a drainage of the lees ? We shall derive no advantage from them. If we take them it will be for charity. They may bring us some of the carols and more of the slang of cockayne. We can do without either. Alao they may live contented ly about our narrow filthy courts, and feel themselves perfectly at home in the most meagre of terraces, but it would be better for the city that the courts should be cleared and the terraces burned if they are not fit for tho habitation of people accustomed to a reasonable space of oarfch beneath and a fair breadth of heaven above. Ten thousand families of London — fifty thousand sallow faces, squeaky voices, meagre bodies, and barren minds ! We must have run largely into debt witli the world's metropolis if we can only discharge it by accepting such a drainago as that."