Striking Diversity and Strange Unanimity.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XIX, Issue 3293, 5 December 1892, Page 4

Striking Diversity and Strange Unanimity.

TBUWOBKINGaiAN'SMILLBNNnJM. It is said' that '^'Variety is the spice of life," and that "it adds to its flavour." The poet (lesac Watts, or Cowper, we forget which) waß not very far wrong ■when he penned this couplet, for certainly ife would be but a dull monotonous thing •were it not for its pleasing: contrasts. In the animal world we nave tbe graceful and shy deer, and the bold and ferocious lion, the huge elephant, and diminutive though destructive mouse; there is the plain, humble-looking thrush, with its rich song, and the beautiful bumming bird whose musical talents (and he has sense enough to know it) are conspicuously absent; tlen there is the monster whale and the tiny shrimp on which it feeds. Whilst in mankind the contrasts are still more marked and numerous, for not only are their 'physical features," so to speak, different, but they differ intellectually and morally also. In some countries certain acts are considered dishonourable and even criminal, and in others tbe same acts would be looked upon as ligitfmate and onourable

In China and India, for instance, we believe, lying is a virtue— we \? em't say a rare virtue j while among tbe Negroes of America chicken-stealing is considered one of the favourite nocturnal pastimes, and perfectly praiseworthy, too — provided they " don't get caught in the act." In this country our tastes differ, and our ambitions carry us higher. We don't believe there is a single bank-teller in the whole of the country mean enough to ley violent bands on a poor unprotected fowl. As to varying opinions on political matters, they are legion, everybody has an opinion of some soit; some tbink that Ballance and bis party are the willing instruments of the evil one; others think them the only men capable of ushering in that era of unexampled prosperity termed by some enthusiasts the Working Men's Millennium; others, again, are loud in their praises of the author of tbe Public Works Policy, whilst others clamour for Sir Harry Atkinson ; but one and all are unanimous in pronouncing Buchanan's House of Commons Whisky " the Purest and Beat in tbe Market."