Striking Diversity and Strange Unanimity.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XX, Issue 2346, 7 February 1893, Page 4

Striking Diversity and Strange Unanimity.

THE "^EinN^ MAiri MILLENNIUM. It ib Baid that " Variety is the Bpice of life," and that "it adds to its flavour." The poet (lasac Watts, or Cowper, we forget which) was not very far wrong when he penned this couplet, for certainly if c would be but a dull monotonous thing were' it not for its pleasing contrasts. In the animal world we have the graceful and shy deer, and the bold and ferocious lion, the huge elephant, and djminntive though destructive mouse; there is the plain, tunible-looking thrush, with itß rich sorjg, and the beautiful humming bird whose musical talents (and he has sense enough to know it) are conspicuously absent ; tren there is the monster whale and the tiny shrinv on which it feeds. Whilst in mankind the contrasts are still more marked and numerous, for not only are their "nKysical 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 the _ same acts rronld be looked upon as ligitimate and onourable In China 1 and India; for instance, we i " believe, lying is a virtue— we won't say a rare virtue j while among the Negroes of America chicken-stealing is considered one of the favourite noaturnul 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 lry violent hands on a poor unprotected fowl. A.v to varying opinions on political matters, they are legion, everybody has an opinion of some sort; some think that Ballance and his party are the willing instruments of the evil one ; others think them 'the only men canable 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 the Public Works Policy, whilst others clamour for Sir Harry Atkineon ; but one and all are unanimous in pronouncing Buchanan's House of Commons Whisky " the Purest and Best in the Market."