Striking Diversity and^ Strange Unanimity. ...

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XX, Issue 2363, 28 February 1893, Page 4

Striking Diversity and^ Strange Unanimity. ...

"~ : THE.JVORKING MAN'S MILLENNIUM. It Ts said that " Variety is the spice of life," and that "it adds to its flavour." The poet (Isaac 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 Sere it not for its pleasing contrasts. In le animal world we have the 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 1 beautiful humming bird whose musical talents (and he has sense enough -to it) are conspicuously absent ; tlen there' is the monstjer whale and the tiny shrimp on which it feeds. Whilst in mankind the contrasts are still more marked and numerous, 1 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 the same acts would be looked upon as ligitimate and onourable In China and India, for instance, we believe, lying is a virtue — we won't say a raie virtue 5 while among the Negroes of America chicken-stealing is considered one of the favourite nosturnal pastimes, and perfectly praiseworthy, too — provided they "don't get caught in the act." In this country our tastes differ, and our 1 ambitions carry tib higher. We don't beli,eve there is a single bank-teller in the whole o£ the country mean enough to ley violent hands on a -poor unprotected fowl. As to v varying- opinions on political matters, they are legion, everybody has an opinion of some sort; some thiDk that •Ballance and his 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 the 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 Best in the Market."