Striking Diversity and Strange. Unanimity.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XX, Issue 2382, 21 March 1893, Page 4

Striking Diversity and Strange. Unanimity.

THE WORKING MAN'S MILLENNIUM.

It i 3 said tliat " Variety is the spice of life," and that "it adds to its flavour." The poet (Issac Watts, or Cowper, we forget which) waß not very far wrong when he penned this couplet, for certainly if c would be b^t 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 diminutive though destructive monies there is the plain, humble-looking thrush, with its rich song, and the beautiful humming bird whose musical talents (and he has sense enough to know it) are conspicuously absent ; tlen ther" 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 'nhysical features," so to speafr, different, but they differ intellectually and morally also. 10-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 rate virtue ; while among the Negroes of America chicken-stealing is considered one of the favourite nosturnol pastimes, and perfectly praiseworthy, too — provided they " don't get caught in the act." in this country our tastes differ, and our ambitions carry as higher. We don't believe there is a single bank-teller in the whole of the country mean enough to If y violent hands on a poor unprotected fowl. As to varying opinions on political matters, they are legion, everybody has an opinion of Borne -sort; some think 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 Sit Harry Atkineon ; but one and all are unanimous in pronouncing Buchanan's House of Commons Whisky " the Purest and Best in the Market."