Striking Diversity and Strange "dnanimity.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XX, Issue 2393, 5 April 1893, Page 4

Striking Diversity and Strange "dnanimity.

♦ — - I THE WOEKIRG MAN'S MILLENNIUM. It is said that " Variety is the spice of life," and that "it adds to its flavour." The poet (Issac 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 liop, the huge elephant, and diminutive though destructive mouse;, there is the plain, humble-looking thrush, with its rich soog, and the beautiful humming bird whose musical talents (and he has sense enough to know it) are conspicuously absent ; tten 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 ore 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 rrould 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 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 If y violent hands on a poor unprotected fowl. As 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 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."