AN EYE FOR EVERYTHING

Mataura Ensign, Issue 1132, 6 January 1903, Page 2

AN EYE FOR EVERYTHING

•[Bv Ctclom.]

The holiday! are mostly over, and everyone Is trying to wedge bis bead into his working hat, and look the stern realities ot lite in the face again. The festive season jast past differed bnt little from similar occasions pre. ceding. Throughout the fortnight, the landscape was thick with perspiring perambulatorpropelling parents,- bounders, and honey, mooning odnples. - Everyone appears to d« bitten by the microbe of nnrest at' Christmas Urn*. Country cousins pack op a goose or two, or a pound of butter or so, attd light out for the hornet of city relatives. Town friends gorge the family portmanteau with socks, and hie them blithely to the country—to the country where the cowslips and rushes in the sloshy milking yard; to the county where the pink-eyed calves pranoe merrily in the yellow sunlight, and chew up the household washing as it dangles, from the farmstead clothes-line as soon as the pale mooo softly rises,; to the country where the family pig shrieks huskily in the twilight for his bucket of evening swill, and where the pen is mightier thtyi the sword and several glue factories. At Christmas _ time everybody bustles off to visit everyone else. Everyone knows if he or she remains at home someone is bound to come and stay, and so everybody goes away to spend tbe .holiday elsewhere. Why people should delight in braving the shoals and ourrants of the strange plumpudding and wrestling the distant wishbone, when tbey could negotiate Christmas fare in tho quietudo ol their own homes, is one of those mysteries of human nature akin to the lust tor breaking windows, killing cats, and making good resolutions that rises in the soul of every man on New Year's eve. However, the holidays are over, and though work is resumed under strenuous protest, no one is much the worse for the change that the festive season may have brought. A little of the latent sentimentality of human nature was vaporised, gifts were exchanged, good wishes proffered, and everyone fed prodigiously.

To-morbow evening Sandow in his leopardskin bathing suit, will toss about a choice assortment ol ironmongery in demonstration Of the fact that the muscles of the human body are capable of development even beyond the stage which renders it possible for the patient to split the morning kindling or earth up the annual potato crop. In those parts of the colony already visited by this muscular marvel, a perfect craze after physical development has set in. Young men previously adorned with muEcles which any self-respect-ing canary would have blußbed to possess, have added inches to the measurements of their bounding biceps and oubita to the girth of their enterprising chests. So strong, indeed, has the northern community bocome, that several instances of shop-lifting were reported during the holidays. The spectacle of staid and sober citizens solemnly Sandowing superfluous flesh from their bones, and of youths fondly watching the growth of pimples of muscle on their limbs, will doubtless occupy a large space in local history during the next few months. And if it be so, Sandow will not have unpacked his flat irons and donned his spotted swimming costume in vain.

Mb Skihion is apparently mightily pleased with the Christnmß box the good Santa Cluus, as personified by the faithful in Wellington, dropped into his ample political stocking. What the Premier's friends and admirers at Home will say and think of his accepting spot cash for past services in the face of bis virtuously indignant denials is not ditlicult to imagine. Money, nicely offered, is hard to refuse, and Mr Seddon cannot be very harshly censured for accepting the Wellington tarpaulin muster. Whpre he made the mistake was in philandering. He know the " national" purse and testimonial were being promoted simultaneously, yet he accepted only the testimonial before his visit to England, reserving the pleasure of lifting the bawbees until his return. The diplomacy of his proceeding on those lineß was manifested by bis Ability to give an unqualified denial to a - report circulated during his vi=it to England that he had accepted a monetary reward for services rendered to the Empire. Having no'v taken the money with as much grace as he could invest the proceedings, Mr Seddou's chances of ever comiijg into prime favor at Home again are tremendously discounted. In the portentious words of Te Whiti, " The potato is cooked."

However much ho may havo fallen from grace in Downing street, Mr Seddon is still regarded as their heavy father by the Maoris. So much so, indeed, that certain of them are about to petition the King to appoint him as Governor of the colony in succession to Lord Kanfurly. So far as the European population is concerned, there is no burning desire that he should exercise vice regal functions apparent in the community, and as the natives state they will not be happy till they get him, the difficulty might be got over by the King appointing him Governor of the Maoris. Let him therefore be re-named Tiki Tetohani, armed with a Mosgiel blanket, some huia feathers, and a bottle of sandtly-bite antidote and sent among tho dusky patriots who love him not wisely but too well. This would solve several large problems that are looming ahead, and would provide the Maoris with such a kitful of boom and bluster as they have not known for many moons. One can faintly imagine the Bcene in the dim and distant future of the great white chief raising bis voice (slightly suggestive of pickled shark's fin and smoked eels) in a song of welcome tn the Premier of the day : " Kamate lvamate ; Kia ora Kia ora ; Tenei te tangata, pohuruhuru; Noa ko i tiki mi; VVhaka whiti te ra; Haupane, Huupane, Kaupane, Eaupane, Whiti te ra ! "

In spite of the Christmas appeal by the Bev. G. Heivey to those concerned to cease the boycott introduced locally since the licensing poll, hostilities have not been sensibly abated. Neither the man who drops metaphorical half-bricks on the skull of the person who voted no-liccnse, nor the individual who takes bis custom away from another because he signed the petition to upset the poll, has much to commend his action, although it is a free country, and if Brown and Jones fall out over politics, Jones is under no obligation to continue purchasing his bird-seed from Brown, and Brown may stop buying his tacks and linoleum from Jones without the community springing up and whooping at them. While a little mutual boycott harms nobody, it is to be feared that locally something more elaborate has been attempted, to the extent of endeavoring to injure individuals in the eyes of their employers. These are the troubled waters' upon which Mr Hervey essayed to pour the Yule-tide oil of mutual forgiveness and forbearance. That his laudable effort was unsuccessful is no fault o( his own. Meanwhile the heavers of biicks continue to heave, and the great middle section of tbe community tosßes a mental penny to ascertain upon which side the monopoly of righteousness lays.

Apropos of tbe recent annual wave of Caledonian games which rolled with the wail and skirl of pibrochs, a tartan avalanche throughout the length and breadth of the province, the conservatism and tenacity to ancient institutions of tbe Scot are as remarkable as they are admirable. While Scottish communities ask nothing better than the stereotyped succession of events running through the whole old gamut from tossing the caber to Border wrestling, the English commute of the north demand new and up-to-date sensations. This year it has been motor car racing. Next year it may be flying machine contests, and the year following—who csntell?—some genius may arise and invent running and walking races. Alike in social and religious observances the average Scot is essentially conservative and disinclined to adopt new-fangled innovations. This sentiment or trait of character is admirably illustrated by a delightful anecdote told of tbe earlier days of settlement in a Western district oentre. The Presbyterian congregation waa duly authorised to employ instrumental niußic at tbe services. The only Instrument available was a musical box which was anued with three tunes—the first two of a frolicsome, rollicking order, and tbe third tbe " Old Hundredth " psalm. Every diet of worship wag opened with tbe hymn mentioned, bat before tbe musical box could be induced to toll forth the stately measuree of thai glorious old melody, the first two unhallowed shockers had to be endured by the mutely protesting congregation who stopped their .ears against the baneful influence of such worldy trills and giddy splutters, until thb tone came to tbe surftee of the mechanism. And then they lifted up their vojpet in a trtumpna'nt shoot as cf vioiory cs«the regular weekly temptation to leg In sympathy with the insidious jig and dizxy reel piecedJcg the air of the introduetory bpaa,