AN EYE FOR EVERYTHING

Mataura Ensign, Issue 1146, 7 February 1903, Page 2

AN EYE FOR EVERYTHING

[Bit, Orators.]

The Queenßtown weekend excursion! have obtained a wonderful vogue, and nearly every male person in Southland possessed of » Panama hat, a sweater, and a pair of eyellng stockings has fluttered himself off to view the sights. During the recent warm weather the weekly trips have proved a delightful change for everyone. Everything appears «o 000 lat the Lakes. Tbe notelkeepers are 000 l and collecting. They charge heroically and relieve the Saturday garrison of the earking cares attendant upon opulence before the Wednesday morning summons to home 1 and beauty is sounded. Everybody else attached to the plaoe is also cool. Trippers are compelled to pay threehalfpence for a penny daily paper, and about tbe only thing which is not inflated in value about 100 per cent, above published price is tbe privilege of enjoying a little sunlight on the roadside. Possibly before next season this clement will be " cornered " and retailed out at threepence per medium glass, or sixpence the long sleever. One oannot blame tbe Queenstown people for exploiting tbe prodigality of the weekly surprise packets coming their way. Sunday clothes and liberality go band in hand. The average tripper does not care a rap whether he pays the original cost of the boarding-house bed for tbe privilege of sleeping in it, or tbe market value of the livery stable horse and buggy as tbe fare for being driven a mile or two where the scenery is kept. He appraises the enjoyment he has extracted from bis holiday by the number of subsequent weeks spent in tbe sackcloth and ashes of skinflint economy endeavoring to scramble back upon the pedestal of financial convalescence.

Evkiiy boy worth his salt, and gifted with an average amount of intelligence, has, during his kickerbocker stage of existence, certain definite and comprehensive ambitions in tHe matter of a career in life. Most of us who have passed through that stage will easily recall the aspirations. Some of us in our secret hearts determined to be tram guards and blow a whistle all day ; others pictured ourselves as civil engineers making drains with plenty of frothy, soapy water in ibem; others resolved to be cngine-drivens running fast exprea&u at a mile a minute; others hankered after the life of a lamplighter; most of us would have been tailors; but few of us have found the niche in the economy of the world's affairs which our fancy carved in the buttrosses of Time when life looked pink and gold as viewed through the eyes of budding youth with putty and string in one pocket, pitch and well bit:en apple in the other, and nails playing the gallant part of pants buttons.

Bct the times have changed and so also must have the dreams of boys of a later generation. Instead of our youths pining for the posts of tram guards or the tarry toils of the sailor, there will shortly come a demand to be apprenticed to a Premier. And no wonder, with the golden example that is displayed. Our Premier of to-day wields power that must entrance the dullest boy and dazzle his mental vision with the glowing possibilities of the situation. At his bidding trains snort from whence to whither, steamboats plough the Acid of ocean indicated by a wave of his imperious band. At his word nobodies blossom into somebodies at tall salaries. It is in his power to make the low high and the high low. To gain his approving smile means a snug billet; his frown the sack. When Parliament is in session he claims responsibility for the regular rising of the sun, and during the close season he arranges the rainfall for the next year. Just now, however, he is making a tour of the principal centres of the colony gathering up fat national purses. Some jCOno id waiting for him in Auckland, and he states he will bo there to collect it on the 10th or 17th of this month. No wonder our boys want to learn such a trade. Acconmxo to a telegram from New York on December 14th, to a Lyndon paper, John Alexander Dowie, the Chicago self-styled prophet, has invented a machine, with clockwork attachment, to register intercessions on behalf of those who are sick. The patients receive a printed slip, " Prayed lor, December Ist, I p.m." In the case of any of his followers at a distance falling ill, DowieJ prays over the telephone. Ha also speaks? into the phonograph, and undertakes to fori, ward cylinders inscribed with prayers to his adherents in any part of the world at a fixed charge. Evidently there is money in the prophet business if it is pursued alon K commercial lines. A price list of Dowies phonographod lucubrations, called prayers, would be interesting. One can almost imagine its contents: "This style 4s " liettor quality, slightly shop-worn, .'h Hd." "Extra stiong, full weight guaranteed, 7s 7jd." Dowie is intensely practical in his methods of religion. Ho proceeds entirely on the cash system, and is said to be practically a millionaire as the result of his business. By recent cables it will be noted that he intends opening a branch establishment in New York. At all events he is to hold a mission (corresponding with the average draper's display of summer novelties) there in October, and if his visit proves successful (i.e., business is good) he will build another '/Aon City (i.e., erect a branch shop). A field of splendid possibilities is opened up before the religious adventurer of the Dowie type. There are patent intercession registering machines, printed prayer receipt forms, telephonic supplications, and graphophone Dowie prayer cylinders. The only things lacking now are X-ray collections and Marconigram hymns. At last something of a clearance is being made in the Government Buildings at Wellington. For ye,:rs this establishment has harbored scores of tcrrifio bounders of all descriptions. Gilded, sappy youths who have haw-hawed in the various departmental offices from ten to three daily, with intervals tor lunch and beef tea, and draw their pay in an elegant fashion, conscious of the fact that if they have done thiir long-suffering country no particular good, they have at least done it no special harm, beyond perhaps chewing the ends of a few of iU pens. And so some of the simpering trifles of humanity are to bo projected forth upon the bumpy highway of the outside world, and the burden on the taxpayers will be the igbtcr for their exodus. One dan forgive the lazy laborer who does a day's work in one's garden and costs three days' wages, but the community has no time tor the individual who loafs on his country in an impossible collar, gloves, eye-glasH and a perennial hawhaw.