ESTABLISHED 1866. The Marlborough Express PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. Monday, May 25, 1903. PITH AND POINT.

Marlborough Express, Volume XXXVII, Issue 121, 25 May 1903, Page 2

ESTABLISHED 1866. The Marlborough Express PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. Monday, May 25, 1903. PITH AND POINT.

New Zealanders are frequently given to grumbling about our somewhat variable climate. It is taken as a whole one of the finest climates in the world, but as the henpecked husband said in a well known modern comedy, when referring to his wife's shortness of temper, "it do blow sudden and strong.'' The roughest blasts of rude Boreas " as we know him in New Zealand are, however, mildness itself compared with terrible atmospheric disturbances which Americans and Canadian call a " blizzard." A " blizzard " is a cold wind which literally blighto everything in its course. The one ju9t reported from the Southern Alberta district of Canada seems to have been a peculiarly bad sample, when the lo3s of stock alone caused by its ravages totals up a million sterling. Ib is nominally spring in Canada just now, but as a matter of fact the Canadians really have but two seasons, summer and winter, and the latter gives way to the former so suddenly that spring, as we understand it here, is practically nonexistent. While Canadians are being rained by " blizzard " the New Yorkers, oddly enough, are having the hottest weather ever experienced there at this time of the year. Beading of these eccentricities of. the weather prophet should make Now Zealand better satisfied with their owe fino, if rather variable climate.

The Maoris are naturally a proud race, and one can qnite understand that some small amount of indignation may be expressed when the news gets abroad amongst them of the recent action of the Customs authorities at Sydney. Under the New South Wales Kestrietion of Alien Immigration Bill, Maoris, unless they can pass a certain educational test, canuot enter the State. It may seem absurd that intelligent men such as the Maoris, who are also good and faithful subjects of the King, should be debarred from entering a British colony, but the legislation is here, and it is difficult to make fish of one brown skinned race and flesh of another. At the same time we should not greatly grieve had the" Sydney authorities actually carried out their first decision not to let the Maoris land, for the mon are engaged as professional hika-dancers at a circus. The haka is a rational dance of the Maori", and danced at a Maori pah, amid native and natural surroundings is not without a certain fascination and iotterest. We confess, however, that we do not greatly favor the idea of professional" hakadancors" going abroad to dance in music halls or cirouses. There is better work for the young Maori to do at home. We would much rather see him acquiring the arts of agriculture and the habits of settled and useful industry than capering about in a sawdust arena for the amusement of a gaping crowd of Australian larrikins.

Poor Arthur Shrewsbury, the English cricketer, who. committed suicide the other day, belonged to the old school of English professional cricketers. He was a splendid defensive bat, a tower of strength to a team "in a hole," but his style of play was, of course, very wearisome from tho "gallery" point of view. Ho made many friends when her visited the colonies a few years ago with a team of which George Ulyett, the famous Yorkshire cricketer was also a member. A more brilliant fieldsman never donned flannel, and in the Midland and Northern Counties of England ho was sinply worshipped by cricket enthusiastg. The manner of his death recalls tho equally sad end of poor Brigg?, the Yorkshire professional, a couple of years or so ago. Briggs, like Shrewsbury, underwent an operation, and in bis despair at the thought of never being able to play again committed suicide,