ESTABLISHED 1875. Manawatu Daily Times. The Oldest Manawatu Journal. Conducted by E. D. HOBEN, Editor & Proprietor. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. SATURDAY. OCTOBER 17. 1908. SATURDAY MORNING.

Manawatu Times, Volume LXV, Issue 542, 17 October 1908, Page 4

ESTABLISHED 1875. Manawatu Daily Times. The Oldest Manawatu Journal. Conducted by E. D. HOBEN, Editor & Proprietor. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. SATURDAY. OCTOBER 17. 1908. SATURDAY MORNING.

Watchman, what of the Week ? The Rev. Mr Harper ia not the ouly man who thinks wo are in a, shocking state out here as our mail shows. An editor meets with aome quaint correspondence in the courao of his every day work. There was one man, a Californiau, from whom, üßed to come to mo regularly on a somewhat larger journal, recondite disquisitions to prove that the world ia flat, and that, until we realise this, war, pestilence and politics and the Feildißg S ar must always remain with us. He used to drive the moral home with corruscating original poe-

try'.which resembled Browning or a Standard leader iu that it surpaseed all understanding, though its mysticism wa« evidently based on unpeptomsed Svredenborg. * * * Then for a long time there were the Bacon-Shakespeare cranks. Next came the ]£letcherisers, the no-hat, and no-breakfast folk —vrith a sonpcau of common sense underlying their theories, howovor. But the most persistent correspondent of them all was a gentleman, obviously very much in earnest, whose lucubrations are seen in print under the nom de plume of "A Banker. ,, I had thought that in Palnierston I had got out of his latitude, but this week has come the familiar "Fleet" address with the covering letter and the proffer of the little article free. "I venture to enclose samples of ori-

giual articles, ami should be willing to supply you weekly, "FREE OF CHARGE" ho begins engagiugly. "For the past twelve years (Don't know it!) I have been supplying these articles every week to a large number of newspapers throughout the colonies . . . and make it an unvarying rule NOT to supply the articles to more Jiau one paper in a town or district." # * * Only think of it! Tlui highly imaginative editorials of f<o Star could not avail themselves of them, and the Standard's loaders would miss the "Bankers" illuminative touch. ALONE would stand the "M.D.T." Almost tliou tomptest me, oh industrious "Banker." # * * * But when one conies to scan the "original" articles—well, the Twin Souls way have them.. **• * * Here arc excerpts for instance from ono entitled IN TENEBRIS LUX. By a Banker.

"Ono of the strangest phenomena which have oocurred for many years—strauge, because altogether unintelligible, and, so far, not satisfactorily explained by scientists—was the remarkable and unaccountable prolongation of tliG glow of twilight, with the coaiplete absence of darkness during the whole of the night, which recently so startled north-western Europe. A beautiful sunset hue pervaded the northern heavens, as though, the axis of the eartu suddenly changing, the sun had not sunk so far beneath the horizon as usual, and the positiou of the pole had altered five and twenty or more degrees, the arctic cirole therefore moving downwards. It was as though a Joshua had commanded the sun to stand atill in order to prolong tho length of the day.

And so on, sublime rhapsodies on the sunset tintß—more tints evidently than even Mr Isittt can perceive on the face of The Licensee—and finally this moral conveyed, after the fashion of somebody's pill advertisement :

On another occasion, instead of a prolongation of daylight, for a space of three hours, commencing at noonday, * supernatural darkness overspread the laud, a darkness in which, it is believed, the entire earth was plunged, for Nature was then veiling her face, shocked at the dread tragedy which was taking place on Golgotha, where the pare and holy Son of God was bearing the shameful load or.pur sins, and, Himself on behalf of all who will but come to Him, enduring the punishment due by them to Eternal Justice. Aye, well might Nature then, aghast at the heart-rending sufferings of her Lord. shroud jfherself in darkness, and screen Him from the ribald insults of His dastardly murderers. But His death ie our life, His sufferings our passport to the glories and supernal joys of heaven; His crown of thorne our title to a crown of glory.

And this, says the covering letter is specially designed to save "the Tast multitudes" of our district "many of whom, never attending church or chapel, must live in what can be little better than practioal heathendom." No wonder our Shepheid'e sometimes cry out. Now If have never had the felicity of personal acquaintance with "A Banker," but with some others of the type I have, and I often wonder whether the "twelve years' toil" of snob is pure disinterestedness, and genuine belief in their work, or the exploitation of somebody's legacy, or somebody else's contributions for the redemption of the heathen of Palmereton, not to mention Feilding and other of these sinful communities.. * * * * There is nothing like going "the whole hog" while you are about it. ! Mr Byron Brown, who is contesting the Otaki seat, in evidently a "whole hogger." Reading down his address, which appears in this iesue, one is transported to the great U—nited States, and might imagine themselves listening to Roosevelt on the iniquities of the Rockefeller. Never could one have dreamt the straits to which we were reducted. The Flour Trast, the Woollen Trust, the Butter Combine, the Banking Trust, the Tmmany Wedge, and the Members Combine for the keeping up of Honorariums. The collective hair of Shannon must have risen with each successive stage until it arrived at the Great Otaki Trust that placed ite faith in a member who was Only on The Committee, and "never made a speech of any length in the House." Evidently Mr Field has not made a Corner in Committees and if the energetic storekeepers from down the line replaces him there will be a Hot Time, in the Old Halls next year.

The death of "Tiger" Inglis (as he was chaffingly called by the denizens of the Sydney Atheneum Club) news of which was cabled yesterday, will cause a pang of regret in many a heart both sides of the water. For lie was a good and geuial boul, was Mr James Inglis, one of those shrewd, hard-headed Scots, who, Sidney Smith to the contrary notwithstanding, are brimming over with pawky humour. His last trip to the Old Country was marked by the production of "Oor Ain Folk," -a first rato collection of Scottish anecdotes which has had a great vogue since. He was an inimitablo teller of Scotch storifis himself.

The nickname was the result of his tales of tiger shooting in India, but some of his best stories were of

New Zealand and though he only lived here for two years, and that in the GO's, ho always spoke affectionately of it and wrote ever after under the uom de plume of "Maori, ,, while his hook "Our New Zealand Cousins," published in 1886, after a similar volume on Australia, has been the medium of scores of thousands of people becoming acquainted with this country. The Atheneum, with its splendid set of "Hop" pictures and other treasured work of its clever members, will miss a well beloved figure. For many years past the Inglis firm has exploited "Billy Tea," and when the Imperial Bushmen were going to South Africa it piesented every man with a marvellous "billy" of its own invention that provided the campaigner with all his household furniture, short of a bed. Another enterprise of the big Scot was thfl Sydney Harbour collerios, with its mine three thousand feot below Sydney harbour and city, the shaft going right down in the thick of the houses at Balmain. "Jimmy" Inglis was a public man and a M'nistor of the Crown of a type we have not—our own "Tarn" Mackenzie is his nearest prototype.

That is a quaint cabled item received yesterday telling how John F. Young, of the Norfolk Island Executive, "was acquitted on a charge of being an accessory before the fact to tho stealing of the copper boiler of the Bounty." What memories it recalls! It was in 1789 that the Ninteen Mutineers of the Bounty sent Bligh off on his wonderful voyage in a small boat, and tho Youngs, and Christians, and Quintals' and tho rest founded a community of their own with native women as wivee on Pitcairn Island. This Young would be about a great grandson. The community was transferred to Norfolk Island by the British Government in 1856. One of the Quintals, "Oliver Macey," a solicitor, who had been a protege of Bishop Selwyn—a big reckless fellow he was with an irrepressible habit of calling to the most dignified of Auckland's Society dames—with whom he was a favourite—from the other side of the street. Norfolk Island is a very delightful place, with its great avennes of Norfolk Island Pine, and they are a fine people, but for some time there has been friction with the New South Wales Magistrate who stands in the light of Governor, as to the "State Jewels" and the like, the historit boilor included, and one could understand John Young being cheered and the singing of the National Anthem as a hymn of praise on his acquittal. The Norfolk Islanders are built that way. THE WATCHMAN.