Dunedin Letter

Mt Benger Mail, 1 April 1914, Page 1

Dunedin Letter

(From Tuapeka Times.) Gala Week ! Otago Gala Week ! . Hurrah .! ! Of course you are all envying us. A»d of course you ai< all picturing what we are like. 1 suppose you imagine a city gay with Hags, bunting and brass bands. A city ot shops whose magnificent displays of slit skirts, open necked, far above the aakle, glove-tit ting eoatumes the whole balanced on two high heels will convert even the' most scornful and satirical to an appreciation of the sublime aud beautiful. Then, also, you will imagine multitudes of people parading the streets, or flattening then Eoses on the plate glass windows, 0 i Hinging their sovereigns on the counter in careless profusion and, incidentally but still emphatically you will call up before the mind's eye poor old Invercargill busy in the throes of giving birth to a rival Expansion League specially created in order to correct the blunders uf those wicked Dunedin people who are deceiving the summer tourist b v means of scandalous advertisements. Personally, my own observations of Dunedin duriag this auspicious u. are slightly different. 1 have Otagogala week llung at me from the chaste pages of Otago's Daily Crimes and i have it glaring at me from every shop window, but 1 miss the other things. It is nice to be told by means of a black and white placard, deiiantly balanced uli piles uf spongv cakes and jam tarts, that everything in this window is " made in Dunedin " (some oi us, were ii not for the intimation, might conclude that most of ii was brought baek by Amundsen from the South i'alei, and it is most interesting to be informed by another huge card attached to a photograph of the wrecked Tyrone that this was " made in Otago.' it is nice to know that we makt shipwrecks, as well a- Sunday picnics in this our fair cits as every Dunedin Mayor persists in calling it, but 1 respectfully suggest that it is not an iudustrj that we wish to expand. 'then: is one shop, with two windows, in tlie stock exchange '-buildings, and there is a crowd uf people looking in tor many hours oi the day. it is well worth the looking in. But, alas, there is no large piece of cardboard to announce " every thing in tins window was mad'- in Dunedin." lor not a single exhibit was made here. The windows contain some ot the finest specimens of peaches, pears, and apples thai one need wish to sec. Covem Garden Could not excel them. Th ir size, shape, and colour are glorious, ftud stucK hero alii there are little bills ot notepaper on which is written uch items as: "Grown at Lonroy Gully,' "Grown at Uoxburgh," "Grown at the Teviot," "Grown at Alexandra," and so on. Lteal, genuine, bonafido specimens uf the products of the .-oil. Outward and visible signs of what we can do. Living witnesses to the source ami centre of our iutuie weilbeing. for such fruit as this. ■ peaks not only of itsclt inn oi the causes that made it possible to be mere. It proclaims soil, and sunshine, i«ad temperate heat, and blue skies and bracing air. Why, mis little exhibit, came as a revelation to many.

Didn't know we could do it," was the common comment, (if course thy didu t. 1 hey don't Know what is going on at. their own doors. All the must uf us i.now is that we- make furniture, express can- and tweeds, but about what Central Otago can do in the waj of fruit we Isaow next door to nothing. .Meanwhile, like the fat boy in BickwicK, we aie "swellin' visibly " with pride and satisfaction.

You wilt be sorry to hear that Bill Belcher is angry. Also that he is making an ass of himself, .Phe ouly satisfactory thing ajbout it is that he is doing it with his open. 1 am afraid that BHI is sunering,from swelled head, lie seems to think that it there' is anything that needs resistance, and any cause (say an unexpected wedding present to a blushing waterside worker; that lacks ussistaneo that it is his duty t 0 Uing his hat into the ring and then jump in alter it "for the good that he can do." lie is the wholly self constituted champion of tlie worker, and the worker, as Usual, believes he can get more out of "Hill than he possibly can from a man who wears a neck-tie a.nd shaves (occasionally;. In his role as general protector and guardian of the people's rights he has encountered many a tyrant. Like the apostle he has lought with wild boasts at Gphesiis. lie has tackled bloated capitalists,highiy paid oiticials, mayois, chairmen, trade union otlicials (tough nuts thesej and, last but not least, ministers of the gospel, it is ins onslaught against one &l the last that hus once more brought him before the footlights. Bill stands forth as the champion of oppressed bakers and pastry in pursuit of .Nature. It seems that the B s and P's consist oi men who have aspirations above the common herd. They have to wander forth alone and commune with the green trees, to Uing pebbles in the orook and watch the little dickeybirds catch worms. Every B and P is a poet, every B and P would far sooner catch lish from the end of the Dunedin wharf than bake bread at <J o'clock in the morning.

But the B's and i"s live in a harsh world. There are cruel and wicked men and exacting women about. They are denied the ordinary amenities of life. They rarely see the sky, seldom feel the sun, hardly ever catch sight of a green tree. Most of the time they are in the bowels of the earth making bread for you and me. And so it was that these Mature lovers, pining at heart for a sight of the bush and fern and for the shouts and oi the tree and plant destroyers as they crush and yell through the bush, met together and decided, though it vas against their religious convictions, that as they never got a breath of fresh air on a week-day, and as ehurah-goers said good-bye to tk.eir

friends at the wharf on Sunday, and as the parson had to have his dinner cooked on a Sunday before ho could enjo v it, as he doubtless did, like all these church-going chaps, it would be better, spite of their religious belief, to have a family picnic on the Sunday.

And they had it. The Presbytery and the pulpit, the Press and the platform, condemned the departure aa a l»ad one. ihere was absolutely no reason on earth, except pig-headed obstinacy and vulgar defiance of the decencies, which are strong ones, why the picnic of sports and what Bill Belcher colls " enjoyment " could not have been held on some other day. But social democracy, modern enlightenment, love of defying tke con- \ 1 nt u\n% we-aje-as-good-alj-ypu-and-ai-great-deal-better carried the day. Bill had had a Sunday outing with the " locos "—whoever they may be—and it was most 1 njoyable and Bill gave his blessing and championship to the B's and P's without charge. So the order was " Let her go Gallagher, full steam ahead." And the B's and P's had their picnic and the great Bill wrote to the papers.

You'll see what this tribune of the masses had to say, if you borrow a copy of Wednesday's Otago Daily Crimes. It is a sorry production and the editor would have been safe to have consigned it to that great yawniag ever open mouth, at his right hand into which so much that was of infinitely more worth has gone. Bi»t he printed it. The punishment is almost greater than the crime. The- letter is like nothing so much as a rude little boy standing at a street corner putting his thumb to his nose, unfolding his lingers and shouting " Yah !" and then, when no notice is taken of his yell, picking up handfula of mud and flinging them wildly. I am afraid that Bill's head will burst unless he learns to go slow.