MR. PARKES ON THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF NEW SOUTH WALES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XIII, Issue 4480, 23 March 1876, Page 3

MR. PARKES ON THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF NEW SOUTH WALES.

At a complimentary picnic given to the Mayor of Ashfield, Mr. Parkcs, being called upon to respond to the toast of: " The Parliament," amused his auditors by a speech, of which the following is a report:—He said that as it appeared they wished him to say something he would tell them what in his judgment Parliament was like. He was one of those strange creatures who had a fond love for the lower animals. He liked dogs and cats, and bears, native bears, and oppossuins ; and he had a kind of love for a snake. (Laughter.) Very well, if he had nothing else to do but to gratify his own taste, he should try to collect together specimens of all these creatures. But his means and the labours that were cast upon him did not allow him to gratify his taste, and the nearest approach he got to that gratification was in the Legislative Assembly. In the Legfslative Assembly, he often indulged in physiological studies, and in his taste for natural history, and he could always find there a type for an old Jack possum. (Laughter)—and for a native bear, and for a wombat, and for a black snake— (Laughter)—aud he was never at a loss for types for rats. (Laughter.) It was the most curious menagerie he over saw. (Laughter.) He excepted Mr. Moses. (Laughter.) Or if he were to cite him as a representative of any animal in animated nature he should consider hiin as a bird of paradise. (Great laughter.) He could assure tbem that if they had auy taste whatever for the study of animal nature, they could not derive greater instruction or amuse themselves better than watch the proceedings of that extraordinary collection of bipeds found in the Legislative Assembly. (Laughter.) Their excellent friend (Mr. Sutherland), who was looking so earnestly, he would consider as represented by an Australian lion, or a Scotch lion— certainly not an African lion. (Laughter.) But whatever might be the peculiar features of Mr. Sutherlaud or Mr. Moses, the Assembly, as a whole, could not be better typified than as representing the lower animals of this country. He hoped they would not imagiue that he was passing any thing like an unfavourable criticism upon these gentlemen, because in his experience he met so many who would be shamed altogether by the correct behaviour of a good dog. His experiemce told liim that there were a great number of dogs even in Ashfield that stood considerably higher than some members of the genus homo. (Great laughter.) But, joking apart, he considered the electors of this country did contrive to send into the Legislature the most contradictory characters. They had men returned by the same body of electors the most opposite in feeling, the most defiant of each other in their arguments and their general character. But a sense of the obligation under which they lay, and of the account which they must one day or other render to their fellowcolonists, had the effect of grinding them down into a groove of common intelligence.