LOCAL GOSSIP.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVI, Issue 9452, 24 August 1889, Page 1 (Supplement)

LOCAL GOSSIP.

b trT . t me hare audience for a word or two." ; —Shakespere. L quite sure that I amcxpressing not ■ rn opinion merely, but the sentiment Tall my readers, when I say that we felt brill of relief and of gladness when it & 1 announced that Lord Cranlcy liad the crisis of the fever, and was Kin" better. We in Aucklaud have '""seen the lad who has been brought from the brink of the grave, but k aC r citizen was deeply concerned to think Tthe sorrow impending over those young 0 j' happy parents who landed on our wharf '"i -a few months ago. During the crisis the illness no news was looked for with much anxiety as that conveyed in tho flecrauis from Nelson. Wo hope to see Jh whole family up in Auckland soon, full {health and vigour and of the appetite ? pnjovment. In any case, we should we bee" glad to have had the vice-regal " ... with us for a time, but this last a i anxiety in which they have all been .'volred will increase our sympathy and Infection. I fc is evident from the letter '■{dressed by His Excellency to the people pf kelson, that he appreciates the concern manifested towards him in his trouble, & Dtlis a noble, kindly-hearted, and grateful

j\ n( i what about Parliament ? There is come little improvement to be recorded, I m pj.i to say, inasmuch as they have ticked out the Otago Central Bill. But member have got the-Wellington typhoid ver v badly, that typhoid being an utter CA re!os?:iess as to the welfare of the colony, a d an utter ignorance as to its state. In this instance, wo are all praying for a fatal termination to the illness; no one v-ouUi regret if tho House were dissolved to-morrow, and if none of the present members were ever to go back. The fact is that our whole Government is a mistake. Wellington is the centre of the colony, but our best men, the men who oucrht" to govern the country, will not cut themselves from their occupations, and take up their residence there for three months of every year to listen to dreary speeches, aud to be witnesses to, and to bave to take part in, the most paltry intriguing. In Wellington the mere adventurers have always the casting vote. Mr. Thompson, of Whangarei, who seems quite a curiosity as a legislator, says that the cause of all our troubles in Auckland is because we are too lazy to work. This is a nice thin <4 tor an Auckland member to say. I have often heard it said of the settlers in the North.

I cad not think who could have been entrusted with the task of drawing up the address presented to the Rev. Mr. Walpole a few evenings ago, but. I must say that it seems to me to be a model of what fuch an address ought not. to be. An address presented in the name of a large tody of people, old and young, rich and poor, learned and unlearned, ought to be expressed in simple, dignified language, and to be confined most, strictly to English, because it is quite absurd to think that they know anything of any other tongue. For an address to be otherwise gives it, an insincere and affected appearance, which should most carefully be avoided. All these are the canons of mere common sense. But this address to Mr. Walpole, presented by the parishioners of St. Mary's, says : —" When we look upon our Dew* Cathedral Church we may well say, p monuvuntiim reqniris, circumspice.'' And then, for the benefit of the unlettered among outsiders, the parishioners kindly translate: "If you seek a monument, look around." In a line or two after we have this : " We wish Mrs. Walpole and yourself health, prosperity, and all true happiness, adm annos, :> and with the same tender regard for ignorance, the translation is given. It looks as if these two sentiments would not have been indulged in at all but for the opportunity they gave to drag in a scrap from the Latin Dilectus. The preparation of the address must surely have been entrusted to some boy who was learning his rudiments. The parishioners of St. Mary's should keep in mind that an address ought to express the feelings of all in words which all can use, and specially in words which all can understand. To have wretched Latin tags lugged in by the ears, and then to have to tell the people on whose behalf the address was presented what those meant' Oh, dear J

I was not very well satisfied with the Rev. Mr. Hill when he was discoursing on political economy or on social topics, and I don't think he has been much more successful in the role of a reformer of our administration of justice. The HamiltonPriestly affair and the Great Barrier murder are gone, and Mr. Hill has nothing new to tell us. As to the police and the justices, and the conduct of matters in the gaol, he has made out nothing. I might suggest that, for a change, he should say something in the Young Men's Christian Institute about Christianity.

Going down Queen-street the other day I met a shrewd merchant, who said, "It's all very well for the Herald to go cracking up the working classes for putting money in the Savings Bank, but there is another side to that business. Do you know that both here and at the Thames—at the Thames especially—there are great complaints that working men get their wives to put money in the Savings Bank, and when the butcher, and the baker, and the grocer want their money they are left to summon, and when they get judgments there 13 nothing in existence for them to recover from. The law should be made so that if the wife has money it can be attached, at all events for necessaries supplied to the family. I am delighted to tear of the growth of habits of economy amongst the working classes, but to put money in the bank in your wife's name and then to refuse to pay your bills is carrying economy a little too far." I was appalled at the revelation. All the legislation of late years has been in the direction of establishing the right of a woman to any property she may manage to become possessed of, but if this is to be the way in which the business is to be worked, then we shall have to promote an amendment Act.

At, the dinner to Mr. J. M. Clark a few evenings ago some amusing stories were told, especially interesting to those who have recollection and knowledge of old Auckland. Dr. Campbell, who presided, narrated that on one occasion he had a tremendous electioneering contest with Mr. Whitaker (now Sir Frederick) for the Superintendency. There were electioneering contests in those days, especially in Ouehunga arid the other pensioner settlements. However, Dr. Campbell won, and was duly installed as Superintendent of the province of Auckland. At the time, roadmaking was going on about the Harp of Erin on the Great South Road, and that, in those days, was a long way out. Dr. Campbell, full of zeal in his new office, and intoxicated with his popularity, bub with nothing else, determined to go out and see the large public work which was going on, and the contract price for which was some £20 15s. Those were the days of small tilings, be it remembered ; we had not then begun to talk about, or even imagine, millions. The Superintendent took his Provincial Secretary, Mr. Hugh Carleton, with him. When they got to the spot, through some unsteadiness or excitement, the trap went over a cutting, and the new Super, was stretched out, apparently lifeless, at the bottom of the excavation. Carleton came through all right, he always did, and when he gathered himself together he stood over the prostrate figure of his chief, and cried out, in the anguish of his soul, " Holy powers ! Whitaker Will ho Superintendent after all I" '5.G.0.," a well-known social critic in the old country recently deceased, once said u the average Englishman met the devil in the Queen's highway his first instinct would be to send for a policeman, and the next to wnte a letter to the editor of the Times. I reminded of this tendency to - rush to e editor on any and every subject by a ote . which has come to my hands. A uuiern man writes as follows :— I hope Wt Wl . excuse m © for writing you this tcr, but I have a complaint about a firm -p your city—it is the Glass Works in wuf man , 8 y- I first sent them a letter tolAv, P n -, o£ S la3S I wanted blown, and I ' « wsw if tljpy liked I >vpu]d send them

the money if they would send the price, and I never got an answer. I telegraphed up and paid a reply, but got 110 answer, and here lam waiting for them. It shows there is no business with Mr. Cook. I will wait another week for Mr, Cook. Hoping you will put this letter in, I will be greatly obliged." I showed the note to Mr. Cook, who was greatly amused. First, he had received no such telegram as stated as to paid reply ; secondly, he was full up of orders of this sort, and lie proceeded to give me some of his experiences. He had received an "order" of a similar character from the same city, accompanied with a drawing. A correspondence ensued. When Mr. Cook had written seven letters, he at last got at what the man wanted, a special kind of small tube, and with the Southern man's letter came the "order" for ij>s manufacture. The order was a matter of eighteen pence, and Mr. Cook's j>ostages alone, saying nothing of paper, envelopes, and. time, came to 14d ! As the joke was a good one, Mr. Cook completed the " order," receiving less than nothing, when all was computed, for his trouble. He is not anxious for anything of that description. But he tolls a good story of how he nearly did business with Wanganui. He received a letter from a' worthy citizen, covering two sheets of foolscap, the gist of which was that he had given a little '•" kick-up" at his house, and the family glass, without the slightest warning, cracked, and ho wished Mr. Cook to explain to him on scientific principles how that crack was occasioned. Mr. Cook says he did not write, but he came to the conclusion that there was more " cracked" than the glass : still he was not surprised at it, as he understood that was the district where they raised lunatics. I have known the worthy proprietor of the Glass Works for many a long year. His word is his bond, and as a tradesman, working early and late, and paying "20? in the £, I don't wonder that he finds life too short to write letters explaining the scientific principles on which family mirrors burst up, and in replying to Southern eighteenpenny orders.

I knew that the Rev. J. S. Hill had put his foot in it last Sunday afternoon in his lecture on "The Administration of Justice," but now I am " morally certain" that he will bring a hornet's nest about his ears. He puts in a touching plea for Bill Sykes, that he should have a perusal of the Saturday's Hkkami, as ho wants to seo the "sporting tips" badly, and a plug of tobacco thrown in. There is a tradition at Mount Eden Gaol that once upon a time the morning paper was passed round the hard-labour gang before they went out to the quarry to work ; and that new debtors, when they got run in, "shouted" for the old hands in the debtors' division, one of the latter strolling down to the " Captain Cook" for a bucket of XXX. They had to pay their footing. Does Mr. Hill want to restore the stare of t-hiugs which existed in the good old days in Otago, when the prisoners were let out to see the races, and threatened to be locked out if they were not home before dark ? I pause for a reply.

The latest instance of servantgalisin that has come under my notice is the following : —Mary Ann, as "no followers" were allowed, had her night out, and on returning past 10 o'clock, the mistress of the house accosted her, and said she must return home at an earlier hour. Spreading a " Queen Anne's fan," Mary Ann promptly replied, "I'm none of your 'early girls,' not much ! If this ' hairpin' doesn't suit you, I'll go in the morning 1" Relations are now rather strained between mistress and maid.

A Ponsonby milkman was going his rounds the other day, and calling at a certain residence, he found two young larrikins up to the eyes in treacle, sugar, and other good things, the parents being away from home at the time. " What have you done with little Johnny?" said the milkman, noticing that the other juvenile member cf the family, like the man who fell from the balloon, was "out of it." " Well, you see," said the urchins, "we thought Johnny might split, and tell the ' frnv'nor so we run him round the house till he was dead beat and pumped out, and he's now asleep on the sofa !" That purveyor of the lacteal fluid came to the conclusion that what those two youngsters didn't know wasn't worth knowing.

Many years ago a divine wrote a work entitled "How to Make the Best of Both Worlds." The title of the work was recalled to my mind the other day, while looking over an interesting trade circular. What did I see ? A leading temperance organisation making very heavy weather of it —the Law and the Gospel cheek by jowl, and "Furniture and Effects" a "dark horse." How anybody can denounce publichouses as death-traps, gates of hell, and their stock-in-trade " the devil in solution," and then ladle out money on bills of sale at 'JO per cent, on the "effects" of these establishments which helps to keep them going, is one of those things which "no fellah can understand." There is a ghastly comicality about it, which is only equalled by that of Mrs. Bung or Mrs. Cad Jellaby sitting on the committee of a benevolent organisation, relieving the poor, while the " old man," at the other end of the line, is running a pauper manufactory, in the shape of a pub or a hrewery and turning out applicants for public charity as fast as their predecessors are being relieved by his benevolent spouse. The only relieving item in that trade circular —the silver lining in the cloud—is that temperance hotelkeepers are furnished with money at 15 percent. —the discount of 5 per cent, in their favour over mine host of the pothouse being the homage which vice pays to virtue. I shall be told, of course, that "religion is religion, and business is business." True, 0 king! "business is business," and these unique trade entries are a regular "cooker" in that way. " These be thy gods, 0 Israel!" Humph! Mercotio.