LOCAL GOSSIP.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVII, Issue 8264, 24 May 1890, Page 1 (Supplement)

LOCAL GOSSIP.

"'Lotme -have-audience -two." —Shakatperf. Jins week I can have no dubiety about where I should begin. The local event has been the advent of Mr. Christie Murray, or.d no one who heard him at the Savage Club meeting on Monday night last, or at the City Hall on Wednesday night, will ever forget what he said and how he said it. His pathos and his hnmour alike were instinct with force and power. I feel sure that even those who have read his books, rind in them have seen what a master he is of all the sentiments and emotions that stir the human mind, will confess {which is not always the case) that the personality of the man is as grand as his writings. I remember when ''The Vagabond" returned from a trip to England a year or two ago, and passed through Auckland, I met him in Queen-street, and put to him the rather singular question, " Who was the best man you saw in England T'' Without a moment's hesitation, and without any qualification or Exception, he said, "David Christie Murray !" lie gave no reasons, and 1 did not ask for any, but I never forgot the decisive judgment. I have said that those who were there on Wednesday night will never forget Mr. Murray's words or his actions. If any of my readers don't go when they bave next a, chance, they will never forgive themselves.

But this is not a column for criticism on Mr. Christie Murray. 1 want confidentially to reveal to my gentle readers some thoughts that crossed my mind after the lecture. We are all far too much in intellectual bondage to London. A London newspaper man comes out here — men like Sala or Archibald Forbesand he gathers large audiences by telling of his adventures and struggles as a newspaper rejxtrter in England. Now, no Auckland audience would ever assemble to hear the adventures in New Zealand of a newspaper man. Suppose I were to go home to .London and advertise " The Adventures of a S{.»eeial in New Zealand." 1 think that in some respects 1 could cap any story told by any of the three above-named gentlemen. Mr. Christie Murray did not much relish "skilly go-lee " when on the tramp, and he felt ill the other week in New Zealand when ho was in the interior, because for a day or two tho party had to dine on tinned meat. Why, there was one time that for three weeks I subsisted on nothing but potatoes and dried shark. 1 would have thought workhouse " skilly '" luxurious feeding. The shark was not only dry, but hi>jh. If 1 took a single specimen of a dried shark to London iud introduced it into a lecture-room, everyone present would be able to form a distinct idea of what a delight it would be to eat it. And, worse than that, we ran short of dried shark and had nothing left but potatoes, and sometimes fresh pork from pigs caught in the fern. But one day when Wc went out pig-hunting in the fern, we [vvssed through a narrow valley in which some weeks before there had been a skirmish, and we found roiue pigs devouring the rotting flesh of a man who had been killed. 1 could not suvad fresh pork for years after. As for the potatoes, they were no food at all, but sinipiy a rili-up. I got weak on them, and was wasting away. To this day, when anybody talks about potatoes as a food, I cannot keep my temper.

The English special can tell anecdotes ol murderer? whom he has known, while on their trial and at their executions. But 1 have known murderers as hosts, as travelling companions, as chums. I remember >ne dear old lady down on the East Coast. tier husband fought with great valour on jur side, and one day, when he was leading .he van, he was shot. The Government jranted a pension to his widow. A short inn.- afterwards some natives of the tribe ft'hu had killed old Tohi were made prison•r-. The principal man was seated in a ;irele of friendly natives when the widow :;une up. She went quietly, got a musket, put the muzzle close to the chief's head, and blew out his brains before a crowd of Europeans and Maoris. Nothing was done. It was native custom. But she was a very kindly, hospitable old lady, courteous and polite to a degree. A murderer once came up before a whare in which I was, and danced, about and shouted, " I am the man on whose -head the Government has put a price !" After he had blown off the steam a little bit I calmed him down by saying that I had no idea of earning any money in that way, and that there was a good deal to be said in palliation of what he had done. I f jund murderers to be very good fellows indeed, with no presumption at all about them.

I used occasionally, before I came to New Zealand, to see Thomas de Quincoy, the illustrious author of Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts,'' and I have often thought since that, with my present knowedge, I could have furnished him with material for an additional chapter. I have hud the honour of having been taken prisoner by a detachment of Her Majesty's regular forces, as having been found in the company of men who were suspected of being Her Majesty's enemies. ."So far as horrors are concerned, I could lick all my English <wi/Vv hollow. And then, as to humorous Police Court stories, of which Mr. Christie Murray trave a few specimens, there never was a magistrate in England, not even Shakespere's Justice Shallow, so pompously solemn, so absurd, so provocative of humorous scenes, as Captain Beckham, who, for a generation, sat day by day in Auckland. That is a great thinjj to say, but I say it without the least hesitation.

Mr. Christie Murray said he had turned his back on politics, being convinced that politics were all humbug. One party said, "Vote for us and the millennium will come; vote for the other men and perdition will come." Neither the millennium nor perdition came, and one set of men were pretty much in politics like another set of men. i Know by experience that that feeling is likely to arise in the mind of a man who day -titer day reports the debates of a Parliament. But look at New Zealand. We allowed politics to take their own course. Many good men would not trouble themselves on the subject. And the consequence is that New Zealand has narrowly escaped collapse ; and that many, many have been ruined. No, Mr. .Murray, you must revise that part of your lecture.

I have always greatly admired the lie v. Mr. Gulliverr. He is honest, able, and is a scholar and a poet. But I am compelled to any that his leave-taking was not well managed. He said that while he was searching for a subject to address them on someone suggested " Looking Backward," that very trashy book of Bellamy's that has been so much read lately. " Looking Backwards" does not profess to be of the same class as, for instance, " Utopia," and it is certainly very inferior to all the books of that kind mentioned as a piece of literary work. It has less than no merit in a literary point of view ; and what is the use of reading chapters about a social state when all men are virtuous—when, in fact, Pastor Birch's condition of " perfect holiness" has arrived, and when the Government manage all things well, and without suspicion of corruption. The last idea is as absurd as the first. Government has many definitions. It has been defined as a " necessary evil." My definition is—and I back it for absolute truth against anything else"Government is a contrivance by whicli the schemers and loafers in a community manage to plunder the honest and industrious." Then Mr. Gulliver concluded his discourse by portraying himself at a point at which the roads diverged. "On die one road might have been written ' Eva-ion,' 'Prevarication,' Hypocrisy,' and on the other, ' Intellectual Honesty and Simple Truth.' If a ina.n takes the road marked as that of " Evasion, Prevarication and Hyprocisy," then he is a scoundrel. Mr. Gulliver is surely far too good a man to claim credit for not deliberately selling himself to the devil. But does he mean to infer that all those who differed from him took that disgraceful road ?

I see that the Ministers' Association are defending themselves against the charge of treating Mr. Varley badly, and publish fcho resolution passed by that body in the matter. What does the resolution say?— "This Association cordially welcomes ill'. Varley to Auckland, and

wishes him success in the Lord's work; bat we deem it advisable that the brethren act according to their individual liberty in assisting Mr. Vaadey in his mission." Anybody reading this resolution " between the lilies" understands that it damns with faint praise and has a " don't nail his ear to the pump" ring about it. I have a letter on the subject of Mr. Varley, the ministers, and " Mercntao," from the Rev. J. H. Simmonds, of Ponecrnby, butenough has been said. Msecotio.