LOCAL GOSSIP.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVIII, Issue 8610, 4 July 1891, Page 1 (Supplement)

LOCAL GOSSIP.

"Let me hare audience for a word or two." — Shaketpere. Steikes are in the air just now. Some of them are very amusing. The strike of the Minstrel Boys this week was a Hug(e) joke; and when ib was known thab Tom Thumb had ib was observed that "the beginning of the end had come." I would have given a penny for the thoughts 6i the performers on the stage, and the "strikers" in the stalls, who paid the.r money to see the new "free labour show. Verily, human nature is jaefe the same in a minstrel company as in a lumpers' union. Down in Dunedin, if the telegrams are to be believed, they have actually » struck" in a shocking factory. Why those who get their money oub of a "stocking' should strike passes my comprehension. Bab the drollest strike I have yeb heard of was one which occurred at the Salvation Army Industrial Farm. The inmates struck for tobacco! Captain Turton reckoned ib up that the concession would amount to £12 per year, puffed away in smoke, and he stated that he could nob with any decency ask the benevolent public of Auckland, on whom he relied, to contribute i>l2 per annum for tobacco. An ingenious plea was then pub forward, that if they smoked more they would eab lees ! The captain was incredulous on thab score, and he accordingly pub his foot down, and is keepin" - ib down. I have nob heard yeb whether the inmates have surrendered at discretion, or thai' ;-e is running the farm with "free labour." I notice in the correspondence columns of tho Herald a letter by Mr. C. T. Wren on city tree-planting, in which occurs tho following passage :— By the way, sir, while speaking of city trees,, will you allow me to ask if your incisive and versatile contributor, " Mercntiq," does not sometimes "draw the long bow," just a little? The interesting little yarn anent Sir Geo. Grey and the city trees, nurserymen, &c, in your supplement of to-day, is, as far as my participation and information goes, a pure myth! I planted a good few of the city trees at that time, too. I have no doubb thab Mr. Wren is quite accurate when he states that " he was not in it," bub the source of my information was so excellent that I intend to stand by it, notwithstanding tho "chirpinsr " of the Herald's correspondent. If there is any " drawing of the long bow," as suggested in the letter, I can only say, like Mr. Wren, lam not" in it."

The genteel larrikins who are in the hoax perpetrated on the head teacher at the Truant School aud the police, at> the reception of the new profossor, Mr. Pond, have not yet, I hear, seen the end of the •joke. They apologised to those whose names were unwarrantably used, but the City Schools Committee have now come in, and intend to have a say in the matter. The apology to other people does not satisfy them, as they consider that the committee bave been insulted by a hoax being perpetrated upon a school under their supervision and care. They have taken steps to obtain possession of the letter, written on paper and enclosed in an envelope bearing the stamp of the Auckland University, and it is just oa the cards that the larrikins concerned will have to " face the music" at the next meeting of the City Schools Comuuttee.

Y5 hy the Truant School should be selected for these practical jokes I cannot imagine, as some of them are very rough on the school children, who ought to be protected from that sort of thing, to say nothing of the Lead teacher. This leads me to another case of the kind, which has been related to me as having occurred some weeks ago. A gentle-manly-looking man walked into the Truant School one day, and desired to have a look over it. He said he was a tourist passing through the colony, a professional man, and took a deep interest in matters of social reform. After his tour of inspection be was 30 well pleased with the management of the school that, it is said, he expressed his intention of chartering a steamer and taking the children down the harbour on a Saturday, as well as giving a confectioner carte blanche to provide refreshmentefor the occasion. Inordertohavealittle consultation over the arrangements, he, it is said, invited the head-master to dine with him at one of the clubs where he was putting up. The head-master could not in the evening find the philanthropist at the club indicated, and tried another with the like result. It goes without saying that the children have nob yet gone on that harbour excursion, with comfits ad lib., and the head-teacher has not yet put his legs under the mahogany at that club. The "tourist" has moved on. This sort of -thing may be a good joke in the eyes of some people, but I fail to see where tho fun comes in. Practical joking should be stamped down by every right-thinking man. More than one promising career has been blighted and blasted by it in this city, and more than one young fellow lies stark and stiff in our cemetery as the result of a practice which ie as childish as it is mischievous.

Sir George Grey, Midas-like, turns the dust of other men to gold, and weaves a golden thread of sentiment even out of euch unpromising material as the reduction in the letter postage. Here is an illustratioa of it in what he said on Monday last on this subject:—

The answer to the objection that loss of revenue will result from having a penny instead of a twopenny postage is that it will repay itself, and that the number of letters will increase so much as to meet any loss. For instance, one probability that I have not heard alluded to is that thei-v will be. a great increase in letters between lovers. I believe that alone -will be enarnioiM. They will spend the same money to write double the number of letters. The penny postage will be an enormous boon ; it will bring us into touch with the whole world.

What a giddy " old boy" Sir George is to be sure ! Who would have thought s>f that contingency but himself? Just fancy 'Arry and Hangelina getting twice the fun for the same monoy through the sympathetic efforts of the Hon. J. Ward. 0, this is too much ! There are chords, as Mr. Guppy observes, that ought not to be stretched. But Sir George, taking another aspect of the question, gives the " lovyers" fyopeles*ly away. It seems that the flood-tide of "gush" is arrested atpresent6y a penny — the imposition of that cruel tuppence—and the lovers are obliged to cram as much as they can into three sheets of the finest notepaper for the money. The consequence is that the correspondence reads as disjointedly as a delayed telegram.

Some people will have their little joke, bob it seems to me carrying it too far to telegraph facetise from Wellington to Auckland. During the week an Auckland member, a Parliamentary wag, telegraphed to a friend in Auckland an opitaph which he had written with regard to the Conservative party. Of course, there is the usual padding—" Sacred to the memory of the Conservative party, which has ruled New Zealand almost without intermission since its constitution." Then follows, contrary to the ordinary run of epitaphs, its evil instead of its good deeds, and it concludes as follows : — "It received a mortal wound at the ballotbox at the last general election, and was buried at the opening of the new Parliament. Let it R.1.P." This political humourist and his party, I venture to predict, have only got to fro far enough on tho " down grade" of State Socialiism to find out that Conservatism is not dead—not even deeping.

One of the signs of the times is lovely woman knocking at the door of Parliament and demanding the franchise. I suppose the thing is genuine this time, as it has.got the Hall-mark upon it, although Home ■people have their doubts yet as to whether petticoat government is within the range of ■ practical politics. There is no gaineayiDg that there is general social unrest, end th« Revolt* of the Sex, and their en-

deavoura to geb release from what they regard as bondage fes only aquestion of time. Who will be their Moses ?—thafcis the-ques-tion. Tempus fugit. Two old and respected colonists passed together another fingerpost in the journey of life on Wednesday last. Half a century before—that is to say, on the Ist July, 1841, there arrived in Anckland Harbour the schooner Shamrock, from Sydney, having on board the plant for the first Auckland newspaper, the "New Zealand Herald and Auckland Gazette," which appeared on the 10th of the same month. On the 2nd July H.M.gCustoms House was first opened in Now Zealand. Colonists did nob know much about that institution then ; though, to their sorrow, they have known a good deal about ib since. If tho " Colorado Beetle," otherwise " the Customs expert," is to be believed, the Customs has since then known a good deal about them, in the matter of unstamped—, but lam talking now about the days of the birth of the colony and not about its bier. Well, sharp at ten o'clock in the morning the schooner Shamrock was entered inwards by Captain Daldy, Messrs. Brown and Campbell being the agents. Mr. John Moore, who came down with Captain Daldy as printer of the new paper for the trustees of the Auckland Newspaper Company, introduced Captain Daldy to Messrs. Brown and Campbell. On Wednesday last Dr. Campbell and Captain Daldy met, and looking back over half a century since their firsb meeting with each other, the old cronies cordially shook hands together. Times change, and men change with them, and it is my duty, a? an impartial chronicler of the times, to state that the meeting between the two Old Identities passed off without " bedewing of the shamrock."

In the case of the will of the lato Mr. John Px'obert, which came before Justice Oonolly, in banco, on a matter of stamp duties, one of the counsel said that "it was from an Act of Elizabeth that the lawyers !md derived their ideas of charity." The local Diogenes, who is not wont to gush over the profession, remarked, " I should imagine as much. Their notions of charity are generally rather far-fetched." M Without are dogs." The other day a fair subscriber to the lending branch of a Free Public Library not one hundred miles from Auckland waltzed into the institution, in pursuit of some high-class literature. Then, it is rumoured, the trouble began, touching , those dogs. The lady, very properly, I understand, desired to enter into a treaty, offensive and defensive, that the dogs when she took her walks abroad to visit the institution, might come to the door —if no further. The martinet who acts as literary Cerberus at the library portals suggested, so it is said, that the dogs should remain in the street. Approhensions of the larrikins " going for " the dogs rose in the palpitating bosom of the blushing damsel. "But," said the official, "the larrikins could not do much to the dogs in the short time you would take in selecting a bock." " What," retorted the spinster severely, "do you think that a woman of my nge is nob capable of forming an opinion about her own dogs ?" The official collapsed, and the silence that succeeded could be felt. The subject of dogs is now tabooed at that public establishment.

We have had a stretch of frosty weather, and then a day or two of rain, with a fog thrown in, which is quite a surprise to Aucklanders, used to the balmy North. Let us rest and be thankful that we have nob Bluff weather, which, according to the following lines, was painfully monotonous lately:— First it rained and then it l>lew, And then it friz and then it anew, And then there was a shower of rain. And then it friz and snew again. Some one predicted months ago, that the Hospital management would " All come out in the washing." The "straight tip," as usual. By the irony of fate, the Hospital authorities were seriously suggesting to the Hospital Board the desirability of having a laundry_ attached to the Hospital, at the very time the laundry business was in transit to " My Uncle !" Mekcutio.