LOCAL GOSSIP.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 9581, 4 August 1894, Page 1 (Supplement)

LOCAL GOSSIP.

" Let me have audience for a word or two." . ■ —Shakespere. During the Atkinson regime, it was a common remark, when on any occasion Sir Harry was in extra excitement, that he had got his hob-nailed boots on. But then he was the only one of the Ministers who ever wore hob-nailed boots. Now, we have two Ministers who never seem to take them off. Another very important difference is, that Sir Harry used the boots on those opponents who had attacked his proposals, and who were on the other side. But now the boots are used by Mr. Seddon and Mr. M clvenzie on their followers. .It is they who aro kicked and threatened. Ministers have a good deal to eay for the position they tako up. To the majority of the members they say, " You were elected to support us, and whatever policy we choose to propose ; you are merely delegates to vote as we direct you, and we dare and defy you to give an adverse vote. You were elected on strong professions that we and you were against borrowing, and thought it a "most mischievous policy. We have found it convenient to go in for a borrowing policy, and you must just whip round after us." And up to this point the hob-nailed boots have been effective.

During the last few days Mr. John MoKenzie has risen almost to the sublime. In Opposing the proposal for a University for the middle district of New Zealand, he referred to the many instances of Scotchmen who had made themselves illustrious without a University education, and striking his breast heroically, he said, "And here, and here, Mr. Speaker, is another instance !" The Minister of Lands is of that nature which can best be described by his countrymen, and in their vernacular, as "dour," and "thrawn." He hates the press with a perfect hatred, and yet ib has been said that to him has been confided the preparation of a Libel Bill, under which, we are told, all libels will be impossible. His idea must be to suppress newspapers altogether, and to put all pressmen in gaol.

A letter in a Wellington country paper from "One of the Unemployed," shows what ideas Ministers have succeeded in inspiring. Ho tells how ho has been out of work for a long time, and he severely blames Ministers for not giving him employment. He went to one place, and was told he had no show owing to the number of applicants. The squatter had absolutely the insolence to tell him, when he had let his horse go, that he could not make his place an accommodation for free travellers. He finds fault with the biscuitand the mutton and the tea given out to swaggers. He includes by saying that the state of things must be altered, in which a man must

Ask his brother of the <!ust To give him leave to t nl. Nobody in this colony that I know of proposes to prevent any man from having "leave to toil." But the class, of which this is a representative, cannot see the case from the farmer's point of view. He is in a state of panic, nob knowing what the Government and their majority may do next. And he does nob get the tea and sugar, and bread and mutton which he gives to swaggers for nothing.

It is a matter of common remark that this is an age of irreverence. We see the signs of it about us in every direction. The young colonial feels respect for very few ; indeed ha may almost be said to reserve the feeling entirely for those few individuals to whom it falls to break the record in some athletic pursuit. But Ido not know that I have seen this want of all proper feeling more strongly marked in anything than in a debate recently held— all places in the world— the Young Men's Christian Association. The subject 'of discussion was, " Has Machinery been Beneficial to the Masses." 1 confess to feeling a shock as the enormity of the offence grew upon my senses. Good heavens !do these impious and irreverent youths not understand that the masses owe the fact of their existing it all to machinery, and that they form part of the masses. They have been discussing the question whether the author of their being has performed a beneficial action in calling them into existence, and EiQch gross irreverence it would probably be hard to match elsewhere. For however they may look upon the question, it is a Fact that it ia the growth of machinery which has enabled the masses to come into existence at all in England. Machinery provided them with work to do, and brought them food from a distance while doing it, and finally enabled the product of their labour to be carried away to a market.

I note by late Hansard that in reply to a question from Mr. Lawry in reference to a police constable being compelled to produce a certificate of character affecting the woman he desires to marry before permission is given him to do po, that Mr. Seddon gave one of his usual characteristic answers. He thought before any policeman was allowed to marry, the woman ho was to marry should be medically examined, because when he (Mr. Seddon) wantod to shift a policeman the policeman's wife was in delicate health, and the removal was always sure to prove injurious, if not fatal. This is an open confession, and yet the policeman gets shifted all the same, if the Dictator wants it, whether fatal or not to the policeman's wife.

Madamoiselle Genot has gone from our gaze like a beautiful dream, having taken passage in the s.s. Richmond for Tahiti. No longer shall we see her lithe form, coated, breeched, and gaitered a I'homme, trudging at rapid pace through our streets with a sort of French military gait. It is rumoured that some of our young swells of the dude" type were "awfully" struck with this vivacious little Parisienne, and her funny sayings, while one or two nicc stories have been told, that it would be ungallant to repeat. One dude appears to have dedicated some verses to her, the draft of which has come into my hands in quite an amusing, if not so mysterious a manner, as the Fox letter was imagined to have seen the light of day. It was found in the waistcoat pocket of one of tho . city dust collectors by his better half. On being impeached by the irate dame, the poor fellow confessed having " shaken" ib out of the dust box of one of our leading banks. The good woman, to test the truthfulness of this assertion, has forwarded it to me in the expectation that the author will come forward and claim it as his own, and bo relieve her mind. I can only bring myself to give one verse ; to quote the remaining would be too lacerating to the feelings of the writer, nob to speak of the reader:—

Von have gone far away, far away from your poor Pi pete, ■ • : ■ • You've left no small clothes for me to brush, and me you'll soon forcet; ; But my heart goes with your pants, wherever you may go, Can you write next mail and . say the same, Mad'moiselle G^not.

It was thought that when our indebtedness to England became considerable something like an idea of our geography would be formed. The debt has progressed rapidly enough, but the progress of knowledge is very slow. A recent number of Public Opinion, one of. the best-informed London weeklies, has this item :—" Two shocks of earthquake, the severest felt in Auckland for many years, occurred ab Wellington at) an early hour on Monday morning-" ■ . ■

Mrs. Yates will no doubt have "a good time" in Wellington, although if the House gives way in what she has gone to urge it will do for her or for Onehunga what ib has refused to do in other cases quite as good and as urgent. Ib will be observed that Mrs. Yates wenb to Wellington, nob in an ordinary passenger steamer, bub in. the Government steam yachb Hinemoa.

A case is reported ' from the South in l; Which a woman hadbefh receiving rations from the charitable-relief 'body, on the i alleged ground of being st " deserted wile.'

She had actually laid an information, bat the police could ; nob serve it, as the man could nob be found. Ib was subsequently discovered lie was 1 living with his family, and working in the district under; an assumed name. There is nothing new under the sun. History is always repeating itself. Over 20 years ago, when the late Mr. John Graham was relieving officer, a woman in Auckland got rations on the ground of being a deserted wife. She had received rations for three months before it was discovered that her husband was working at one of the Pensioner Settlements, came in to his home in Auckland after dark on Saturday , night, and went away before daylight on Sunday morning. There have been soveral cases in which tlio husband and wife, there is reason "to believe, have separated by consent," so that thß wife and -children might got on the ration list.

The Rev. L. M. Isitt tells a good story a* his own expense, which he can well affii to do, as he has told many a good joke at the expense of others. He was addressing a meeting one night, when some of the larrikins in a back seat made it lively for him, and he thought he would just take them down a peg. Said he, "There is a prevailing delusion that ib is the good little boy who dies. That is a mistake. I always preach that it is the good little boy who live*. As for the bad little boys, why, in our part of the country, we swallow them." Straight and clear, as "a bolt from the blue," came the retort from " the bad boy," " Swaller them I thought as much, judging from the size of your mouth." The parson felt that he had struck a snag, and left that larrikin severely alone for the remainder of the evening. Mr. Isitt has a keen appreciation of wit, and lie swallowed the retort, although his mouth is scarcely so large as the one doscribed by Byron, who said of the fair sex; that he wished they had but "One rosy mouth, from north to south, and he could kiss it."

The other evening I witnessed the drill of the "A" Battery at the Drill-shed, and after reading Colonel Fox's report my feelings were very mixed concerning that corps and the criticism passed on it.-. It was a pleasant sight to look upon the drill, aud reminded one of the palmy days when volunteering teas volunteering. The men 011 the whole, as to physique, were a fair average, and good enough for anything. As to the uniforms, they were clean and wellfitting, the words of command clearly given and promptly and unhesitatingly obeyed, white throughout all the movements there was that instinctive desire to "pick up the dressing ' without word of command, which marks the soldier who takes a pride and interest in his work. Above all, there was that total absence of levity, of that eternal chatter in the ranks, which is the curse of too many of our volunteer corps, the members of which forget the lessons of history that Saarbruck, Gravelotte, and Sudan vero first of all fought out 011 German parade grounds, or they never would have been successfully fought out in the field.

It is curious to note how different men are affected by different things. One of the most curious instances of that was brought under my notice the other day. An Auck- . land parson preached from the passage, Behold thy King cometh unto thee, meek, and sitting upon an ass, and a colt the foal of an ass." A gentleman in the audience was so pleased with the sermon, that although he had given a handsome donation to wipe off the church debt, as he left at the close of the service he softly slipped another golden token into the hand of a church officer. "Here," said he, "is another for the 'colt the foal of an ass.'" Whether it was thab the donor was pleased with the parson's description of the colt or the ass, or that the sermon awakened faded reminiscences of the long ago when he himself was an unbroken colt, and somewhat skittish, I cannot say, but as the gold found a resting place in.the church officer's palm, a seraphic smile "overspread the expressive features of that functionary, and he said it was just the dose the doctor ordered.

The man or woman who makes provision for the future should always be well thought of,, but anyone in the prime of life who can boast of well-seasoned timber and his afterdeath residence already prepared, must have a nerve which «few human creatures can realise. One hears frequently of many strange, unexpected, and wonderful things in this enlightened age, but commend me to the head of a household who puts bis affairs in such apple-pie order that at any moment, day or night, he can see his own coffin ready for use and occupancy, in case of an urgent command to make exit from this vale of tears. In this local instance the gentleman has a special room in his dwelling set apart for his coffin, and it is even whispered that some of the employes often think of having a glance into the " inner circle," where the shell is kept, bub the lock always proved a barrier, or they were too timid to face such an ordeal. I wonder, in connection with this matter, whether the good man's wife, should she pre-decease him. will have the privilege to be for all time confined in an "edifice" which was specially made for her lord and master. There must be a perfect understanding between this worthy couple— have no family— be able to enjoy life under such varied circumstances, reminding one, when the dissolution of cither takes place, of one of the lines "In Memoriam"—

So sad, so sweet, the days that are no more.

The bakers are still very indignant about being run in before the magistrates, on suspicion of giving short weight, and are getting crustier than ever. They have risen to the occasion in a petition to Parliament, but I expect that that august body will make light of their objections, seeing that they have been weighed in the balance by Constable Moar §nd found wanting. The fact is the bakers have always had a bad time of it. "An Old Book says that when the Egyptian Khedive of the period was wroth with his chief butler and chief baker, he gave the man of beer a fresh show, though he knew nob Joseph, bub he hanged the baker!

A public benefactor is advertising in the Herald that he removes hair from the faces of ladies by means of electricity. The offer is nob a tempting one, because in their encroachment upon the domain of man, the fair sex will probably try to cultivate a moustache of hair power. Ib is natural now that the trousers have been appropriated (a la Mademoiselle Genot), that the beard should follow, on the principle, the " sooils to the victors." As the poet finely puts it—

They took our coats— first we hardly missed them, And then they aped our dickeys and cravats. They stole our sacks—we only laughed and kissed 'ein, Emboldened then they stole our very hats! Until, by slow and sure degrees, the witches Have taken all our coats, hats, boots, and breeches! V Mercutio.