ON THINGS IN GENERAL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 9808, 1 May 1895, Page 3

ON THINGS IN GENERAL.

JINGOISM. The Governor's speech at the opening of the Volunteer Bazaar was most refreshing. The tendency for soma years past has been to deride anything in Che nature of preparation for fighting. New.Zealand, we have been told, is so situated that we shall never have need to fight, or, it the need, should arise,, ib would be no use fighting. After what has been said by Lord Glasgow and Admiral Bridge, these gentlemen must expecb bo be classed with the " Jingoes by the opponents of the introduction of wooden guns into our schools. Well, they might be called worse names. When the Russians were encamped above Constantinople, and when Lord Beaconsfield called on the Reserves, a music-hall artist made himself popular with a song, the refrain of which ran, " We don't wanb to fighb, but by Jingo if we do !" And fcha patriotic party was jeered at as an aggregation of so many "Jingoes." Bub that song, nob a classic by any means, chrystaliisea patriotism just as much as ever did the " Rhine Wabch,"the "Marseillaise,"or "God save the Queen." Hummed on 'Change, in shop and in street, ib became a national force. We could do with a little Jingoism out here. Volunteers mighb then have leas cause to feel snubbed, and the Rifle Associations get a little encouragement. RESCUE. A fresh effort is being made to cope with an ever-presanb evil. Those who have banded themselves together are, without doubt, whole-souled in the matter. Bub if they wanb any measure of success to | attend them, surely they musb be practical : rather than sentimental. The fear is of too I much of the latter, and nob enough of the : former. Ab the meeting held during the past week, Dr. King, medical officer to the Charitable Aid Board, who should know something, spoke as a practical practitioner should and would. Bub the sentimentalists were up in arms in a moment, and there was great talk of equality and treating all alike. If the work has to be done, and all know bub too well it is required, let there be no standing upon the "order of doing," bub " do." It is pitiful that in such a matter such questions as " denominational" and undenominational," should prove oven ! the shadow of a barrier to united effort, or that a stand should be made, for a phase of woman's rights when what is wanted is a : prevention of woman's wrongs.

BUSHMEN. A correspondent is rather angry, ab least such is the impression the General gathers from a communication sent him, that New Zealand bushmen should, by inference, be thought to be inferior to the American wielders of the axe. He says :— "I have seen bushman who could drive in a stake with a 6-feet tree with as much ease and certainty, only more quickly, as with a maul. 1 have seen bushmen fell great trees, with pet-haps 100 feet clear barrel, between two stumps, touching each but breaking neither, nor damaging the tree, as a fall ou a stump would have done. I have seen bushmen fell a big 6-feeb thick tree, with 80 feet of barrel, growing alongside a tramway and leaning the opposite way from where it was wanted to go—so close to the tram that the biggest twig that touched the tram was nob as thick as one's finger. Thus the tree was close to the line, and needed no jacking. That tree weighed over 20 tons without the top. I have seen bushmen bring a tree up against a * lean' so heavy that the sides of the back cut had to separate nine inches before the perpendicular was reached and although the tree had a heavy limb on one side which had to be calculated for, ib fell on a sbak9 which the • boss' had, jokingly, set up as the place where he wanted the trunk to fall. And so on, and soon. New Zealand bushmen need nob be ashamed to travel any part of the world." CUTTING IT FINE. Those who have followed the tenders accepted for various works by our public bodies need hardly be told that ab times evtraordinary differences in the prices of .differenb individuals for the same wrrk are brought to lighb. Bub bhe figures are seldom so astonishingly faraparbae was the case in the tenders opened yesterday for the auctioneering business of the Harbour Board. There were three tenders. The. first tenderer offered to do the work at five per cent., and the second ab one-eighth per cent., from which ib appears thaf auctioneer No. 1 valued his time and voice as worth forty times more than auctioneer No. 2. However, great as this difference may be, it was as nothing when; No. 3 came into the field. He declared himself to be ready and willing to do the work ab one-millionth pec cent. Auctioneers are nob usually regarded as conspicuously modest gentlemen. Bub auctioneer No, 3 is decidedly an exceptional case, for he modestly places on his services five-millionth of tile valua thab No. 1 places on his, and desires only a 125,000 th parb of the remuneration No. 2 demands. But the Harbour Board evidently does not regard modesty as one of the great virtues, for they passed over the man who would do their work ab onemillionth per cent, for the man who wants 125,000 times as much. As a matter of fact, some members seemed to think thab the modest man was playing a deep practical joke upon them. At any rate, he was certainly cutting things very fine indeed. If he had gob the "job ib is to be feared that the coinage would have had to be altered in order to provide the means of paying him, or he would have had to be paid, nob quarterly or annually, bub centennial ly. LADY POLITICIANS. The members of the Auckland Political League cannot be classed as admirers of the present Government, and of the Minister of Labour in particular. The latest! matter that has been discussed by the League is the suggested consolidation of all local bodies. The president bold the members that this had been rumourodi, and she was much afraid the Government intended to do their best to bring it about. Several ladies ridiculed the idea of such & measure being brought forward. Bub the president was not so easily pub off. She assured her colleagues thab there was some truth in the rumour, and read aeveral extracts from two papers on the question ; and then as a parting shot she added, ** You know thab while we have lunatics in the House we must be en the watch, for there is no telling when they are likely to bring forward some dangerous piece of legislation." We have heard strong language aboub our Parliament. Bub our House of Representatives a madhouse I Whew ! A NOVEL DEPUTATION. The City Schools Committee received a deputation of rather an unusual kind lasb evening. The proceedings were aboub half through when there came a knock ab the outer door, and the secretary going out found two children, a boy aged twelve and a-balf years, but who looked no more than eleven, and his sister, aged nine. The boy informed the committee thab his mother wanted him to leave school and go to work, as she could no longer afford to. keep him, and wanted his assistance to earn a few shillings a week to pay the rent. He had had the offer of a job, but was provented from accepting ib as he was nob old enough, legally, to leave school. His father, he said, was dead, and his mother had hard work bo geb along; she was behind with her rent and sorely needed help, lie expected to receive three or four_ shillings is week in the employment he intended to enter upon. The matter was afte/wardj left bo the truant officer and the chairman of committee. That boy should get on. The Geneisal,