LOCAL GOSSIP.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XL, Issue 12266, 9 May 1903, Page 1 (Supplement)

LOCAL GOSSIP.

PUt me have audience for a word or two." vmi m — Shakespere.

'An old Auckland piece of sarcastic facietice has found its way to London, and through ,„ of ie minor Courts of Justice it has Lb into the newspapers. On second thoughts I would not like to say whether this jokelet first found its way from Auckland to Loudon or vice versa. Jokes defy investigation as to origin. Even Darwin would "have been puzzled if he had taken U p this subject instead of the origin of species by natural selection. We all have Z oVf % since our earliest years the story „* the comedian who consulted the doctor for settled melancholia, who was told to and see a famous " funny man," and who replied, "Alas! I am that man." An American writer has been determined to pitch that far enough back, for he tells that a, .morose subject applied one day to Melcfcisedet. and was answered thus: " You (JO illlil find Adam, if you want a laugh; he is knocking around somewhere vet, and ca ,i do all the Fall scene to perfection, His imitation of the snake dialect is simply killing" The morose man said, "Alas, I am Adam." That was the origin of that particular joke, and no yarn can get further back than that. lam afraid that mine could not be pitched as far back as Paradise, but, with a few judicious alterations it audit be dated from the flood, and fastened upon Noah or some of his sons. Here it is: A witness in a London Court bad to say something about Kensington, and be told the judge tha "it was a good place for the three P's pride, poverty, and pianos." Now, this was originated here soon after the foundation of the city, and was applied to Farnell, which certainly has a better claim than Kensington, seeing that Parnell begins with a "P." Latterly there has been a feeble attempt to place the scene at Ponsonby, bat the dwellers there will not accept it. The problem still remains, Where did this saving originate? Parnell has suffered much from the humour of outsiders. The census showed that it, of all our suburbs, had a plethora of unmarried females, and it was dubbed, " Parnell of the Thousand Virgins."

It was impossible for the Premier to forget, when he was receiving all that acclamation for having been ten years continuosly in office that he had spent a considerable portion of his political life thundering against a Government for being a " continuous Ministry," which Government had not been in office for half his time. He savs that all the explanation he can give is*that "it is he will of the people." But that argument could have been used against him then, for that Government was in office by the will of the people. His argument, or part of it, was that in a country governed by party Ministers it was ruinous to liberty, to economical government, to purity of administration, that any Minister should be in office more than three or four years.

A great discovery has been made in Johannesburg, and I can't think why some ingenious Aucklander did not make it long ago. Evidently we don't know everything, and the members of the medical profession, who might be supposed to know, must have entered into a conspiracy to conceal the fact. At Johannesburg some time since some cases occurred which were considered undoubtedly cases of plague. Considerable alarm was created, but the reason of the population was saved, because they have not yet there an active Health Department. Now it seems that it has been discovered that these so-called plague cases were really only cases of pneumonoconiosis! Well, for my own part, I should have thought that any disease with a name like that was ten times worse than plague, but apparently, from the way the news is put, it is a comparatively trifling ailment. Will Dr. Mason and Dr. Makgill pledge their scientific reputation that the Auckland cases, or the one case were plague, and not merely jaeumonoconiosis?

Incidents such as I mentioned last week, respecting Mr. W. Swanson, could be indefinitely' added to. I give the following letter by " Greybeard" in a somewhat different line:—"Dear 'Mercutio', —I read with much pleasure your remarks in the Hi:rald of 2nd inst. regarding the late Mr. W. Swanson, and they recalled to mind the hard times we experienced in the sixties, and also the noble and benevolent manner in which many of our citizens acted. May I relate an incident of those days in which Sir. Swanson figured? An old friend of mine, being pressed for money, asked me to oblige him with my P.N. for £50. atthree months, he giving me his P.N. for a similar amount to mature three days before mine. With some reluctance I consented. (Here I may say that it was the first and last time I played at that kind of kiteflying.) When the P.N.'s matured my friend was at contract down the East Coast., and I was very anxious as to who held mv P.N. About a*week after, as I stood at the office door _one day, Mr. W. Swanson passed. He turned back to me saying: 'Good day. Isn't your name So-and-so;;' I said, 'Yes, Mi". Swanson.' 'Ah,' he said, 'I've got a bit of paper in my pocket signed by you.' I explained the circumstances. 'That's all right,' he said. 'Don't trouble about it; if your friend does not turn up shortly I'll see his father-in-law and make it ail right, only,* this with ft kindU smile, ' look here, laddie, you have a good situation here, with strict employers, and if I were you' I would not meddle with such things again.' I very gratefully thanked him for his goodness and friendly warning, and ever afterwards had the highest esteem for that rugged and honest face. Such, sir, was oui 'Willie.' To finish the story—my friend retired the bill a few days later—without an appeal to the paternal relative. He had been delayed in the coaster by contrary winds— coastal steamers in those days."

We have had some moralising lately on the subject of how much smarter the people of Auckland were becoming since the tram service had been started. They have to look more alert in crossing the streets, end this, it is said, makes them more active and clever in all the relations of life. So may it be! It appears that something of the same kind has been found to result in France, where motor cars are common. The roads used to be littered and strewn with cows, pigs, donkeys, goats, and poultry. These poor animals, with dogs innumerable, had fallen victims to their ignorance of motor cars, and to their inability to judge the pace of a thing moving toward? them without the noisy assistance of a prancing horse. But now at the first pantinc sound of a distant motor you may sec a general stampede from the dangerous parts of the '.road into the generally wide sideways. Our chief danger seems to arise from horses getting into a stale of panic, and backing on to the tram rails, and how to obviate this is a puzzle.

It is very seldom that we obtain the smallest pleasantry from the sittings 01 the Arbitration Court, but we have a somewhat Juvenile specimen now. The Court is sitting at Christehurch on a case in which the Gardeners' Union ask a settlement of hours pud """ages. The point was raised as to whether *> the Court had jurisdiction in the dispute, on the ground that gardeners were domestic servants, and therefore could not proceed under the Act. Mr. Justice Coopers reply was, " I have no hesitation in rulinc that gardeners are not. domestic servants, although they may be engaged in a ' nursery.' They are men engaged in manual labour " Of course there are two classes of gardeners. A. man may have a gardenei attached to his fctfabliahmeiit, who may occasionally be

otherwise employed, and he may be classed as a domestic servant. But men employed is nurseries are in a different position. However, we have it now on the best authorities that a nursery is not always a nursery where the young idea is taught how to shoot.

I i i With all sincerity and good feeling I congratulate Mr. Seddon on his ten years of ' the Premiership. I have my own ideas as to how such a stretch of power may be ; achieved in New Zealand, to which I may I afford a key by hinting that I should like to see the experiment tried of prolonging a '■ term without borrowing money. I take a i fatherly interest, in Mr Seddon. because, for one. reason, I was present in the House when he made his maiden speech. That was ' on October 2, 1879. He commenced thus : "Mr. Speaker, I rise, for the first time, - to say a few words." The "few words," in the Hansard report, fill nineteen co- 1 Junius ! It "was a good and forcible speech, ' and for a time took splendidly with the ' House, the members being inclined to .give the new man who came from the West Coast with a reputation for (ability, a "good show." But when he was about half-way through I said to myself, " If you stop now you will have the reputation of having made "one of the best " first speeches" in thn House." But he made the mistake (hen, as he has often done since, of speaking at too great length. He assured the House ; that on that occasion he "spoke with diffidence," although I did not see much sign of it. He had undergone a good course of training in the local bodies of the West - Coast, and his mind was full of ideas which he was desirous of imparting to the Parlia- ; ment and the public. Mercctio.

The London Daily Chronicle is apparently inclined to be facetious at the expense of New Zealand. A writer in that influential journal refers to the fact that it has been said that "no one ought to be allowed to sit in the Imperial Parliament unless he had qualified by visiting the colonies." He follows that with this remark that " it might be said with as much point that it would be well if every member of the colonial Parliament were required, or at anv rate, enabled, to visit the Mother Country." Here is an opening for Parliamentary trips. For my own part, I think •that the first place members ought to know is their own colony, for which they have to" legislate. They want informing on that subject very badly. I have met with Southern members when I have sojourned at Wellington during the session who knew less of the North than they did of Timbuctoo, and cared as little, and I suppose that some of our Northern members wer<- as ignorant of the South. And really I think that a journey to England" would be fraught with the next most useful knowledge. Perhaps even some of our members of Parliament would get some of the conceit taken out of them, by such a trip. The most useless knowledge is that to be got by sailing the Pacific with a few days' call at Fiji, which is a separate Crown colony, with whose government we never will have anything to do, or with Tahiti, where a call from New Zealand legislators will call up hostile feelings. Let [Ministers nropose that our members should go to London in. batches, and I am not sure but that they may have my support. The cost of the Pacific trip could have sent al' the members on board to London for a few weeks. They would then be enabled to gauge the feeling of the money market, and the .Minister in charge of the party would certainly be knighted.