LOCAL GOSSIP.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 12609, 25 June 1904, Page 1 (Supplement)

LOCAL GOSSIP.

f-; \fU* me have audience for a word or two." —Snakespere. f ■ ffcrafTjESA Road is just now a'sea of mud p ■ from the Newmarket, end to Mount Hobson, ' bordered on one side by a slimy, slippery ,' ; itrip of pavement, and on the other, which is not get-at-able, by a stretch of soft ; $ »rth and wet scoria. It is all owing to the wonderful local body which rules, or ruled, the district, and which, without knowing precisely what it was about,, sanctioned - some amassing plans for 'cutting: down the road, preparatoryl to the laying of the tram lines. It used to be a very good road, and w*", no doubt, be a very good?road again, - when the present work is finished, but ; in the meantime the things that are said by* the unfortunate residents who have to use it are too ntterably utter for repetition, Said one of them to me the other day: "I should like to. be able to co«upel the members of the Road Board responsible for this state of things to walk in procession in the middle of the road,; headed by their /chairman in his frockcoat and belltopper. If their wives recognised them at the end of their walk I should be greatly surprised." ' Such is the < unchristian frame of mind to which even the most saintly of Remueraites ! has been brought by the mud-muddled ordeal i .to v'tich he is daily subjected, . i Be lived at RemneraVjnst beyond the stretch ;j*i', ;:;;..'.■; of mini; : > i E* was the mildest mannered man that ever 1 smoked a pipe; ; . ■",...-.■.-.;>■;;. - , But one- day npon the slimy road ha fell with quite a thud. A aw. he broke into' »■: flow J of : words, not. rounded, red, and ripe. .. - Now the lanffaaw which he used is neither ';,-;',y"t here nor: there; "'■ • ■''■■■ ,-■■-■ Suffice it tor ray purpose to quite briefly plain That in a trice he stopped the flow, the flow - of words called swear, ;-.%»- « , For a happy thought came eliding into his * angry brain. (The members of the "Road Board were his friends, both one and all. ~> k ;; . 'i : :"'f';:i;'.'~H, And lit said I'll ask them out to dine some night as black as pitch, j : 'And the chances are that some of them. like me, will slip and fall -'■'.'.■■ And roll into the mud of the road they've /'■'&■'■■ made a ditch. v ;' Then he called upon the members, and in quite a hearty way Invited them to dine with him and meet Professor Lowe; Bat they chuckled in a chorus did these members, sad to say, , And with a knowing- wink ' replied, "E tense us, not for Jo?." ■!'■: ■■:■■■■ .'■■■■>■ ' .":■: , ■ ,*'■• ■ ■:' ■ .':'•: -•:. ' " ' He preyed them once, be pressed them twice. with all his mii; and main;f ;, He said his wife would feel quite hurt, like- :;•''".•:•'■■■■... : wjsii Professor Lowe, r'"'">'.. ■- ) Birt they were not bom yesterday; his plead* ins was in vain. *;.■; - ■ '■'; For ■ they answered ; still ,in chorus, " Eicase: '■■:>■■■ us, not for Joe." - - ;V ; •* ■' . $ And why." he asked, " will you not come? j ■■i:-: : .; : ':- my wines are of the best. , * Ton'll have a varied menu from which, to pick.and choose;" ;•,.-..-.* ~.--■*•■.:! But they roared with roaring laughter, as if it were a jest. .- And thwj answered in a chorus, "Why, yew •" . road's unfit to übb." _ A volume of Maori lore, "compiled ins'. the Government of New Zealand by James Jsve*t," has been issued from the Goverare*at, printing works, Wellington. v I do»"t profess to bo an authority on the subject of Maori lore, but I have dipped into Sir -. George Grey's " Maori Legends," and have: '• always been impressed with the , poetic fancy and felicity of expression of these \ taifcs of Polynesian mythology. Mr. Isett, ; however—l haven't 1 the i ghost of : a-; notion who he is—has thought fit to turn Sir George ' Grey's translation inside out, - and to substitute for the latter's noble \ simplicity of language his own commonplace phraseology. Th» result is ludicrous. leett makes the'.eld ■ Maori ' gods '' and f goddesses y,, speak in : .;' the ■"'• slangy, conversational -~ style ;of * a modern novel. And he seems to "think that he t has ucb<» a 7ery prahMWoTrthy'' thing, as Stead—' • not the racing man—did when he outraged our sense of the fitness of thing's by, turning ' the Bible into Steadeie. '.'"lt has" been sought to preserve," he says in jft preface, .. "the spirit and the detail of each legend whilst , robing ■ them. in entirely new gar- | ments. Conversations have been extended or.' >. '■':;' introduced such as, under the circumstances of each situation, might naturally be expectedXo hare taken place; here and there little j bits »ipe*eription have been ventured." i Bv this novel method of treating the re- . corded 1 traditions of a native race as handed down,Hi the original language of the people we have a mere travesty and burlesque, j instead -otja close and faithful? reproduction of the simple language of the narrator. It is Maori lore masquerading in the vernacular jvvy of the penny dreadful, and the amazing thing to me is Government should have sanctioned the publication of the book under i?)s official imprimatur/"" Hie legimd of Baaei and Papa,, Heaven and Earth, is completely shorn of all nobility ; , by Mr. Isett, -who gives us this sort of thing as representing ; the '•■ conversation iof - the j primal gods — "This is very terrible," whispered Raago- i saa-tane. ' "It is too awful," murmured Tangeroa. "I can't and won't endure it any longer," I declared -Hanmia-tiki-tiki*'- '-y<>>C;- :: 'Jri". •;. •'• .?:■' "Something will have to be done," ah- j nounced Tu-mata-uenga. * " What', would you suggest?" asked Tangerca, with a shiver;" and so on through pages. Then we hays such elegant phrases i at- "Ho always is nasty," said; Tu-matu- ! nenga, sulkily. "We go on without him if he don't join." ) " Great god!" exclaimed ■ Tu-mata-uenga in amazement, "and where do yon come in?" " Take it, dear boy take ' it." (This sounds like the : talk of . the ;, modern chappie.) "Oh, don't mention it, j dear boy. You will find this a very good . place for your trv." ** Get out with yon. } ] ; ; : "Itis a put-up "job." " You clear out.' : But I think I have quoted enough to indi- ! cate the style in which some, at least, of { the legends are dished up. j I have had sad stories to tell of the state of our suburban roads, but bulletins received from the country districts are enough to make suburbanites thankful even for ■mall mercies. Between Huntiy and Churchill,, for instance, there are. three chains on the main road which have gone right out of sight. The country would be in a state of blockade had not Mr. Niccl run in his ■team launch from the Waikato River and started ferrying on the King's highway. This, I think, will be hard to beat. We might send to the St. Louin Exposition a model of Auckland country roads with steam launches plying on them. They would certainly attract attention. At this same 'spot on the Huntly-Churchill Road a rider attempted to win through, but the horse beins; a poor swimmer, and the rider apparently- not venied in the art of holding to a horse's tail, it was with difficulty that the twain stroked back to dry land. The district want! '.he Government •": to strike a new road alcnj adjacent high ■*. ground, but Sir Joseph Ward is enthusiastically inclined to preserve the romantic beauties of the Nirtb, and is therefore slow to interfere. with a method of :- / travelling Ihat has a charm all its own. "('■* This recalls an old Waikato story, whose :■>*■' place and hero it would be unkind to name. : In his youth, the hero had donned his go-to-. V meeting clothes one Saturday. afetrnoon to f make t good impression upon the suscep- '• - tible heart of a girl who lived on the other m" aide. To save time, he swam his horse oyer t> , the river, or rather tried to, with clothes and boots strapped to the saddle. # Ihe • horse was the stamp of beast that ambitious t:-;'. Waikato youths ride on when they go call--1;' ing on Annie Laurie, and it was young. : In the river, it disputed the question of crossing, and at the end of the dispute our hero found himself and his horse safely back :''.':■ on the home fide, with clothes and boots 1 presumably dragging" along the bottom of ' the river on their way to sea. Thereupon he broke his toe in the act of explaining to '£. the beast the errot of its ways, and hopped •* on to a Canadian thistle in comforting him- - - self. And while he made remarks the mosquitoes discovered him—for it was summer time—and he had to wait with them for -v " company until the darkness came as an over- ■',. coat. And since then there is one man, at least, in Auckland Province who believes . that rivers ought to run underground, and ■ . be covered in when they don't

. -The frightful accident at New York ought to. make us the, more determined to teach every boy and girl bow?tos&wim; I don't imagine that if ;everybody old enough, who was on the General. Slo'eiim f thad* known how to keep al!oat, that every life would have been saved. ;; But certainly a very: great' many who wepj lost would have escaped. '.*"• are doing » little in the way of popularising ; swimming ;in Auckland } but 1 not a great deal/ not ;■ nearly as muchi as .they are u tt fi ¥ c -* ri »k--wcb- Just why there should be such comparative indifference on our part I cannot, say, Unless it is that the coast often takes a back seat in swimming to the inland parts. , A river has multitudes of secluded nooks and can easily be fitted with floating swimming baths, while 'a coast is a bare bleak place, mostly muddy • or , rocky, and often dangerous even to strong swimmers., River bathing places, when available, are thronged by schoolboys, : who sometimes have leave, but generally haven't, while the coast waters are more often feared,: ■and more commonly .'"avoided; excepting at favoured spots. :' Which is all the more reason why here in Auckland we ought to re.double our efforts to teach every" boy and girl to swim. ; '■• . .■ ; . :Talking of swimming, I heard ■ a'; discussion the other daw; as to whether pigs can swim or 'not. I? know thev can swim, for I have seen them $ j but they have to keep the head raised, and when tired are reputed to- let ' the ■; head drop, and to tear the under jaw by wildly striking with the sharp hoofs. Possibly highly-bred pigs, whose necks have been bred out of them, and which have become nothing but short head and barrel body, may not be able to raise the nostrils high enough to breathe. But you may as well attempt s to corner -a'-* fowl'* under an open window as a ''Captain Cooker" on the bank of a creek.

. I see that -my friend, 1 "! Captain 'Stewart, of -Athenree, has been writing to the New Zealand ;HKTtJju>y: urging city: housewives to; save money, by making ; their bread at home, as is done by their country, sisters. This is excellent advice—to (those who know how. But., unfortunately for city people, and fortunately :■ for: bakers, breadmaKng is an art. And my advice to my fellow-citi» «ens would! be that, unless their wives have baked bread before, they should go to St. Louis, while the ladiss experiment on the rest of the family. It is all very well for a man to consider that Ms duty to Ms-family is ended when he insures his 'life, but he owes it as a duly to- himself not to endanger that life without sufficient cause. . "Of course, when a man is young, and not long married, he bay endure anything. It was only Thursday last'that a valued friend of mine came in wearing a smile which made me ■ think: it was at least a thousand pound legacy. " I want you to sample the wife's bread," he said, producing a dangerous looking packet that ; fell over oh its side with. a ,; thud when he put it on■ the desk. • It's splendid : bread. > Doesn't aost halt as ■ murii as the baiter's, not halfand is really a . pleasure to eat." 1 should remark that he has; been married considerably '■: under: a year. : "And it's so' nourishing too. It's really sustaining. Contains the real tour, not the nobody-knows-what 'that! bakers make their bread of. Just •try it ,old fellow. You'll never, want to eatoaKer's bread again."

I don't think I should have eaten baker's bread again had I yielded. It unwrapped with, a murky, grayish: tint, and was wedged :up in * stodgy, gloomy fashion, the ; way it ; had squeeiced in his pocket. ' I noticed that his fingers made marks as a man's foot does on wet sand, and I barely escaped suggestthat Inspector Cnlleh would; value it if or the (new finger-print i method of s detecting criminals. He stood waiting for me to eat, and rejoice, but I kept my presence of mind and explained; that I had an iron rule never to eat between, meals,; and that lin a»y case , I must take it home, so that those I'loved might (share' fate—l * meant my feast— and, take ~\ example ;by f his wife. (And then he offered to ;,end round a whole loaf, and I said .we were having friends in, and begged him to send two, for I knew that we could throw :it over the fence while poor fel(low, would haw to eat it, and was so young i'» die/; Home-baking is not always a success. New Zealanders are rapidly getting into training --for■;; iSivwright's English football' team. / Already two, or three funerals have been provided in the process, not to speak of minor injuries innumerable. As a clever Frenchman oriee said of: our, national ; game. '* fc » magnificent, and it is war." It is to be hoped that they do hot cable the casualties over to the other side to frighten the visitors into cancelling their New: Zealand engagements. . Speaking , seriously; surely the Rugby unions should put their feet down hard ;on this tiring, and check , the tendency to horseplay which 1 is so deplorably common nowadays,(Real football is a grand game, a game to be proud of, but. the gross, counterfeit that is suffered so often to pass for the genuine article• in New Zealand is dangerous and disgraceful. It is a mistake, I feel sure, to (all an animal-like rough-and- , tumble manly; rather it is degrading and brutalising, and eh'ould be sternly discouraged. A considerable amount <of moral courage is needed by the unions; to take in, hand the purging of t a splendid sport from: the two great evils which threaten its usefulness ; one is betting and the other beating.

*' There was is. time indeed I fretted myself about the mistakes of Government? like other people, (but, finding myself i every day grow more angry, and the Government j growing no fetter, I left it to mend itself." I Goldsmith's well-known words exactly express, if I; am not mistaken, the feelings of "a great number of roadless settlers in New I Zealand to-day, but it is a state of mind < that must be combated with might and main. j The recent" wet weather has left many a poor fellow in the backblocks disgusted to the point of despair. Australia har a pull on us there at least.; "On out selection" Dad never had to wade about his holding, or send- Joe and' Bartholomew to school in a boat. ( He could, always cart his stuff when there was stuff; to cart ; and horseflesh to cart it with. . Really New Zealand settlers are a very patient, long-suffering class of people, Even; promises of relief are getting scarce at this stage of Parliament. - Our members ought to insist on a commission of Southern members being appointed to tour the roadless ((-North during next recess, to see for themselves what has to be put up with by the dads and mothers of Maoriland. The trip might not be such a picnic as the Parliamentary excursion to the Islands, but it wouild certainly prove more useful. Last week my wife bought—l bought, that is to say—a pair of kid gloves..; Womanlike she got them plenty small enough, and I foresaw difficulties. I should mention that the gloves we're neatly encased, first in tis-sne-paj:*r and then in a big envelope, on which was inscribed the following caution: — Kid; glover not being made co measure like most articles of dress, require the greatest care in pulling on ; they should be turned down below the opening, should not be pulled at all, nor should the fingers be pushed on by putting those of the other hand tetween them. Nearly all the complaints arise from neglecting these _ requisite precautions, in which case neither manufacturers nor vendors can be responsible." What! a beautiful, gloriously, impracticable Ijises of composition! Plainly, these 'gloves"'were not meant to wear, and 1 was not much surprised when 1 learned that my wife baii burst all the seams in trying to get them on. They were not amenable to coaxint; ci any other method but that prohibited by the above caution; consequently the warning came true. Now lam looking for tome other sort of glove; the kind which Falls into place on the upstretched finger's is a delusion and a share..

The answur to last week's problem, "What did he lost.?" is "Twopence." He sells twenty, i.e.,, in every twenty-four he loses the price ol: four, which, is equal to onesixth of what he paid. " The man who had done well "is the title of this week problem, "Yes, I have done very well, said A*ton- "wijere 1 was worth a shilling last year, I am worth a pound now .year I only paid income tax on £20. What is his income now? MraCTm ■ -! ; : ■; /