LOCAL GOSSIP.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 13307, 13 October 1906, Page 1 (Supplement)

LOCAL GOSSIP.

?'L«t me have audience for a word or two." H-, : —Shakespere. I? . Each year the reunion of old colonists be- {;• comes more and more a sad and pathetic •light. 'The old pioneers are growing very old : • '.' V are be:r, with age and infirmities; ite r rerun .show ever widening gaps.' In a little while they will have all gone. Of the noble six hundred who landed in Auckland over 60 years ago full of youth, and strength, and hope—with • their future still before them—r.ot one will remain When I think of that memorable landing and lock around at th frail and white-haired group of men and women, all that is left of the goodly company of that far-off time, I am forcibly r.'.mirdeel of the words of the Preacher , "I r turned, and saw under the sun that the rr*ce is not to th f : swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor vet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all. Such is th* portion of man. But it doesn t matter vi-y much, I suppose, s-> long as we do v .;n our might whatsoever our hand lindctn to do, going our way, eating _ our biead wit?; joy, and drink eg <wr wine v:tJ» a merry heart. " i It. is, perhaps, only right that those selected to deliver addresses at t;uch reunions should endeavour to in prove rue occasion by dwelling on the old-fas*. onei vrtues of lite early colonists, and contrasting them with the characteristics of the present day. But cui bono? It is the stream that carries us along. Every age has its own temperament. Conditions change, and we perforce change with them. We'derive our hue from our environments. Sixty years ago the simple life was the life led iby everyone in Auckland. In those old times the Crimean shirt was not despised. No one was looked down upon because lie lived in a two-roomed shanty; ao one was ashamed to toil with his hands, or to earn his bread by the swea', of his brow. The idol of Pretension had 'i t yet been set up. The word Society was rot to be found in the vocabulary in ccn.moiu --.se. Now everything is different, an*.; however much we may regret it v. e cannot h fl " i:. If the Mayor were to w»lk down .-u•* •■'■treet.in his shirt sleeves'h' wpv'-.' <•£ a sensation. We o.vly Lake oi» >, ■, off now on the bowling . reen. Ou jr.. i have become glorified fashion p 1 ■ i ; and our men sartorial studies. The simp 'ife is no longer possible, for when &>■ uw,. steps in at the loor simplicity flr.j vv . the window. We may rail at 1 ; v\s of the age, ! ; but the age purues i'. own * reel will, as heedless of v? •,s the .won when a dog bays at it. The Hon. G. Fow Ids has been telling the members of the. Union Parliament in Wellington that he owes a great deal to literary and debating societies, and that "he was perfectly satisfied he would never have been a member of the New Zealand Parliament ■ but for his association with them." If I may b? so bold I should be inclined to drop ' a word of warning into the ear of the Hon. George. When a man begins to tell you how lie became great he is in danger of becoming a trifle ridiculous, for the habit is likely to grow on him. ' James Pavn, who was once editor of Chambers' Journal, speaking of William Chambers, says he was always talking of the poverty of his youth, and hintingvery broadly-—at the genius which had raised him to eminence. He was fond of holding forth upon the miseries of a poor lad, who had to toil for his livelihood, and had afterwards, by diligence and merit, made a great figure in the world; and the peroration which everybody was quite prepared (i.e.. with their handkerchiefs, not 'iat their, eyes, but stuffed! in <their mouths)— iinfti. to be always "I was that. 80y.i,, JDe* bating societies* may be all right in their way, but if they are going to encourage the -young New Zealander ti» get into Parliament it is time they were put down with a firm hand. '■ " i. * ' " > I hope that the bridge across the cemetery gully—which one of these days will, I trust, be an accomplished fact— receive a name less suggestive of graves and the dead than that by which it is now gener- / ally spoken. Anything would be better j than cemetery bridge; Most people, i! fancy, would favour a Maori name, and I ' have no doubt some of our. Maori scholars could without any difficulty find a very suit- ■■ able one. . . , In case we should grow over conceited of V our beautiful colony it is well to be reminded occasionally that in other people's eyes •!- rit is not all that fond fancy paints it. Thus in the Times of India, an Anglo-Indian falls foul of New Zealand from fore to stern. j ! Our assets are " wood and water," our peo- J ple are " a non-reading community," the ] towns are overcrowded with professional men, the climate is " overestimated," in i Auckland it is either "gloomy and raining, j or sultry and oppressively hot;" while "as to the clubs, the music and so on, to be found in large towns they are not on a par; as a rule—either socially or intellectually— with similar Anglo-Indian institutions." Needless to say the writer of this disparagement of New Zealand, who had come to the colony to see whether it was a good enough place for him to settle in, returned to India, and we lost, 0! blessed loss! the chance of adding to our number a very superior person, accustomed to move in the highest social circles. One of the Challenger men was explain- I ing naval politics to an appreciative audience of admirers by th© wharf. "And what's this .'ere intentv cordial?" asked one. k " What!" said Jack, " don't you know what the intenty cordial is? It's a new sort of temperance drink that they have in France. When the JYenchies used to drink wine, whenever we met 'em they used to put on airs and we used to scruff 'em. And then there was an arrangement for them to have Intenty Cordial instead, and .now whenever we meet 'em we shake hands and they say 'What's yours?' For we ain't obliged to drink the Intenty ! ( Cordial, you understand." They understood. The latest suggestion for stopping dustclouds is not to water them or to oil them, but just to get rid of the dust. The watering system consists of our turning the dust into mud as fast,as possible while the sun and wind turn it back into dust as fast as possible. • In this contest we. are bound to lose sometimes, and never seem to get any " forrader" any way. The oiling system supposes that oiled dust will stay sticky, and not turn into dust again—but there seems to me to be drawbacks of which we don't hear or the system would have gone around the world like influenza. Now comes along a genius who simply suggests the ~, removal of the dust. The idea is that the streets _ should be swept by suction-machines which would draw all dust into dust carts and take it away. Our sweepers work in a smother and do as much harm as good, but a suc-tion-sweeper would make no smother at all. And when the dust is off the streets, the ■ ■ suction-sweepers would run over them once in a while to keep them free from the newmade dust, and the dust that blows into town from the country. No dust, no dustclouds, no smother. That would be the millennium indeed. And why not remove % s the dust instead of trying to "lay" it.' It sounds more reasonable at any rate. Jryl,f ■- For the dust nuisance is already more than poor humanity can bear and will be all the summer. A walk into town is beiSffl ' com ' something to shrink from. The dust i"a', i must actually stop women from coming-in tfMih * to shop, and when it does that it is time for the shopkeepers to attend to it. Perhaps that is why nothing has . yet been done to gtop the dust nuisance. Men | may have dimly perceived that somehow f®l# ie - v are better off when there is lots of ij dust than when there isn't, and so, have tolerated it as they never would have done „:. otherwise, «"• - ' * iOT *.