LOCAL GOSSIP.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19798, 19 November 1927, Page 1 (Supplement)

LOCAL GOSSIP.

BY MEUCDTIO.

New Zealand ancl New Zcalanders have pained mention .n great literature in several ways, not counting the time when »Miss Sheila J\aye Smith was unkind enough to say something about meat being as tough and tasteless as New Zealand mutton. Not in her usual good Casta, that remark. It began, of course, with Alacaulay's allegory of the New JZealander standing on the ruins of St. Paul's sketching the parapet of London Bridge, or something equally archaeological and chilly. That allusion has been tlone to death, just as if other great vriters who wouldn't know where to find JNow Zealand on the map, had not used (his long-suffering country to suggest the incredibly remote and barbarous. The latest allusion to the Dominion and its inhabitants is to bo found in Punch. To lie mentioned in Punch is fame, but does this country want the sort of fame there given? Wait and see. The article, 'ivritten incidentally by a sprightly gentleman who visited New Zealand a couple of years ago—as the initials A.P.H. show—purports to be the letter of a glad young creature who had been taken out to tiinner by a reputed Lothario. Ho began s>y trying to out costs on the meal and tfnded by falling asleep in the taxi that ivas to carry him and the lady to the Biext instalment of a riotous night. JNaturally she was~disappointed that the flad she expected to be somewhat forward Jailed to run to form, so she rounds off: — " I told the taxi-man to drive to the Cromwell Road where the rake resides in the most moribund hotel you ever saw, my dear, the sort of place New Zealanders go to." Now why this cut? What have New Zealanders ever done to deserve this? Do they go to moribund hotels? Perhaps they do. After the things said about New Zealand hotels in Parliament this week, perhaps they go about London looking for a hostelry that looks like home to them.

The Minister of Agriculture thinks New Zealand should work up an export trade in seeds. It's quite a good idea, for there must be plenty to spare. Any Tountry wanting blackberry or gorse Seeds, with a bit of Californian thistle cr ragwort thrown in for good measure, can be speedily accommodated.

A worthy resident of Mount Albert cbjects to having his houso numbered 13. Quite right, too. If he objects to 13, it is surely his inalienable right as a citizen of the Empire to object. Apparently the borough council has an inalienable right to say that he must accept 13 or nothing Short of shifting his house to the nearest vacant section, or burning down that of his neighbour so that he may be 11, it is hard to see what the objector can do about this conflict of inalienable rights. The only sure way out seems to be for the house to be occupied by a baker. Then, on the very sound plea that its number was a baker's dozen, it might be ticketed among the odd numbers of that side of the street.

The new features added to the children's hour entertainment ffam IYA have called forth favourable comment In particular the choir items have been very highly praised. It has been suggested that they are quite good enough to be put on the' air in the main session when the children are supposed all to be in bed, and their parents to be wearing the earphoues. No doubt the choir items are good enough for this; but there is something very characteristic in proposing they should be collared for the grownups. When Master Tommy has been given a train and track, with a clockwork engine to draw the carriages, he is often packed off to bed so that Dad and Uncle Bill can amuse themselves with it uninterruptedly. The children's hour, it seems, is not free from this kind of thing either.

So New Zealand treats the Maori far too well! So, at least, an Australian thinks, for he finds brothers Honi and Hori asserting themselves in the cities far too much for his democratic taste. He has evidently seen something which others besides himself have failed to understand, • the mutual respect and good will of the two kinds of New Zealander who do not allow a slight difference in complexion to spoil their cordial relations. It is very puzzling and very annoying, no doubt, to some people who cannot bear to have their preconceived notions upset by finding racial differences ignored in the fashion that obtains in tiiis country. But let such critics cease from worrying. New Zealand knows very well what it is about; in any event, if advice is needed on how to treat an indigenous people, and an example to be followed is sought, it will not be to Australia that tiiis Dominion will go for either; no, nor to the United Stales either.

A great and famous book, written in New Zealand, is Samuel Butler's " Erewhon." Those who have read it—there is not time even in a long life to road all great and famous books—will remember that it deals with a land where illness is a crime, and what we regard as crime is illness. But more significant, tho people of Erewhon, having decided that machinery must inevitably develop iio that man would be made its slave, had banned and interdicted every machine iind every mechanical device, Ihe narrator of the story, on crossing the borders of that mystic land, very nearly got into serious trouble because he was carrying a ■Watch. Very well; Samuel Butler lived in New Zealand long before the age of lie motor-car, but if he had been here now, tho chances are he would have V;iilten Erewhon with even more edge to ft than it has. Let the crime and illness J>art of it go, but what about the machines 7 No sooner had the petrol tax finished convulsing the country than the Hew and universal motor regulations appeared to agitate motoring circles all ever again. Then tho motor-bus business ►eems to be a perennial source of worry to citizens, city councils, railway departments and other worthy folks and institutions. All symptomatic of progress, no tl übt. but what a price wo p' l V for ! This is a peaceful and law-abiding community, but some day it may be driven to pushing all vehicles propelled bv internal combustion engines—yes even Henry s Output-—over the coast line that is never far away, and settling down to peace and quietness with good old Dobbin. Samuel Butler might then be a national hero, 'a position he would never gain on tiis literary reputation.

A Takapuna resident the other day Jilunged his hand into his letter-box and Jound a, bee in the way bees are often found when they are sort of stumbled on like that. He found the business end. In these hard tmies it is not unusual to find in the morning mail a letter with ft stinc; in the tail of it; something like: "in default of an immediate settlement proceedings will be taken." But to find the sting so practically and painfully as the Takapuna man did is over the odds ultogether. Ho must have some sweet correspondents.