Things by the Way.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 177, 21 November 1874, Page 13

Things by the Way.

Clown. —Pedlar : Let’s have the first choice. —The Winter's Talc. A very strange spirit, Mr. Editor, appears to trouble some portions of the Press of the colony at times. I invest an occasional half hour — “ invest,” for time is money—in thermost convenient newsroom open to me. 1 if i ksb ould be the fine library of Parliament I. enjoy it, because I am then in presumably good company, and even though Bellcmy is not in season. If it is only the Athenteum, I can still take my news at my ease. If I am merely my o\ a companion, with a pipe and A paper- in some familiar “liowff,” or by “my ain fireside,” there is still company in my reading. But it does puzzle me how singularly your journalistic Christians appear to love each other, and how much satisfaction it appears to give some among them to make a point against a neighbor though it may he made by giving a twist to the truth, which only the person attached and the person attacking can know. In these days it is not irreverent or improper to say that the Press is taking the place of the Pulpit. It has become a power in the State—a leader and a teacher. But some whom superior abiLity or accident has seated in the editorial chair, seem to have entirely forgotten their high mission, and to content themselves with mos-quito-like stinging. If they discover a raw anywhere, they use it just as delicately aud in as humane and high a spirit as a cabman does to the creature he is in a position to “touch up.” I have heard of some men of noble minds and large aspirations, who helped to form the Press of England. I have read what Carlyle says of John Sterling, and how the reputation of “the Thunderer” was made. I have also heard of such men in connection with the Press as Montgomery, the Christian poet ; and in these later days of Thoma-s Aird, George Outram, Alexander Russel, Dr. Carmtliers,' Dr. Charles McKay, Angus Reach, Alexander Mackay, Charles McLaren, and a host of others, whose names and specialities you, Mr. Editor, will no doubt remember. These were representative newspaper men. They did, and some of them still do—others have gone to their rest—the work of the world in the spirit of the tru newspaper teacher. They could set a wrong right. They could teach a truth,

and point a moral. Their pens were strong when strength was necessary ; and by their ability, their habitual temperance of language, their high aims, and then- integrity, these were the kind of men who so greatly assisted to make the Press of England what it is. But there were Pottses also in those days, and the mantle of that great man has not only fallen upon a descendant in these parts, but has been cut up to fragments and shared by a crowd of Pottses, all greater than the original. I should not wonder, perhaps, at this state of tilings, seeing liow few among the persons who presume to call themselves journalists in the colony have ever seen the inside of a newspaper office, or assisted in the guidance of anything better than a rag of scandals; but Ido sometimes think that it would be more to the credit of the colony, more to the power of the Press itself, more to the good of the public, if this EatanswiU leaven were less commonly distributed. I see that a Press Club has now been formed in Dunedin. The prosperous and useful Yorick Club of Melbourne originated with a few Press men. It is still only a large Press Club ; and a similar institution in New Zealand—with its head-quarters in Dunedin, perhaps, as the largest and most enterprising of the commercial centres of the colony —and branches in the other leading towns, may have an ameliorating effect on Press life in New Zealand.

But I have let myself run away, Mr. Editor, from the immediate subject on which —some forty or fifty lines back—l had intended to remark. I had meant to have written of the curious way in which one or two of the southern journals have turned round upon Mr. Holloway, the delegate of the English agricultural laborers, who is now amongst us, aud having completed an extensive journey of the whole of New Zealand, will sail for England in a few hours from the harbor of Wellington. He came hither to spy the country for the purpose of reporting to those who valued his opinion, and were prepared to act upon it if he “ saw that the laud was good.” He landed in Otago, where he was warmly welcomed, and he spent a good deal of time in visiting nearly every portion of that important province. He was then lauded to the sides. His every movement was watched ; and when he was “ interviewed” the reporter retired satisfied with the stranger because he had seen much to admire though the land laws were held to be capable of improvement. But Mr. Holloway went further than Otago. In Canterbury he also saw something to admire, and he met with a number of settlers of whom lie had known or heard something in “the olden time” at Home, when they were by no means so comfortable or so happy as they have since been in New Zealand.' It was no more than was to be expected that hp should see something in the state of Canterbury—in its rich plains and mineralfilled hills —to induce him to think that there, too, an English farm laborer, a poor starved Wiltshire hind, a yokel, or a heavy-handed aud thick-headed Somersetshire plough-boy, might make liis way to something better than seven shillings a-week, and the Union in his old age. *But Mr. Holloway also went to Nelson, and though he could there see but few signs of healthy life, there was still that in the soil and climate, the vegetation, the iiowers, and the gardens there was an English air about the place which he liked. There he could say, as surely as in any English glade,— I knew by -the smoke that so gracefully curled Above the green elms that a cottage was near-; And I said if there’s peace to be found in this world, A heart that is humble might hope for it here. But the North Island was also visited, and because Mr. Holloway spent a good deal of time in Auckland, saw the lcauri-gum plains, visited the once troubled Waikato, aud was pleased ; and was still more gratified, perhaps, with what he saw in the province of Taranaki —therefore the stranger had become a traitor to the South ! This is a strange course to be taken by. journals which support the policy of the Government, and see in the rapid influx of people, aud the correspondingly rapid extension of public works, the surest hope for the future. Mr. Holloway appears to think well of the colony as a whole ; he • thinks better, perhaps, of that portion which he saw last, than of that which by accident he visited first ; and for this the Olwjo Daily Times turns upon him with “s.ark asm” that would be entertaining if it were deserved ; but under the whole circumstances of the case is rather a reflection upon the journalism of the South. This is what is said of Mr. Holloway’s latest published remarks on what he has seen in the colony : —- In the art of making people happy by telling clever truths we have found a taller nigger than Sir George Bowen. His name is—Holloway. There musi be something in the name. Hereditary intuition conveys to us a more defined notion than of yore. The great vender of pills and ointment lias flung his mantle over the Arch emissary, and the “ old mail is beaten by the boy.” At. last I have found the province after which my soul lias so long lusted ; at last I see where my hungry and crushed laborers shall lie down fat and happy, “ Otago I admire ; Canterbury I fondle ; Marlborough I adore : "Wellington I worship ; AuckI esteem, aud Taranaki I am going to die in.” So runs the tale. Mr. Holloway is a man

with a mission, and we do not quarrel with him for making himself happy according to his lights. He would show himself less wise in his generation than he really is if he did not make some such kind return, as was possible in words, for his kind reception. There was something regal about the whole procedure, only Mr. H. represented, not unworthily, the sovereignty of the people. Being treated in due form as the representative of the people, he made the best return in his power, and behaved as such. The odd tiling is that one place after another should have accepted the same sweet pill and swallowed it without hesitation, with hardly one wry face. I see nothing odd in it. I take it that the colony, as a whole, is appreciated by our guest a 3 a good field lor emigrants from England of the farming and farm-laboring class; and it is not necessary to please Otago that lie should conceal what lie thinks of Taranaki. I read that my countryman—the descendent of the immortal Daniel who visted the hi an in the Moon during the night and found himself in the Bay of Allen in the morning—has been making a speech ill the North to his constituents. lam afraid I must claim for him the credit of seldom oiiening his mouth without putting his foot in it. As fortune would have it, I was amongst the strangers in the gallery on that famous night when Mr. O’Rorke broke away from his brother members of the Cabinet on the provincial question, made a speech that bristled with daggers and seemed to be the inspiration of the moment—the outburst of one astounded at the sudden and unexpected announcement of a new policy. lie so led the House to suppose ; for it was a charge against him, made on the floor of the House, that he had concealed his dissent in the Cabinet, and from the Cabinet. And when lie walked across the chamber, leaving behind him office and its emoluments, and gathered around him the toga of innocence, with the air of a hero and martyr suffering for conscience sake, he impressed me with his sincerity, though I could not but feel that the truth lay with those who gave him the retort —rather more than courteous—at once and on the spot. Now Mr. O’Rorke tells us, in effect, that his mind had been made up for some time ; that, in fact, the scene was prepared and rehearsed, like any other startling incident in “ a stage play,” for days before. I shall lose my faith in political martyrs if this sort of thing goes on. I do not know that there is any intimate relation, Mr. Editor, between the deception practised upon me by tlie late Minister, and the thought that occurred to me for this paragraph. I want to make a complaint on the part of tlie police of the city. Perhaps I should say of the province as well ; but as my acquaintance—perhaps happily—-is limited in this respect, I will only speak of those I know. The number of men to do night and day duty is so few that if they were less vigilant they might, and small blame to them, realise the popular idea that a man in blue is never to be found when wanted. Some of our young bloods, however, have found them when they would rather not have done so. They have night and day duty to perforin, regularly going fourteen hours at a stretch for three or four days in a week, though shorter hours at other times—sometimes by day and sometimes by night. I need not say to what they are exposed, nor how much is required of them; but to ask men to find their own uniforms, pay rent, keep families, aud be ordinarily “ dacent ” in these days of dear meat and no vegetables, on 7s. or 7s. 6d. per day, is very much like a mockery. A labourer on the wharf can earn liis shilling an hour. If that labourer is worthy of his hire, surely so is he who labors to maintain the peace and quiet of the city; who is constantly called upon to do trying and disagreeable duly; and who must be above the suspicion of any of the common weaknesses of ordinary mortals. Madame Goddard has left us, and taken nearly all the flowers of Wellington with her. She grew upon the appreciation of the public more aud more at ‘each successive concert; and woke up the musical amongst us to a fever of admiration at last. It certainly was a treat to see her wonderful fingering, and to mark how perfectly she knew even the most difficult works she rendered. I mentioned for my lady readers that she wore a rich Irish poplin on her first appearance. On her second she dressed in a maroon satin, trimmed with Honiton lace of great value. I was so “ distracted ” on the third occasion that I could not take my eye from the finger-board, or suffer my mind to contemplate even a lady’s costume. I may mention, however, for the encouragement of young ladies who play difficult pieces that she suffered no rings to encumber her little fingers while performing. Madame was ably assisted by her company, and especially by Mi-s. Smythe ; and it is telling no tale out of school that by her three concerts, each more paying than the other, she grossed something like £3BO. Her agent had been offered, while yet the lady was in Nelson, £250 down for the speculation, limited to three concerts. Nature evidently is at variance with the Hon. William Eox. The universal fruit—the common food of bipeds and quadruped, of men and of fish—through all the sunny is the cocoa-nut, which here we know only in its ripe state. A late visitor to Honolulu, however, tells us that though the water contained in the green cocoa-nut—and every nut holds about a pint—is the universal chink in the Hawaiian Kingdom, Nature lias played the part of the distiller, for the liquid is intoxicating ! Positively the Parliament of Honolulu must deal with this matter in a thoroughly permissive style. By the way, I should like to be king of that country—-able to imitate Old King Cole whenever I had a mind ; for I see that his salary is £SOOO a-year, with nothing to do, as liis Privy Council, his judges,, his associates, and his nine police judges, each with £6OO a-year, do it all for him. , The Governor has gone from Wellington, leaving without ceremony or parade ; the Cup day is over, and J have not proved myself a prophet, nor the son of one ; the Wellington—not to say the Wairarapa—races are coming, and if anyone can tell me what horse is certain to win the best prize, and will lend me “ a fiver,” he can put it on at the best odds for Piter the Pedlar.