Round THE Corners

New Zealand Mail, Issue 770, 3 December 1886, Page 17

Round THE Corners

I don’t want to be prosy, and beastly pessimistic, and, without falling into doleful dumps, one may say, minus much exaggeration, that appearances are indicative of some corruption in the body politic. What between poisonings and attempted poisonings, murders, assaults with intent, the maltreatment of children held in trust, and a terrific and increasing quantity of commercial immorality, society does seem to be going the pace to the very devil. No one feels exactly safe, for scarce any one knows how soon he or she—if she has taken advantage of the Married Women’s Property Act—may not be involved in some distressing whirligig of villainous swindling. The most advanced of our optimists are affected by the peculiar circumstances of the day. The query of “ Well, old man, how is it with you,” put the other day to a really sanguine youth in his forties, was met with the rejoinder, “ Oh, dear boy, can just put by a pound or two,” and then, apologetically, “You know no one is making much these times. If we make two ends meet .’tis all one can expect for a bit, anyhow.” Just so, friend optimist, that’s about as much as can be made of the position. The reply of another to an interrogation as to the prospects of the immediate future was of a similar tenor, but strikingly characteristic, and differently couched. “ Prospects are bad, sir,” —and then, emphatically, “ and will be worse, locally worse, through the rascality and villainy thas prevails. It destroys confidence, sir.” He was right, too ; confidence does receive nasty knocks when it is so frequently misplaced. And the remedy for all this ?

All that is complained of, the corruption within and the corruption without, are simply the throes of reform. We are advancing in democratic stages, and the new biAh is. attendedjwith convulsions, marking the severity of the crisis, and significant of its importance. ’Tis the license of liberty that is upon us and, I may add, imperfect legislation. In certain directions the people have too much headway* and there is nothing to-check them. One, it seems, is expected to control the other, and the one declines the responsibility. And he is right in so doing. For it is a fact that the State is the policeman and the con server of the morality of the people. If felonies are committed, compounding them should be out of the question, an absolute impossibility; for the moment the trail was struck, unofficially or officially, it should be the duty of the State to lay on its sleuth hounds, to rest not until justice had been vindicated. This was dune in Melbourne the other day, when the private concern did not want to prosecute, but the Government would and did. If that were the rule people would be extremely chary Tiow

they committed themselves. But as the case stands now, a rogue may rogue with impunity. Such a one makes a bad insolvency, a very bad one, involving defalcations and all kinds of disagreeableness ; and are the creditors to be blamed if they decline to be any more out of pocket merely for the sake of bringing him to legal book ? Not a bit of it. They take; their five shillings, or half a crown, or the “ colonial Robert,” and go their way, with shoulder shrugging and the mournful exclamation, “ It won’t be the last time by chalks.” They are aware of the viciouaness of the atmosphere they , " are enhaling, and even if the estate does not pay a rap, and the business looks very queer indeed, is it their place to attempt to purify ? No; why should they throw good money after bad ? Let the Official Assignee do something. And in nine cases out of ten the Official Assignee declines to do anything because he does not see his way ; there are no funds or something of the sort. And so things drift; vice k triumphs, and virtue is still its own reward. And all the while society is suffering from the force of pernicious example. Successful » villainy is so catching. “Let us go and do likewise,” say the evily-disposed, “for really, if we mind our P’s and Q’s, the law will not touch us. A little felony is not worth mentioning in these lax days. We have only to be .• careful not to lay it on too thick. . And mean" while we shall fare sumptuously at other people’s expense, and hurrah for modern buccaneering.” That’s about it, I think. Will Parliament try and amend certain of the statutes so as to shorten the tether of such gentry as these ?

Sorely the turn of the harbor must first be served ; ’tis the port that makes the city, and the interests of the shipping are above all else. But treading very close indeed on their heels come the interests of the rising generation, of whom some seven or eight hundred, or even a thousand, take to the water as naturally as young penguins, and insist that room shall be given them to make their splashes. I don’t quite know what Wellington would degenerate to if the Boating and Yachting Clubs were wiped out. Don’t think ’twould be safe to live in any how. What would become of that enormous -amount of surplus energy which is now harmlessly, and healthfully, and profitably discharged, through the medium of outriggers and inriggers, pair oars, dingies.cutters, sloops, and dandies. The lads go out like young lions and come back pretty limp, on the whole, and wanting their teas badly, and then they are quiet till bed-time, and quieter still thence till morning time. And so mater and pater ana the girls manage to exis't in peace, and the city in safety. I don’t think that man would be safe who succeeded in diverting any of the above-mentioned energy in an inland direction. The current sets very strongly towards the heads.

And while on this subject I may just ask the Harbor Board when it is going to establish proper salt water baths for both sexes. Those old things that have so long done duty were never worth much, and are .just about played out. The City Corporation never succeeded in soaring above a certain level in bath construction, and it has become the proud privilege of the Harbor Board to show how it might be done. Proper baths, where fellows can take headers from spring- boards, and be seen of no woman ; proper baths where dames and maidens may disport themselves free from the shadow of doubt as to their privacy and under cover, as in other cities where the sea is so handy. Let us hope that the Harbor Board will take the opportunity of distinguishing itself. Petherick ! Petheriek !*ivhere are you ? Arise and shake your mane, thou lion of civic politics.

Bless us and save us ! how some people do stand upon their dignity. Who is It that has been delivering a homily to Press representatives as to the how to behave themselves at , public meetings, not to demean their darling selves by doing anything that was not made particularly nice and comfortable for them to do? Very like the devil quoting Scripture this. Or what was that animal which, having lost his tail, tried his level best to induce his companions to come to his level by a voluntary docking of theirs, and they wouldn’t ? Ah ! ’twas Foxy, very ; and so is the post meridian homily with which we have been favored. “Press representatives!” Dignity! not to lower themselves! Cadging! etc., etc. Say old postman, with yer double knock, reckon that that Press representative is the best man who succeeds in raking in the most information for his patron, the public. Never mind- how he gets it—honestly if possible, conveniently, nicely if possible, if sitting in a high place with some gooseberry fiz before him, and admiring eye 3 watching his deft shorthand work, all the “betterer ” and “ properer,” but still, good and proper if he has to perch upon a rafter, or hide in a coal scuttle, or make a screen of a leading evening paper to write behind; he has to get the news, that’s the reporter’s duty, and ’tis for the boss editor to decide if it shall be or shall not be published. Reporters are just reporters, and mighty rosy times they have now-a-days, compared with the .- ~ desperate scrambling of old, before things were made easy ar.d convenient by the telegraph and steam services. Those dear old when a smart reporter rushed ashore with, possibly, i the only paper containing late news onboard the vessel, and for which he had disbursed a guinea or two. He was a happy man then, and his editor a happier. Reporters of thejold days were Titans in their way ; they had to get the news by hook or by crook, and the editor would not he said nay to. And now, forsooth, they are not to take news unless it is offered up to them on a piece of gold plate or Dresden china. It won’t do, post meridian. That reporter who dished the Palmerston stuff up in ante meridian was the right man in the right place. He just studied his customers, and put his dignity in his pocket, the same as post meridian did in the old days, before it took to riding the high horse.

Asmodeus.