ROUNDS THE CORNERS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 930, 27 December 1889, Page 17

ROUNDS THE CORNERS.

THE TIME OF YEAR. Here we are, right between Christmas and New Year. Another twelvemonth gone almost, and another ready to strike in. Now, I am not going to moralise, but just praise up ! holiday-keeping. Mr Punch was quite right, when he dubbed holidays the greatest of our institutions. The estates of the realm are nothing to ’em, and nothing, that I know of, can be compared with ’em except hard work. This isn’t a bit paradoxical, dear boys, because you know everything in this blessed sphere of sub-lunacy is comparative- If there was no hard work there would be no holidays, and there you see what an advantage the working bee has over the drones and the other poor devils who really have ‘got no work to do.’ The bees have their holidays and the others don't have any. And thus the gilded vonth of society, and the gilded men and, women, are very much to be pitied. Their existences are dead levels of sameness. Too. mu,ch jam, top, much jam, and it clogs and becomes hateful j and the poor wretches ‘ hanker ’ for they know not what, b : ut darn’t for their very live.! let go what they have in hand,. An,d so they are always on th,e wander and; never satisfied, and get weak in the head and subject to bad habits, and all because they hav’n’t, any real holidays, which means also that they are short of real wholesome work, THE EFFECT OF IT. And having holidays, and J’ 1 ' . , bees are healthy, min<* ' -““ Wl8e enjoy themseN'" y ’ f n . themse’- 03 until they succeed m gilding v es properly by dint of hard work and good management, and then tlieir troubles commence. By-and-bye they hav n t any work to do, and holidays stop, and they become poor discontented, degenerated creatures, with great big livers and kidneys that are always on strike, and their children are gilded youth, and shocking examples of being out of the holiday running. After all a moral has disclosed itself. ‘Never be out of work, keep up an appetite for holidays, and don't get too rich. Gold dust, like other dust, chokes.’ THE ‘ IF ’ AGAIN. If people would only be sensible and pall t gether, what lots of stunning holidays we might have ! Just fancy all the colonies adopting a

uniform fiscal system ; all running on a well thought out equitable scheme of either Freetrade or Protection, or a little of both; the fundamental principle working throughout being the fostering of native industry, each colony having a regard for the other, and working to a common end, the establishment of an Australasian Dominion, thoroughly self-contained and in a position to snap its fingers at the world besides. That’s your sort, my hearties, Australasia * shouther to shouther,’ but not insensible at the same time to the grand old land that gave its dominion birth. Let U 3 be fair and just always, and go to the root of the matter, particularly at this season of the year, remember the Christmas firesides in old England. But with an interdependent dominion established here we could remember, and also do justice to ourselves by not allowing our own industries to be swamped by cheap labour of any kind. And thus, if all this could only be brought about, the question of enough holidays would be settled for say a century. If the people decided to have ’em, have ’em they could, and after the century the deluge, or anything else that might be preferred. MAKE THE MOST OF IT. And the holidays we are having now ? let us hope everybody is enjoying him and herself. Away with care, my hearts, ease up the strings, relax the tension, and if only for twenty-four hours abandon yourself to the sweet do nothing. That dolce far niente. Ah me, how'nice it is when you con compass it. Does anyone want to know what the acme of sensuous enjoyment is ? I’ll tell them : Lie in bed and take it out in snoozing ! Aye, twenty-four hours if you can and then turn over and begin again. Tothecompletelypnmped-out.tbedeadly wearied in mind and body, this is the panacea. And when you want to get up you’ll know that the remedy has dona its duty. You are ready to face another round of worry and work. ‘He wants a change,’ cries some one ; ‘go for a trip says another.’ * Run through the Colony; ; go to Melbourne, see things, and you are a new man.’ I say bosh to all this ; tho man wants rest, and wants to do nothing except lie a bed and as the song says, ‘dream the happy* hours away.’ I say holidays are grand institutions, and so they are, but did’st ever, O reader, may I add, hard-working and much-worried reader, try to combine a holiday with a picnib? Thou hast a wife peradventure who has her fads, and picnicking is one of them. And it’s, O John, such an outing ! There’s Mr and Mrs So-and-So, and the children, and Mr. and Mrs. Whata-the-Name, and the What-do-you-call-’eins, and the So-and-So’s and ourselves—lovely ! And there’s everything ready, and only four or five baskets to carry, and it will be jolly. And like a bullock led to the shambles, that man goes, and before the day is half over, his vexation of spirit can find relief only in profanity, as Mark Twain, that profound analyst of human nature, so pithily puts, it. Yes, that man feels like standing still and swearing hard for twenty minutes, and finish off by jumping on his hat. No, mate, not your hat, get hold of the woman's bonnet that tempted you. Ah, me, the fraud, the delusion and the snare of picnicking to any but the very young!

But let’s get back to Christinas time. Folks hereaway have seemed to make the mo3t of it. The Government shut up for the best part of a week, and so did the Corporation. The lawyers always do for a whole week, a sure indication of supreme wisdom, and if they’d shut up altogether ’twould be a mercy to mankind. And the newspapers absolutely stopped publishing for two whole days. lam proud to know that a big concern like the Auckland Herald locked its doors, kicked, so to speak, all its employes into the street, and bade ’em enjoy themselves for forty-eight hours. The newspapers are in the same oategory as the lawyers. It would he well for mankind if there were fewer of ’em, I wish Parliament would take it up and set; : apart periodicities in the twelvemonth wherein it would bs unlawful for newspapers to publish at all. But to be serious, there is no occupa--1 tion that requires periodical rests more than newspaper work. The tension of it is awful. And what is worse, its subtle influence is so potent that its votaries, in some cases, absolutely hug their chains, and vow they are neves so happy as when hard at it. This is on a par with the coachman who took his holiday seated on the box of his own vehicle as a passenger. But it’s bad practice, for reaction is certain to come, sooner or later. THE NEW YEAR. Next week is the New Year’s advent tiros'. It is one of time’s distance posts; we plant them as we go along, but where is the goal ? Still we swirl through space, each orb in its appointed place, and those that have developed sentient beings are arenas wherein that which is tantamount to human intelligence is seething and struggling and aspiring and rejoicing and sneering. And so with us; every succeeding year we hope will be better than the last. Always looking forward discounting the future, offering it the sweet sacrifice of adoration, and reproaching the past for not having compassed the impossible. This is human nature, and it’s natural, too, to look to one another for hopeful encouragement, for some of that sympathy that so lightens life’s burdens. Friends, let us rejoice together, if only in. spirit, and tender our welcome to the 1890 bantling, putting behind us carping and cavilling, and all unchasitableness, and wishing one another from our heart of hearts A HAPPY NEW “YEAR. Asmodeds. rfJH—aYrfLhiau.iwgvi'W-wiw- l nwai*fc fc 'OTorm»iwr-TW'rinniMrißwiii i i i m