ROUNDS THE CORNERS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 933, 17 January 1890, Page 17

ROUNDS THE CORNERS.

A LAME AND IMPOTENT CONCLUSION. Don’t seem to be much wisdom in a mob o£ Councillors if the collective amount of it is to be gauged by the result of all those months of serious consideration about a site, for a new cemetery. Opinions did differ, and ho mistake, and the varying aspect of the deliberations did really favour an assumption of axe-grinding. And then, because nobody could get what they wanted, the farthest removed corner, literally between the devil and the deep sea—a grand stand of a racecourse on one side and Cook Straits on the other—was fixed upon to the chorus of ‘ What good boys are we.’ The blessed place is next to nowhere, and will never take with the public. T hope the decision will be reconsidered in favour of a more convenient and get-at-able locality, which the Karori site offered certainly was. Nearly £ISOO in the pocket of Joseph and Wright by the transaction. Of a verity, unto those that hath muoh shall be given, and I know I’d rather have the money than the land in these days of caution and retrenchment. ' Thou hast no speculation in thine eyes,’ may in truth be addressed by every mother’s son to every mother’s son when they meet in the street. The ratepayers will fail in their duty if they do not, rise up in judgment against that cemetery decision. It ought to be opposed at any ptiee. A ‘CHERRY BUM.’ That fellow Donnolly, of baby-show and skating-rink notoriety, was all hs-ad, shoulders and arms, A head to conceive and arms to rake in the results by the aid of which he was borne away from the fleeting gaze of male aud female dupes. The wonder is that anyone in their sober senses could be found to trust him. But the man was really another Ceasar : Veni, vidi, vici, on his crested helmet of double-dyed assurance. He held out his hands, people filled them, and he ‘ hooked it ’ with the spoil. Who can wonder ? But he would have fared: worse in this city but for that wretched trade Jealousy paragraph in the Lyttelton Times. Because the Telegraph the night before uttered a sound warning, the 'Times must needs discredit it next morning, and people afar,, under whose sotice it was brought for a purpose, were eruelly misled. The baby show in Wellington would have been swamped but for 4bat local. Journalism would be more dutiful to itself and the public if it put its petty spites behind it and went shoulder to shoulder to trounce s,u«h arrant knave 3 as the baby showman,, an uncertificated bankrupt. Even that wasn’t known in particular quarters here until the mischief was done. A VALUABLE ASSET. The Government, it seems, is just waking up to the fact that there is an exceedingly valuable section of the public estate in the wonderful scenery of the S. W. corner of the Middle Island. It’s a big * corner,’ though, and J f it was opened out properly, would pay better than any goldfield in the Colony. Make it thoroughly accessible, and the Colony will, one way and another, rake in at the rate of £IOO,OOO a year to begin with. Commence foot-patbs and bridle-paths, and then roads as soon after as practicable. Let it be understood once that the Colony means to realise the very valuable asset it has at command, and the civilised wqrld, qr least the leigue and ad*

venturous portion of it, will bo a-tiptoe with expectation. And then, when the way is cleared, the inflow will begin. Why, S. W. Otago is tho New Zealand Switzerland ; this great fact is just beginning to dawn upon us. No hesitating, Messieurs the Government, but wade in bald-headed, and open up that big, big block of country. Devote some of the esdmated surplus to it. Money couldn’t be better spent. SERVANTGALISM. She didn’t want any references, never bothered about ’em, never staid at a place longer than six months, nobody cared for lier and she cared for nobody. She knew her way about, and all that a * missus ’ could teach her was nothing to no one. She believed in her own ways, and families she condescended to live with would have to submit. Them’s my sentiments. No wonder that families trod upon her corii3, and it was the back of her hand to them all; she was a sort of domestic Ishmael. And a suffering mistress —no, not mistress, for she wasn’t mistress at all; let us say employer having dared to express dissatisfaction with something that hod been done, the free and independent packed her box and marched out of the house at a moment’s notice. And she was succeeded by an angel of a creatuie who was most eager to take her place, and came with a bundle under her arm. She was installed, and went peering about the house, catfashion, before settling down. But she didn’t settle down, for after careening around for a quarter of an hour or eo, she summoned the wretched house-mother and thus delivered herpelf : ‘ This place won’t suit me ; the house is too big—shan’t stay,’andoff shemarched,bundle and all. The next was a bonnie lassie ‘frae Aberdeen awa.’ She’d like the piace fine and wad come, ou aye, and she did come, bub only to inform the by now half delirious housewife that she ‘was nae jest ready ; she couldna’ come for a bit whiley,’ and away she went. My informant avers, with tears in her eyes, that the labour market was never so bare. Aie we,’ said she, piteously, ‘ never going to have any more immigrants ?’ It is a fact that some house-mothers have precious little joy of their lives. Woe, woe to them if there is a good handful of children, that place is t-ipu to the domestic help, tapu of the extremest sort. And even when the place is easy there isn’t much mercy shown. She was quite an old lady, and two friends had left her a minute before for the railway station, leaving a cloak behind them. ‘ Ob, Mary,’ said the dame, addressing her help, who was engaged in the kitchen. ‘ do run after them with the cloak, they are late as ii is.’ ‘l’m too busy, can’t leave work,’ was the churlish reply, and the dame, with he* burden of years, had to hasten herself. A CANINE COINER. I have heard of a remarkable dog that has discovered the secret alchemists so fondly and fatally sought for, that is, he can convert a shilling into a florin and a florin into h:tl£-a-crown. The creature is really fond of money, and if a coin is hidden will diligently seek till it is found. The other day a shilling was thrown into a patch of thick grass, and 1 Dick ’ took up the search and presently returned with a florin in his mouth. The florin was then cast far away, and the dog after much rummaging and tail-wagging brought back half-a-crown. Xam stating f.acts, and as the locality is in the vicinity of °a goldfield, where diggers throw about their money at times, an explanation is apparent at any rate. The ground, however, seems to be 'of the regular Tom Tidier kind. A HORSE THAT KNEW. It may have been the Christmas festivities that affected the beast, but it is true, nevertheless, that when a genial Boniface essayed, during the recent season, to drive a jovial but overfull customer and friend to his place of abode, the horse, usually a biddable brute, jibbed very early in the journey, and budge further he would net And the party had to return crestfallen and to save the horse’s credit, the modern axiom that is entertained here and there was quoted'in excuse, ‘ A publican’s horse will not take home a drunken man.’ A THREATENED CATACLYSM. The return of Sir Julius Yogel to his whilom happy hunting ground is hinted at by certain English correspondents of colonial journals, and one of the latter has dubbed Sir Julius the Colony's ‘ fate,’ and is ready to lie tk.vvn and let the Juggernaut roll over it. At leaA. >hat is what the unrevised expression of "pinion on the part of the sympathetic wii.er implies. Vogel triumphant, again riding to victory and uulimited emoluments in a vessel made of Taranaki steel, swept onwards to the goal on a perennial stream of Taranaki petroleum. Punch’s oftqnoted one word of advice, ‘don’t’ crops up, and I say, Vogel, don’t think of it. ’Tisn’t good enough. The Colony isn’t a happy hunting ground any longer, but a place of ‘ dimnation grind ’ with Sir Harry directing operations/ We are all of us slaves of something or another, and all animated with one object, to pay our way fairlv and squarely. And to do this we are putting luxuries and nonsense behind us and won’t hear of extravagance. That is the snood of the C -lony. Sir Julius. ’Tisn’t the place f.»r you, but there are other 1 laces ready for you. Take South Africa, for instance. Go for the Transvaal, put the ‘comet her on the B 'ers, as you know how, and you’d he !’resi.-ient in six months. How ~ better th it than the snubbed and worried Premier of New Zealand, which you’ll never be again, anyhow. But with all South Africa before you to exploit, oh, Sir Julius ! A SHODEUS.