ECHOES OF THE WEEK.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1163, 15 June 1894, Page 23

ECHOES OF THE WEEK.

Satire's ray weapon, but I'm t o discreet To run amuck and tilt at all I meet. Popk.

Of political echoes, the most amusing is a canard about the approaching break up of the Government. It seems really to bo tho idea of the enemies of tho Government that they only have to wish for a thing for that thing to happen. There is no reason why tho Premier should resign now that he is stronger in the saddlo than any Premier over has been in New Zealand. If Mr Seddon were ill organically, no one would be surprised to hear that he was likely to resign. Surprised we should all have been, though sorry. But Richard of Kumarais just as burly and hearty as ho ever was. He was not looking over well before that visit to the King Country. But since that time of exercise, open air and adventure, Richard has been himself quite to tho full.

By the way, I seo it stated in a letter — in a Conservative organ of course —that Mr Seddon holds the Premiership by "seizure," and to my astonishment I have heard a few people declare they thought much of the letter. "So deuced hot you know." Well, tho recipe for being "deuced hot you know "is decidedly simple. Make a large mess of adjectives, never put in a single fact, and keep away every argument in favour of any proposition, and there you are—"dooced hot." If you want to be extra well spoken of by the party fellows, take care to choose your adjectives and insinuations from the worn - out old stock of your Editor. He will introduce you as "trenchant," and the fly-catchers will tell you that " it is generally felt that your letter has flustered the Cabinet." It is one of tho stalest tricks for giving new lease-life to exploded criticisms. If Governments are weak enough to be taken in by that sort of thing, then are Governments not what I take them to be in this year of grace, in this practical go-ahead Colony.

But to the story of this second-hand cook of a " seizure "of power. I suppose we shall soon have the details of a scene, like that which Gloster arranged for the benefit of poor Hastings. Scone, tho Cabinet-room. Present, all tho Ministers. Mr Ballance in the chair. Mr Seddon, rising in groat wrath, demands — I pray you all toll me what they deserve, That do conspire my death with devilish plots, Of damnod witchcraft and that have prevailed Upon my body with their hellish charms? Mr Ballance, speaking with the calmness of innocence—

Whoso'or they bo, I say, my lord, thoy have deserved doath. Seddon, with fierce activity, baring his arm—

Then be your eyes the witness of their evil. Look how I am bewitched ; behold, mine arm Is, like a blasted sapling-, withered up. Ballance, still calmly— If they have done this deed Seddon, livid with fury— If ! Talk'st thou to me of " ifs? "... Thou art a traitor. Off with his head.

After which the poor Premier made some sensiblo and rather manly remarks, prophesied " the fearf ull'st time to thee/' New Zealand, and died. Tho public was told that he perished by surgical operation, a grand military funeral was given to the remains, and Richard reigned in his placo.

Scene ll.—Tho Cabinet-room again. Excursions, alarms. Ministers file in after Richard, who takes the chief seat. At the outset an honourable gentleman rises and says: — " Gentlemen, we are met to elect a leader in the place of our lamented—" Tho hiatus is filled up by two quick movements of the Hon Richard; one from each shoulder. Tho hon gentleman on his legs falls liko a log. " Does anyone else doubt that I'm tho Premier?" This from Richard, glaring around. Nobody doubts. " Issue the Gazelle." Can this be true ? Well, I prefer not to answer directly. I will only say that, judging by the language used by the Opposition press whenever it refers to Mr Seddon's seizure of power, tho story must be absolutely true. Nothing short of such conduct would justify tho language invariably used. We shall next be treated to a story that Mr Seddon carries about a list of prosecuted persons, all doomed to an early death ; and tho language of the denunciation will bo proportionally violent and stirring. The fact of course is that there was no seizure at all. After Mr Ballanco's death tho Cabinet agreed amicably that Mr Seddon should command until the session, when the Party should decide who should be permanent Premier. The session came, the Party chose Mr Seddon, and that is his title to his place —as good a one as ever Premier held office by. But it is useless to remind the braying fraternity of plain facts. They want to bray, and they will bray, facts or no facts. They might at least give us something now, even if they have to go to the " spooks " for it.

Talking of " spooks/' I have just read Stead's new book. What a marvel of industry and mysticism the man is! How "jolly cock-sure" he is that he is right about everything, and that his advice is the best for everybody to follow. How earnest and vigorous he is, and how he strays at regular but not frequent intervals into bad English and worse logic. As for his grammar, there is not in the whole mass

of 500 pages, wo may safely say, a single one in which there is not at least one instance of a plural nominative in conjunction with a singular verb. But in spite of it all you must acknowledge his vast ability, power, and up-to-date information. * This picture of Chicago —" If Christ came to Chicago !"—is one of the strongest and vividest things I have ever come across. You have the city before you in all its size, its beauty, its squalor, and the good man takes you round and shows you the interiors. A city of perfect municipal laws, in a state of admirable legislation upon every subject. But, as Abraham Lincoln used to say, "A legislative enactment won't mako a calf's tail into a third hind leg." So we have in both city and state tho most disastrous results. The city elections are a scene of bribery and intimidation, admirably described by tho author, and the business of the City Aldermen thus elected is nothing but " Boodlerism " pure and simple.

" Boodlcrism," it may be as well to explain for the benefit of the uninitiated, is the sale by tho representatives of the public property for inadequate prices, the money not reaching the public coffors. Does a tram company want a franchise, a thing out of which millions are to be made in those great populous cities, they select an agent. The agent knows that out of the 0(5 Aldermen thoro is a ring of 40 controlled by a Boss Boodler, who is to be found always affably smoking in a particular saloon. Ho knows also that there are 10 others under a special Boss, who may bo relied on in case of emergency. The emergency most dreaded is the Mayor's veto, for the Mayor there is a real live Mayor, and not a painted lay figure who registers the decrees of other men, of whose deliberations ho is tho figure-head. This Mayoral veto cannot be got over -without a two-thirds majority. If all goes well, the price arranged for each vote is paid as soon as the franchise is passed. That can, it is well to understand, be done in a few minutes. None of your British delays, involving local Acts of Parliament, examination by Parliamentary committees, and other antiquated rubbish. The free and enlightened Boodler says that the country of the stars and stripes is a free country, in which such tyranny would nover be endured for a single instant. A greasy bit of paper is handed to an alderman as he goes down to tho Hall, with the particulars of the " franchise " —a concession—set forth. The alderman moves that it be granted, a debate ensues either for decency's sake or to .send the price of votes up. The thing passes, and so does the money and there is an end. If, however, the Mayor interposes his veto, then up goes tho price of tho votes at once, from 2000 dollars, a common figure in a big concern, to double-. In one case 5000 has been known to bo given for a single vote. Rights-of-way, city property, educational reserves of vast magnitude have thus been Boodlod awaj in Chicago.

The curiosities of assessment make marvellous reading. The assessors have salaries of .£3OO a year, and retire with fortunes of between .£20,000 and .£40,000 in five years, build handsome villas, and meditate on the delights of virtue. Virtuous assessment brings it about that the assessments are on one-eighth of the value. But that would not so much matter if the incidence of taxation were kept even. But those who pay are favoured. A millionaire, for example, living in a palace furnished with every luxury, possessing a picture gallery of the rarest pictures, and a stable of showiest "trotters," figures for his household effects, including pictures, at .£2OO, and wo noticed his trotters were worth «£5 apiece, and his carriages one pound more. But the small men, who constitute the groat bulk of the middle class, have to pay up to very much higher values. It is suggestive that every one of these valuations is declared by the assessor on oath. "Flat perjury, Sir/' that's what Stead says, but he uses a good many more words.

Tho subject is of inexhaustible interest, but space is a shrinkable commodity. Of the police corruption, tho corruption of the Courts, the " railway murders" (401 deaths at tho railway crossings last year will make eyes open on tho Wellington wharf), the social evil—a favourite descanting ground of tho good man—all these things°l must leave untouched ; but if you can get the book, take my word they will repay study, and make you thank Heaven you don't live in America. Lot me add that if the Stcadism were less pronounced the book would be shorter and the abovo thanks more fervent.

I will only add that our London correspondent was hardly just last week in imputing cowardice and ingratitude for hospitality to Mr Stead. Mr Stead, the book proves, said openly in Chicago most of what he says in his book, and made a crusade of it. He not only mentions some of those who have robbed the city by " Boodlering," but gives remarkable information of every kind. He speaks with great justice too of all sorts and conditions of people, millionaires, tramps, saloonkeepers, fallen women, all that is human in Chicago. Altogether a most readable, instructive book, bristling with information, full of enormous ability, and giving sign of marvellous industry and power of work.

It is not alone in the colonies that legislators make work for the lawyers, for, a 3 a Home paper points out, it is " a matter of the most common occurrence that, no sooner has a new Act been passed by a House of Commons, that contains hundreds of lawyers, but litigation arises all over the country as to the meaning of that Act; and these legal complicates then get large fees for ravelling out what in Parliament they have deliberately complicated." Have we not before our eyes in this very town a controversy as to whether " may " in an enactment is notithe same thing as " shall V The

same authority goes on to say, with reference to political patronage, that ninety-nine lawyers out of a hundred who enter the House of Commons do so with the hope of getting into office. Some idea of the

number of prizes at the disposal of the party in power may be gained from a speech delivered, in 1888, by Sir Edward Clarke, the Solicitor-General to the last Tory Government, to the Birmingham Law Students' Society, in which he holdup before the eyes of his audience " tho prizes," as he called them, open to political lawyers, and exulted in the fact that there are 35 judgeships with .£SOOO a year each, and concluded by saying, " For thoso who are not successful pleaders, thoro is somo consolation in tho fact that 5G County Court judgeships and 23 metropolitan magistracies are open to them, with a salary of ,£ISOO a year for each."

We all know that story about Horace Greeley sending a reply accepting an invitation to lecture before a far West audience, but the ealigraphy of the letter was so bad and so difficult to read that on its being taken to a local chemist he then and there compounded a prescription from the supposed formula contained therein. A somewhat similar thing occurred recently in England in connection with the proceedings against tho Anarchists in London. The Bow street interpreter, Mr Albert, was employed translating documents found on Polti. Among them was a prescription for an explosive compounded of chlorate of potassium, sugar and sulphuric something else which was found quite untranslatable. Mr Albert took the prescription to several Italian chemists, who were unable to say what tho mysterious word might moan. The last chemist visited, however, took the paper in his hands, read it with an air of profound wisdom, and remarked, " This is a capital prescription, and if your friend takes it three times a day it will soon improve him."

A .question that suggests itself to the mind of a thinking man is, are we really progressing in an intellectual way as fast as somo persons maintain we are. We look back with a feeling of contempt, aye, almost horror, to the times when our forefathers believed in superstitious omens and burned old women at the stake who happened to be suspected; of holding converse with the spirit of darkness about tho solemn midnight hour. It was thought that the schoolmaster would have banished for ever the ghostly visitor from the lonely road and the sprightly fairy from tho dewy meadow, or at least forced these unwelcome supernatural visitors to betake themselves to thoso remote imrts of the lands where education has not been very widely spread. But is not this hope destined to be blighted ? Here we have that good and able man Mr Stead, who imagines he has a special mission to set things political, social and religious right, telling us of converses which he has had with the " spook" of " Julia" or " Jane," or some other departed mortal. Have we not, too, the oft-repeated tale about the gipsy predicting many years ago that Lord Rosebery would marry a rich heiress, be Premier of England and win the Derby. Whether that old dame has gone to climes whore the weary are at rest, or whether she ever existed, are matters which trouble not the public, for wo believe there are hundreds who so fondly believe in the story that they would be considerably annoyed now if Lord Rosebery were to say that tho whole affair was a myth. Talk about the progress of learning, tho advance of science, and tho immenso improvement that has taken place in our social position, but after all are we not as apt to let our imaginations run riot, and ourselves be duped by crafty people as were our despised and illiterate forefathers ? Look at the numbers of people who make livings in these colonies by telling fortunes, by palmistry, and foretelling events by the aid of erratic spirits by the puerile pastime of table-rapping. If these precious individuals only humbugged tho foolish and ignorant we might hope that some improvement might bo effected in this state of affairs, but, when w© see the most intellectual people in tho community at seances and holding converse with reputed inhabitants of tho other world, it is almost useless to contend that we are advancing as fast as it is contended.

In the pre-freozing days, when the price of meat was high in England, some very estimable people believed the oft-repeated assertion that many a feline's mysterious disappearance was due to some cause closely connected with the making of sausages. Some light was thrown on the composition of sausage rolls during the hearing of a case which camo before the Clerkenwell (London) Police Court recently. A lad named Leibold summoned Charles Weil, baker, to show cause why the former's indentures should not be cancelled and the premium returned. The head pastrycook to the defendant, when asked in cross-examination how sausage rolls were made, said : " Ah, now, that's what's been too highly coloured. I make sausage rolls like a stuffing—so much bread, so much dripping or lard, and a little meal. Then I add about as much colouring as would go on a threepenny piece to six pound of stuffing/' Mr Young: " Well, where does the meat come in?' The witness laughed at the idea, and replied, " Why, of course, there is no meat at all. A good stuffing is all that is required in a sausage roll." Mr Warde asked the price of sausage rolls, and the witness replied one penny. Mr Warde: We can't expect too much for one penny. Here is another extract from the evidence : Mr Warde: " Did you teach him to make sausage rolls of brown bread and red ochre ? " Witness : " I told him * red ochre could be used, but I taught him to use Parisian red. It is a pure colour, and is used in all trades. It was untrue that he put size into cakes or that he mixed puddings with eggs purchased at Is a

[ a hundred." It .is clear from tho evi--1 denco in this case that one half of Ihe | world does not know what the other half ; eats. It is amusing to note tho many good | stories that are resuscitated about a man i when he becomes prominent in the social or political world. Many of these are, no I doubt, very often genuine, whilst others I look as if they had been specially manuj factured for the occasion. Lord Rosebery, it is said, was rather fond of joking in the ! early days of his political life. Some I years ago ho was on military duty in Ayr. I His work finished, ho essayed to leare the town, but failed to catch the 2 o'clock train, which steamed away from the plat- -

form as he entered the station. He had no | alternative to a two hours' wait, and so he sauntered to an adjacent public-house, then' kept by Mr John Graham, a Eadical of tho most advanced type. The Earl grumbled badly over tho defective train supply, and remarked, drawing his bow at venture, that "if we could only get rid of this wretched Liberal Go vemmont, we would soon get tho South-Western amalgamated with the Midland, a better railway service, and better times all round." Mr Graham retorted hotly, and at it the two of them went tooth and nail. Mr Graham, to emphasise his points, came round to the front of the counter, and there for a long hour the controversy raged. It was interrupted by the entrance cf two liveried servants, who demanded a bottle of lemonade apiece. In reply to a question put to them by the Earl, Mr Graham caught tho words " my lord," and began to see that he had to deal with " quality." When tho servants had ruefully quaffed their lemonade and departed, tho Earl observed that it would have been better for these fellows to have ordered what thoy really wanted. To this Mr Graham assented. Then the political controversy broke out afresh, and continued till it was time for tho Earl to leave. When Lord Bosebery rose to say good-bye, " I do hope," he said to Mr G raham," that tho next time I see you you will have given up these Radical principles of yours and come over to tho right side." "Well," replied Mr Graham, "you are a young man, and, so far as I can make out, an intelligent men, and I hope that you will come over to our side and be a Liberal." When tho joking Earl had gone, in rushed tho two liveried servants, this time for their whisky; and then, for the first tine, Mr Graham know who his customer had been, and realised that he had been made tho victim of a joke. Now Mr Graham is a Unionist, and Lord Rosebery is Liberal Prime Minister.

A writer in an American paper points out that chronic sore throat is not-infre-quently produced by a misuse of the vocal organs, tho tongue being often accountable for the difficulty. Physically this organ may bo managed by depressing it into a hollow at a point three-quarters of an inch back of where the tip of it comes when in a natural position in the mouth and at tho same time singing very light • head tones. In speaking or singing it should not be allowed to hoop up and fill the mouth, thus interfering with the free passage of the tones of tho voice from tho throat to tho front of the mouth, whero they should strike and then escape clear as a bell. This hooping up of tho tonguo in tho mouth is the cause of much of the indistinct and slovenly utterance to which we aro too often obliged to listen. In many people we notice the line from the point of the chin to the neck is in tho form of a right angle. In a shapely throat this lino forms a curve just as a canary's does when the small, yellow artist is warbling his carols. To develop tho throat and make this angle a curve stand before a mirror so that you may watch tho throat swell out; now thrust your tonguj out as far as it will go, then draw it back quickly and forcibly, at the same time bringing it downward in the mouth as far as you can. Place your thumb and forefinger against the larynx (commonly called the Adam's apple), and if you are making the right movement you will feel the Jarnyx pass downward. For a week or two make the movement lightly, after that time put as much force into it as you can. The exercise should bo practised for a few minutes several times a day to insure rapid and good results. To fill up the hollows of the neck stand correctly, and then slowly fill the lungs with air without elevating the shoulders. As the air is forced upward into the throat, hold it there a few seconds, and then expel slowly. This exercise is best performed soon after rising in the morning, and before retiring at night. ,