MEN AND WOMEN, AND MATTERS ALL AROUND.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1260, 23 April 1896, Page 31

MEN AND WOMEN, AND MATTERS ALL AROUND.

A correspondent writes mens follows, and as his contribution touches on both women and gold—the two most powerful agencies for good or evil on earth I must find space for him. He says:—“The finding of gold in fowls’ gizzards is not a strange thing. Old settlers will remember that a lady at the To Aro end of Wellington, finding a speck of gold in a gizzard of a fowl, searched every gizzard afterwards, and in some ten years collected a small bottleful of fine gold. She did not recommend the search as profitable. The stream from Poihill’s Gully washes down the small quartz veins running through the rocks, and these often contain gold in small quantities.”

One of the most absurd things on record was the fining of a man in the Magistrate’s Court last week for getting on a moving train—just as if a ten months’ baby could not do that with safety, unless, indeed, it (the baby) ran down the train.

All organisations such as the proposed New Zealand Natives’ Association have their origin in narrowness of mind and a dog-in-the-manger spirit. Even if the intention is not so at first, tho inevitable tendency and effect are to create a favoured class. And why should native-born New Zealanders seek exclusiveness ? If they desire to work for the good of this country, why exclude others who are just as earnest and as ranch interested and have as much at stake in the public wclfaro f

Not a single good reason can be advanced to oven excuso ihe existence of such a class-creating association. Such a society would exclude oven the organisers’ own fathers.

Birth on this soil is a more accident, and tho man who regards tho place where a man was born, and not tho man himself, as tho test is a very shallow-pated individual. Because a man was born in a stable it would not follow that he must be a donkey.

No matter what tho specious pretexts such societies aro organised under, they always get into politics. It would be certain to bo so in this case. In fact, it would very plainly appear that it is all politics, tho chief organiser being a near relative to a certain titled gentleman who is athirst for tho Premiership, but who, at present, has no political party at his back.

Of course the promoters of the New Zealand Natives’ Association desire—ardently desire —it to be Stout; but its principles are so attenuated and its cause for existence so tiny that it can never hope to be anything but a skeleton. Did wo live in tho stone age I would say it could never hope for a solid rock foundation, or be anything but a little logan.

The Church and the saloon, naturally antagonistic all over tho world, rarely get so closo in their conflict as they did in Brooklyn, New York, recently. A man owned a saloon on tho corner and a building some hundred and eighty feet down tho street, which building was used for a church.

The law there is that a saloon cannot exist within 200 ft of a place used for Divino worship. “ All right,” remarked tho saloon man, “ I'll close up the church, for tho saloon pays me best.” And it was done. And so it goes, and tho world does not get much better, although if is growing grey and wrinkled with age and sin.

I admit to tho weakness of pity, which quality I would he devoid of did 1 not commiserate the Wairarapa Times after reading an article in it in which, with utter humiliation and abasement, it confesses to being a liar “ inadvertently.” Now, a good, bold, bad liar commands a certain sort of respect, just as the devil himself does; but a poor weakling who lies “ inadvertently ” —that is, has not wit enough to know when lie lies—is an object of real pity—a pity that is devoid of even tho mingling of contempt that usually accompanies it.

But my pity cannot end even here, for it is excited more deeply still by the Master ton editor’s wail of hunger that runs through hi.s confawion. I can almost hear tho gnawing. gnawing, gnawing of hunger in the following sentence: —“We heartily congratulate the New Zealand Times upon being able to afford a fat contributor. Indeed, it is only a journal that basks in Ministerial favours which nowadays can indulge iu such a luxury.” Here is a revelation as well as a confession. This howl of tho Opposition press is in reality the ravening cry of hunger. AVill not some big - lu-artod Wairarana farmer send him a sheep and a sack of potatoes 1 would also ask some hotelkeeper to send him a pitcher of beer only that would be too much to beg on behalf of tho man who bribes dead-beats to act tho sneak and spy on tie- irate! nun.

A Wellington physician last week showed me one of tho moot intricate and wonderful little instruments in use in the practice of medicine. This is called the sphygmograpli, and its mechanism is so minute that it is impossible to convoy a comprehensive idea of it in words. But tiny as is this bit of machinery it can perform a wonderful work —namely, measure and record on paper tlio action of tho heart, using the pulse as its key. Wo all know that tho hoait’s action manifests itself through tho beating of tho pulse. The little instrument is attached to tho wrist by means of a silk band, thus holding a

sensitive disc, fastened to the band,in juxtaposition to the pulso artery. Tho pulsations acting on the disc move a pointed marker, held by an armature, up, down and across the surface of a slip of paper, which is kept moving by means of a delicate mechanism within the instrument, and thus the actual condition of the heart is recorded by tracings on the paper.

If the heart is sound and normal the tracings are regular, rising and descending to touch tho same straight line. If the heart is labouring under unwholesome pressure, or is stimulated, the little marker jumps wildly up and down on the paper, leaving irregular tracings. Now that wo have a littlo toy machine that can “feel your pulso ” and toll you how your heart is better than a physician can, wo may hope for th it blessed day when we can do without doctors altogether. Happy day! Let us go oil and dream of it.]

But to more pleasant subjects. I feel I have been neglecting the ladies somewhat. Well, in looking around, tho most prominent condition noticeable is that woman is not yet contented, and I would ho sorry if she were. Woman contented and happy would soon become commonplace and uninteresting. Beauty in tears and virtue in distress have ever excited man’s noblest instinct and stirred his deepest emotions. Most powerful weapon and strongest Jorco the world has over known is woman’s littlo pearly tear.

Woman must over remain ngitativo and restless. This spirit began in her some 0000 years ago. With paradisial happiness old Mother Eve was not content, and got up an agitation against Adam to torce him to partake of certain forbidden fruit.

This spirit is still in woman, and will die out only when the last of her sex lifts her skirts and steps across tho stream. And it is well, for without discontent not only would woman, with all her fine emotions running the scale from ecstacy to agony, become dull and insipid, but this whole eel-pot of a world could not be kept stirred up enough to be healthy. So you see, discontent is ono of the blessings' of mankind. Come then, ladies, agitate away. You have my enthusiastic endorsement, but —all, don’t,

I am told tho National Ass. is not satisfied with the peripatetic orators it has out on tho road making known its great and original policy of “ Just turn the present Ministry out, and see how wo do things.” It is also disappointed with tho result of its newspaper campaign. People are suspicious of tho paper that is thrown into their back yard gratis. The man who pays for tho printer’s ink must have some design upon them, for it is not business human nature to give without getting.

So far, therefore, tho National Ass.’s campaign is a dire failure. But a novel and comparatively inexpensive method of oratorical and literary campaign has been hit upon. This device is an ingeniouslyconstructed wooden man, arranged to walk automatically through the streets, drawing a two wheeled delivery waggon. A twohorse gasoline engine placed in the waggon supplies the motor power, and also works a phonographic equipment attached to tho wooden man, and thus grinds out the Nat. Ass. orations.

The novelty of the affair is depended upon to draw the street crowd, aud this will bo a decided improvement on the human phonographs wiio have failed to draw audiences. Another great advantage will be its cheapness. The automatic orator ought to bo furnished in quantities at lower rates than it would cost to feed and stimulate tho live articles, and it will do its work as well, if not better, for there will be no danger of its being howled down, or of its forgetting its piece.

Then, again, what hotter method could there he for the dissemination of “ sound ” National Ass. doctrines f and, still again, anything tie National Ass. lias to say to the public can all tho more appropriately bo said by a wooden man with a phonographic attachment. A wooden man is just tin* thing to proclaim the doctrines of tho National Ass. The inventor should have a front scat when the circus comes along.

That courageous effort of tho Hawke’Bay hull to demolish the railway train tin ether day is reminiscent of a story of the hod bill Xye. An American I'ariiim- or

the Western iYuivi"X impelled from England a bull that was tho'Might of a'l tin* young heifers and the joy of tho oid farmers’ hearts. [a lime tho steam engine came along over tin* op- !i prairies, mid the bull, doubtless believing it was smile peculiar animal cumi 11 g to dispute his sway, slopped out in front, and .set himself in po..iliou fur the contest. Jlaif an la air later ! lie el 1 farmer, c- ntoniplaf ing the strewn remnants of his noble, bad, i cmi ked, “ 'A ell, by go.-.h, 1 admire your courage, but dog-gone your judgment.” It i much more agreeable to commend than I" e-eol'-mn. Some days ago I he! some strictures to pass upon tho Telegraph Department for its peculiar scale of rates. It is pleasing to note t hat tho ollicials in charge have taken the criticism in the proper spirit, and have made due corrections.

Tho most important of those is that after the Ist of June telegrams of twelve words will be sent for sixpence, 'twelve words will convey all that is usually needed ill a brief message, and the rate will bo just one-half what it has boon. This is a change in the right direction,

An English Parliamentary return shows that in England aud Wales there wero 28,521 illiterate votes at the last elections, 4062 in Scotland and 40,000 in Ireland, making a total for tho United Kingdom of 72,910 illiterate votes out of a total voting population of 3,858,022.

This percentage is not very largo compared with other European countries, but is much larger than it ought to be, considering how much has been done for education in these countries for the last half century at least, and also that the poorer classes have no votes.

From a book on that celebrated beauty and gay woman of fashion, Lady Blessington, just issued, it would appear that N. P. Willis,an enterprising young journalist of that time, was the original interviewer—at least in English society. Willis was a poet aud bright young literary man, whose reputation obtained for him admittance into Lady Blessington’s circles.

Willis, under the cover of conversation, interviewed the celebrities whom he met at Lady Blossington’s, and sent the results to a paper, The Home Journal, then conducted by him and George P. Norris. "When The Home Journal got over to London there was a terrific row all around. Since that time the interviewer has grown into a recognised member of the newspaper profession, and many are the public men all over the world who make use of the interviewer to disseminate certain ideas which they desire to see prevail.

'The interview, if cleverly done, is a pleasant and popular way to reach the public. Heme men are so well aware of this that they interview themselves, just as Sir Walter Buber writes his own reports of his little speeches, Ac., for tho United Press, aud such papers as will print them. Great is the power of hnmbuj.

Lord Dunraven has been appointed Lord Lieutenant of Limerick, but lie has us yet not invited the New York Yacht Club to a racing contest on the beautiful River Shannon.

The male youth of Ireland and Scotland have a grievance. The Whipping Bill, which provides that offenders under tho age of 14 years may, as a substitute for, or in addition to, other punishment, be given twelve strokes of a birch rod in the bauds of a constable, does not apply to these comffrics. Now the Scotch or Irish boy can claim, under Magna Charta and tho British Constitution, just as much right to lie whipped as has the English or Welsh boy. By Garryowcn and Bannockburn, this is not fair.

Captain llu3sell is a daisy. He wants tho people to put the present Ministry out and himself and followers in, and at the same time ho promises the people that ho will not undo anything the present Ministry has done, but will retain all their legislation and methods and policy.

Now, to the ordinary mind the thought would occur that as the Ministry had done only things to bo approved of, why turn them out ? Captain Bussell lias given the Ministry the strongest possible endorsement.

How the Russian Nihilists are up and awake these nights plotting how they can upset with a few dynamite bombs all the pageantry of tho Czar’s coronation. It wifi be well to keep an eye on the cable nows about May 26th.

This coronation business recalls tho fact that the Emperor Willie of Germany luio never been crowned, and neither was the Emperor Frederick. The latter died before there could bo any talk of a coronation, and the “young man in a hurry,” now on the German throne, is too economic to spend money ill coronations. It appears the Prussian kings have a right to crown themselves if they wish it, and the privilege of doing without the ceremony if they prefer it.

“ Let the old world peoples settle their own differences,” says a correspondent in a letter to the press. This is the wisest and beat sentence I have run across in a very long time. The war fevers we get up down here in these peaceful islands in the South Pacific are the most absurd thing of the century.

There is a whole mountain of solid isdom in the brief sentence---“ Lot

the »!•! world poopio limit own difference:-;.” An individual's first duty is t, > himself and his persona! lie’onguigs, and so also is that of a country or a people or a Colony. Its first duty is to itself. ! wonder if Sir Robert Stout ever swear.; ? If he decs occasionally indulge in the use of that safety valve for high pressure feeling's, ho must have said something, at least under his breath, when he read in tho panel's how Lady Stout let that Chinese cat out of the bag at the Women’s Convention.

If Lady Stout wants to get cured of her lief that the “Chinese are desirable immigrants,” she has only Lo go to Honolulu and there witness the degradation of business and the open flaunting of imm eaiity at the door steps on tho public streets. As a woman, she will no longer advocate the introduction of Asiatics into a white mail’s country.

“The nation of Now Zealand” is how Mrs Tasker speaks of our rich and beautiful country. This is right; a happy expression ; accept my Congratulations, Mrs Tasker.

A good yarn is going the rounds of tho English press concerning Dr Jim’s experiences in Pretoria gaol. Two ladies visited him there, and. on leaving asked, him was

there any delicacy they could send him. Quoth Dr Jim, “ For God’s sake, send mo some insect powder.”

Talking about South African celebrities, it is not generally known that Selous, tho lion limiter, who recently sallied forth against the Matabele “ rebels ” —“ rebels ” who naturally object to lining dispossessed by the Chartered “ landgrabbors ” —and got a bad licking, is the original of Rider Haggard’s hunter hero, “Allan Quatermaiu.”

Recently at a Woman’s Convention--not our New Zealand one—a Mrs Do Voe remarked, “ My time and labour, if given to any other man than my husband, would bring mo money. Very true, perhaps, Mrs Do Voe, but you ought not to bringyourself, as a wife, down to the level of a marketable commodity. Women in Conventions overshoot the mark now and again, but they will get over that by a little more experience.

And by the way I notice in our own Woman’s Convention that there is a disposition to draw lines and make classes. For instance, that resolution providing that when women aro called to serve on juries there are certain kinds of cases on which unmarried women should not sit. This won’t do. What is sauce for tho placid, smooth, well-rounded-out matron should also bo sauce for the fresher and perhaps more angular but no less interesting maiden. Tho suggested difference contains the implication that when women marry they surrender modesty —a view of the case that cannot be admitted. No class legislation, ladies.

Tho peripatetic campaign of that peculiar combination, Captain Russell and the National Ass., is not progressive or persuasive. Tho campaign simply consists of jumping up and down hero and there, like a little fish in a stream. It does not allect tho stream at all.

In several places in tho Capo Colony, and Orange Free State in South Africa, eaves have been explored which yielded hundreds of mummified remains of a queer species of six-fingered monkey.

They aro supposed to have been mummified and worshipped by tho benighted heathens who dwelt around there in ages past. But the six-fingered monkey is not yet extinct. He is around looking lor adoration, but does not got it from men ; only from fellow monkeys. You have all met tho six-fingered monkey.

As I take a morning walk through Wellington, lam very pleasantly impressed by the evidence 1 see rising around of tho new architecture. Tho change, typified iu the old and the new buildings, is very encouraging, and helps the imagination to frame a picture of tho Wellington of the future, with its massive aud substantial business blocks, and its semi-tropical villas and cottages sitting gracefully oil tho amphitheatre of terraces, and decorated with gardens containing rich aud beautiful plants and flowers.

There is no harm in acknowledging that our architecture has not been up to the demands of art criticism. Not to do so would show a lack of appreciation of our recent gains, for wo have done and are doing something creditable in architecture. Good work is no longer the exception, and it is rapidly becoming tho rule, as can ho seen in the fine new buildings arising all over our Empire City. May she flourish.

Queensland follows our oximplc and starts a Department; of Agriculture. A Victorian fanner over hero the other day told mo that he considers tho series of farmers’ leaflets issued by our department the most practical and praiseworthy thing over done in any colony for tho assistance of the country settler.

And yet the “ Ass.” papers and speakers aro never tired of telling tho country people that the present Government lias done “nothing for the farmer!” Stale old fabrication, ill - featured, dark and dour!

I notice that since the Minister for Lands began to visit the oilico of the Advances to' Settlers Laird with his boots on, the Board has been doing .some work. A .rood shaking-up produces healthier conditions, just as a thunderstorm clears the atm isphere. Keep it up, Mr Minister for Lands!

Tim gentle Pitt and his followers love to dilate upon tho marvellous results of ProhibitLm in Kansas, and yet, oh, listen to me, Mr Editor of the l’rokiljitionid, “tlm Kansas Plato Tcmperuiieo Association has recently found it necessary to engage a noted temp-ranee lecturer to start oil an aggressive tour of that State. And he is ’badly needed there, too. Evidently Prohibition prohibits just about as successfully in Kansas as it does in Cl lit ha ! It is the old story : “ You can’t make men virtuous by Acted Parliament!

Put while I silt and Co. continue to spout out the dreary old mendacity .that “the 111-ink Demon is tightening his hold on this fair land of ours”- —or words to that effect —as a matter of strict fact we are

becoming a more sober nation every year, in ’NS the number of sentenced “drunks was 120 i), whereas the annual number has now fallen to loss than GO J, a decrease of 50 per cent, in ten years. And this is not the work of temperance societies, or temperance lunatics, but of the general spread of education and refinement. People now go in for more intellectual pleasures. A Wellington mail found his favourite clog in a state narrowly approaching chok-

ing tho other day. The sportive canine had been chewing up a copy of the Christchurch Depress, which an “ Ass.” agent had thrown over the garden gate. On unwrapping the paper it was found to contain a report of Sir Robert Stout’s last speech against tho Government-. Even a dog couldn’t swallow that!

Tho smallest bike on record lias been found in one owned by “ Count Magroe,” the little man who married “General Tom Thumb’s” widow. It lias a 11-in wheel and a 12in frame, and the weight is under K)lb. Tho Count is 30 inches high.

What a pity it is that Edward Wakefield isn’t a New Zealand journalist just now. His comments on the methods adopted by a certain knight- would be very interesting. Do you remember his famous “ Cocky Bullin' ” ? Dr Jim is a great favourite just now with cranky females who write him letters asking his hand in marriage. This is Leap Y'ear, you know. Tin; Fat Coxtributor.