PEPPER POT.

New Zealand Times, Volume LI, Issue 8966, 17 April 1890, Page 5

PEPPER POT.

We are prepared to support any reasonable proposition for a common-sense disposal of the Jubilee surplus. The suggestion made for a meeting of subscribers to the Jubilee fund is r mucfa to the purpoce, and might be acted upon. It would be for them to decide what should be done with the substantial surplus so hardly won. To waste it in the manner proposed would be idiocy most accentuated j and then, again, the peril of acting ultra vibes. The Committee who nonsensically made away with the money would be responsible to the public that subscribed it. And then, as the immortal Falataff observed, “I do not like that paying back, ’tis a double labour.” For we have no doubt whatever that restitution would have to be made, and that would be paying dearly for a whistle. There is a kind of journalism current that sticks at nothing to gratify spite and malignancy. It pauses not to consider whether statements are true or false. They are made with mendacious recklessness. A bucket of mud is thrown -some of it will stick. Anything to make a point, entail discredit and work a trade job. A brazen demeanour garnished with lies often makes way when honesty of purpose and honourable consideration go to the wall. But'only for a time ; the truth will prevail, and those who outrage it for corrupt ends shall of a verity be confounded. Our cables very pointedly indicate deliberate aggressiveness on Portugal’s part in Bast Africa. . the expedition of 1200 men to the Mpoado, Shire, means, we presume,-that the Shire highlands, the locality of Major Pinto’s (filibustering, is to be assailed againi It is there that the Makololo British do. pendents and a progressive African tribe have their abode, and are to be again the victims of Portuguese aggression. Cable messages lately have told of increasing bumptiousness on Portugal’s part. IE this last move is in the direction we surmise, Great Britain will have to arrest it with the strong hand. That is, if her prestige in that part of Africa is to be kept mast high. Is-Portugal being egged on by a stronger power? Which is at her back. Germany or France. There is a nasty clond rising on the East African horizon. It is good-news for the Colony that the Bank of New Zealand’s; position is improving in London. : The report from this end is assuring, and at the other the new issue is quoted at £8 53. , Yes, Mr Blair* a very pertinent question. No doubt it. is the ■" gentility ” of the .thing that attracts girls to dressmaking and tailoring. Most little girls have got stylish ideas, and think that to be a household servant is a disgrace, and so they go into the dressmaking business, and spend tbeir spare time lounging, about the streets wearing fine clothes and swinging parasols with long bandies. They are as much out of place in a house as a rhinoceros in a stable. Tbeir health is not robust, and the unfortunates who marry them find that they’re neither use nor ornament.