MADDENS MADNESS.

NZ Truth, Issue 87, 16 February 1907, Page 4

MADDENS MADNESS.

IN GOLDEN IDLENESS. The Waxed -moustached, Gilded Chief Justice of Victoria Sees , no Poverty m Fogland.

Idling through a holiday, iiving with his 'charming family m easo and luxury the while lie, enjoyed a long rest m the city most calculated to minister, to his daily needs - of pleasure and plenty. Free" Iroin "want or care for to-morrow, Sir John Madden, who fills the Vice^-Rcgal throne m Victoria while the Talbots go to Fogland for six months' rest and recreation, arrived •vfrom his tour m. Britain, Europe and Aflibric'a the other day. He saw nfo poverty m England— quite the contrary. Well, things do look ros^ through the bottom of a! champagne glass ; but why, says our Sydney lady, correspondent. do English petticoat poets • and rhymesters tune their lays m this very minor key :— In squalid tenements they dwell— ' The ghoulish twins of Want and Woe. Their grim', forbidding citadel A bleak and sorrv-lookjn.G: row Of hovels, m a sordid street, Where Dirt is undiputed king. And birds are never known to stag In winter's cold or summer's heat. There little children, day by day, In dismal desolation grow ; Their little makeshift games they plaf! Dreaming of joys that others. Know* And all the while there .lie m wait The spectral tyrants— Toil an* Greed— To rob them of tlie sun they need, Poor bondslaves of 'relentless Fate ! In such a place one might expect, Amid the poverty and grime, To find the Devil's brodd elect, The stealthy progeny of cr!m>. To angels, surely, nuite unknown— This hotbed for the weeds of Hell f Yet who is wise enough to tell What precious seeds Clod's hand ha» 1 sown. For here, amid the storm anil stress Of lives of unremittino; toil. . God's sweetest flower— unselfishness— Grows bravely m the scanty soil. And heed is paid to His behest. To raise the fallen and the lame. With generous aid. that ruts to shame The grudging meannrss of Vhe Vfcst*