PASSING NOTES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 8557, 27 July 1889, Page 5 (Supplement)

PASSING NOTES.

(From the Utego Witness.) 3fe W. P. Reeves, member for St. Albans, a. young gentleman of facile tongue and ■exuberant fancy—" Willie" Beeves, as his brother legislators call him, partly from affection and partly in recognition of Ms juvenility— entertained the House during the academical debate on the Hare system by a sketch of the moral and social peculiarities of the Dunedin people. This is what he said of us:— We know that a more pugnacious, a more litigious, a more quarrelsome race does not ■exist on the face of the earth. I have been very kindly treated in Dunedin, and have many friends there; but we know that, with all their good qualities, they are a peculiar people—that the average Dunedia public man is one who is ■only happy when he goes about the place lookiing for somebody to fight. And we know, too, that they are in a ooustant state of suspicion .•aot only with regard to the other inhabitants of the colony, but of each other. Perhaps this is ■owing to the depressing influences of the climate ; perhaps it is owing to the fighting race from which they spring; but, be the cause what at may, there is certainly no such pugnacious ■combative race in the world. Wo have a very recent example of that sitting amongst us-\ •gentleman who, having finished off his human enumies, having no more men to conquer, has started on a crusade against machinery. I ■admit that the average Dunedin man is never happier than when he is fighting somebody bigger and stronger than himself; and probably because the people there Could not oppose Sit Kobert Stout as an outsider just because he was an outsider, they therefore opposed him as a candidate for Dunedin merely because he was a Donedin man. This is amusing even as read. Declaimed by " Willie " Beeves, in the character of " char tered libertine" permitted him by the House, it doubtless tickled the diaphragm of ion. members most agreeably, promoting digestion, and—by way of consequenceintelligent legislation. It is thus that;the Parliamentary jester serves his generation and earns his honorarium. In earlier times and under personal government legislation was tempered by the influence of the court fool—a great officer o£ State, of whom, bioiogicallv considered, the Parliamentary jester is a "survival." Motley has been dropped, also the cap and bells—which is a pity—but the function remains, and the member for St. Albans discharges it excellently well. We Dunedin folk may be, as he says, a quarrelsome people, but if he will only go on joking about us we shall certainly never quarrel with him. •> Wading through the dreary columns of " Hansard " the other day, I came unexpectedly upon a veritable oasis in the deseri, ac occasion of moral edification and spiritual refreshment, in the form of a speech by Mi Fish against the Divorce Extension and Amendment Bill. It gladdens my heart tc know that as long as Mr Fish is spared tc lift up his voice in our halls of legislature the sanctity of marriage and the purity of family life will never lack p, defender To rsad his remarks on the. higher domestic ethics, and the consequents of " a breach oi the moral law," restores one's wavering ratlin the future of hu^an society. Thus, -t.g.— I say that fannies for tha breach of the sacred tie of marringo ought to be as few as possible. L say, those whom God has joined toge u ner let no man put asunder unless it is under circumstances of great depravity and grab wrong. Anything in the direction of lessening the sanctity of the marriage tie will always have my strong and firm opposition. Saul amongst the prophets could not have ottered anything more admirably appropriate than this. Dunedin South may be congratulated. Lay sacrilegious hands on the marriage institution, attempt to sap the foundations of social morality, and you will have to settle accounts with the member for Dunedin South* Mr Fish has announced his determination to know the reason why. In one of the states of ancient Greece, I forget which, the man who proposed a new iaw did so with a rope round his neck. If the law were accepted they let him oil, but M it were rejected he was incontinently & hanged. As a check on hasty legislation this plan has many distinct advantages. It is simple, cheap, and effective, and compares favourably with oar enmbersome and costly method. 1 suppose, however, it would be impossible to return to the sweet simplicity of the ancients in this matter. A good deal of popular prejudice would have to be over•come, and, indeed, the strict enforcement of the rule would often punish as a crime what ■should be treated as a disease. Diseased nature oftentimes breaks forth Id strange eruptions; oft the teeming earth Is with a kind of colic pinched and vexed By the imprisoning of unrnly winds. It is so with new members of Parliament. Jn the hot, rank blood of political youth they -are subject to a sort of itch. The attack may be mild and intermittent, in which case -it may be left to work itself off in motions ■and questions more or less foolish. In its -acuter form it breaks out in the shape of a bill, and must then be subjected to treatment. The older members take the patient in hand. The bill is read a second time. This ■acts as a purgative and does much to Cleanse the pressed bosom of the perilous stuff That weighs upon the heart. In committee he is soused and ducked with •questions and amendments until little or no j breath is left in his body. Then progress is reported and the bill killed, after which he j is taken into Bellamy's, .where restoratives are administered. Nest day he is fretful and depressed, but convalescence soon-sets in, and within a week he can be chaffed with safety. With some subjects the complaint is like the small-pox. They take it only once. With others it is like hay fever and constantly recurs. But few or none escape altogether. Let us take a few examples. Mr Barron was at one time very bad with a bill designed to cure all' our social and political ills by extending the hours of polling or something of that sort. His friends, Cruel only to be kihd, mangled it with multitudinous amendments and at last killed it, and cured him, by inserting a clause that limited its operation to his own electorate. Ever since then he has been bilkproof, and suffers only from an occasional motion—such as the famous one about the property tax, which, by the way, is still alive, although everything has been amputated except the initial word ' That.' " Mr Barron to move—That—." With Mr Thomas Mackenzie the disease appears to be recurrent. Last session he had the Californian thistle in a very acute form, and hisfrienda were compelled to use somewhat drastic remedies. lam told that at one stage amendments were proposed that left absolutely nothing of the original bill except the short title. This session he seems to have suffered a relapse, and to be almost as bad as ever. He has, however, agood headanda sound constitution, and may be expected to grow gradnally out of it. For Major Steward there is no hope. The Cumulative Vote Bill and the Triennial Election Bill are chronic ailments that have afflicted him with perennial persistency ever since he entered the House. Like the toper's dram, they have become a necessity, and his fellow members are uneasy as to the consequences to him if by any mischance they should escape from committee and pass into law. Mr Taylor's roasting over the Kight Hours Bill was not curative. He had annexed it in Sir George Grey's atsence, just as he had annexed the Sweating Commission in . the absence of our city members, and it was chiefly to punish him for this that ho was baited so cruelly. On the whole I think . there are cases where the Greek plan might be adopted with profit. Mr Fish has been on the public stage for very many years and in very many parts. His chief cast, and the one he has played longest and best, is that of Friend of "the Working Man (capitals, please). At the great anti-sweating meeting a month or so " ago his voice was the loudest in denouncing . the vampires who fatten on the blood of the sons of toil, &c, &c, and he was cheered to the echo. Alas, the change I The men who cheered him then arc now shooting angry telegrams at him and greeting bis answers with derisive laughter. Aud why 1 "Did you authorise yonr manager to pay journeyman painters at the rate of 5s a day, or are you going to employ boys at the exhibition while journeymen are walking the streets?" That is the question. The reply is diplomatic and sympathetic, but not satisfactory:— My manager informs me he has no painters at work at less than 9s per day. No one will be employed by mo to do painter's work except best tradesmen at full wages. Sorry to hear so many men out of work.—(Laughter.) Mr Lewis remarked that the 9j a day was for the journeyman, and there was only one.— (Laughter.) Mr Watson paid it had been suggested that they shouW form a committee and proceed with a little more tclegrapbiuK to Mr Fish. It appears! to him, after reading Mr Fish's telegram, ami knowing (he state of things at the exhibition, that if they telegraphed till doomsday they would get no inert: satisfaction. (Applause)

As bearing on the philosophical question put to me last week about the relationship of love to kissing, a correspondent desires mo to print the following stanza, said to be the production of a Miss Ella Wheeler, whose " works" are well-known in America: — She touches my check and I quiver— I tremble with exquisite pains ; She sighs—like au overcharged river My blood rushes on through my veinß; She emilea-and in mad'tiger fashion, As a she-tiger foudles her Own, I clasp Her with fierceness and passion, And lilas her with shudder aid groan. If this specimen represents fairly the character of Miss Ella Wheeler's "works" she is a malefactor who ought not to be out of the custody of the police. Can it be that in America the kiss is developing into assault and battery, with accompaniments of "shudder and groan ? " Let us hope that Ella really knows nothing about it. The psychology of kissing is a mysterious problem for'which science as yet has done little. For example : I have never met with any explanation of the fact mentioned in Genesis that after Jacob had kissed Rachel at the well he " lifted np his voice and wept." Is it usual for men to weep in a case like this ? I ask merely for information. As for the convulsive ferocity described by Miss Ella Wheeler, she may call it kissing, but most people would mistake it for an epileptic fit. , Ci'vis.