PASSING NOTES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 9337, 30 January 1892, Page 5 (Supplement)

PASSING NOTES

Lord Onslow goes away in three weeks or so, but as yet there is no single authentic word oE his sj lessor, and it looks as if New Zealand were to be left to the lender mercies of tho Ministry, tempered by Providence and James Prencfcrgast. Like all good Liberals, I am personally well content with this arrangement, feeling assured that in the absence of a Governor Messrs Ballance and • company can easily hold their own against Doth Providence and the Chief Justice woiie the less, however, the delay in Uovr^wg street is passing strange. •if.ore is a distressing possibility tint in the maelstrom of Imperial politics and the perplexities of an impending general election Lord Salisbury may hive forgotten all about us. 13nr.no: what with defaulting harbour boards and progressive and duplicate taxation the English capitalists have us in lively remembrance at, the present moment, and what they remember Lord Salisbury will not he allowed to forget. Tho likelier hypothesis istnat he is in a dilemma. His stock o! eli>;io!e young peers may have run o U - or i they are funking the Wellington fmins or what is worse, Mr Ballance'a ol references and testimonials. Anyhow L-rd bahsbury bad better be qu i ck o [. wo s! , aH ■dispense with the imputed article >~ f,vour of the local product. With SirGeor-in the ™ 7T? *■ obcrt in «"> S.on.h we need be b.vd up for a Governor.

. Of the many wL-e thing* done by this Ministry, one of the wisest, wejxdu'c, was to send the Governor on a tiip thpniyi out lakes, mountains, and sounds, ju-t before he leaves us. Tncro are pestilent \v.--p\ e \ know, who \v<v.!d refuse all credit to the Government in the matter, and declare that •Lord Onslow went of his own mot;on and an a stem endeavour to gttihe U>>.vnr of the Wellington drains out of his uoatr.h But honour to whom honour is du« say I A pleasure trip it w.a=, bat grave considerations of State liolicy Underlay it none the less. Not that I ignore thu drains. On the ■contrary, it, was a point of the Govermnen policy to extenuate the slinks of ■•ruiii,,,ton in this way—-.ma of the few ■points, if all tales be tin -, bereon his Kx<'u!lencyaud bis responsible advisers have been heartily in accord. But more thau this He has to run tho gauntlet of many -farewell barrets, and it is a matter of •colonial:ra>stance that his liver should be -oneclTip lot the emergency, and what better tonic -gp;aia be devised ? We want him to leavn \is with unimpaired digestion and un- I '•oiuired remembrances of our mountains and tmr mutton—the two best things we posses? always excepting, of course, the Liberal dispensation under which we are priv.l ged to live. He is a young peer, somewhat given to talking and writing, and if lie carries away these pieasant reminiscences he may perchance talk and write of them to" other young pceiv*. who in their turn may acquire a taste for New Zealand lakes and New Zealand lamb—a consummation devoutly to be wished, for it imports the spending of much good English money, aud that's what the Government is aiming at- or ought to be.

My note list week about Hamburg lot teiics has provoked a correspondent (Cor.:-.:-rvative, and—yes, a Scotchman) to honvily rebuke me f..r inviting the Government-" this Liberal Government, falsly so-called, but licentious and restrained by no scruples " as 'hepuis it—to fotter the sin of gambling. ■Another—Scotch also, but of no political 'complexion—strongly approves (he idea, and instances Monaco,

a principality where loans and taxes are alike unknown, the Budget always shows a surplus, and the sole revenue is derived from the tables and the tourist traffic.

He disposes of the moral side of the matter with a oartness distinctly profane :

lhe Stato has nothing to do with morality. Inc btalti wants money, and money doesn't :smelf, business is business, and bosh is bosh. ■Sad, ibis, very ; but worse is to foil \v:

We want to open up our New Zealand scenery ? Then let the Government start rouge et noir tables at Kotorua, Taupo, Wanaka, Milford, and all the divinest points of it, and the thing's done in a twelvemonth, oi I'm a Dutchman.

Siy rather a hcatben, for no decent Dutchnnn would utter such sentimenis, and I decline to give them further publicity. His sophistical picture of vast throngs tf tourists who "establish their health by travel and exercise, elevate their minds by c intact with the sublime and beautiful in Ma' ure," and the publx treasury by t,h., thumping profit the Government could mstku cut of the tables—all this goes into the wr^te paper basket. Indeed, my only reason fo:- quoting him at all is to supply Bishop Mor;,fi with a shocking example of thu result.; of our secular system. True, my pagan i orrespon dent doesn't say in so maty woi-ls baSvas brought up in the public schrtoV, but the bishop and I will steadlastly refuse to believe he could have been biought up anywhere else.

Theleadiugailists in fu'pitsensationalism ■used to be Spurgeon, Betcher, and Talmage, but there is a preacher in New York just now who is able to go " one better " than any ■of them. At the Broome street Tabernacle the Rev. Dr Tyndall recently gave a discourse on " Biblical Snakes," beginning with •the old serpent which beguiled <>ur greatgrandmother Eve in ihe garden. Descending Dbronclogicallj he came nest to Aaron's rod.

When commenting on the snake which Aaron produced by casting his staff upon the ground in Pharaoh's presence, the reverend doctor threw down on the platform a big blackthorn, and then, stooping down, rose again with a serpent sft long dangling from his lingers. It appeared alive and squirming, but it was merely an imitation one. The sensation which it created among the congregation, composed of the very lowest classes of the city, was electrical.

After this came the snakes whx* acquaintance is made by those who look upon the wine wh«n it is red :

Pourtraying a man in the throes of delirium tremens, and who was convinced that he had snakes in his shoes, " he would reach down like this," and the clergyman suited the action to his words, " and then straightening himself he would wave an imaginary snake above his head with a maniac's yell of triumph." As Dr Tyndall said this he waved with a wild shriek about his own head another imitation snake which' he had pulled from his shoe.

" The effect on the audience," s:iv< the narrator, " was again very marked, k'.-I two men who had perhaps enjoyed personal experience of: d.t.'s, hastily rose and attempt jd to leave the church, but found to their dismay that by the doctor's orders the doors bad been locked." lls had yet ancthr s-.-nsation iu store, aud wasn't going to iwimit Ins horrified audience to rt'c'ine "it-. "The glasses in fhe liquor saloons yc u frequent, ray brethren," he continual, " may be of cut gia=s or crystal, with a cheery s-r.und when they clink together, but there is :,n invisible snake at the bottom of every one of them."

As he uttered these words in the most dramatic tones, the reverend gentleman placed upon the pulpit a glass, apparently filled with wine ; whilst the congregation watched breathlessly he struck a match—on his leg—put a light to the contents of "the glass, which were chemicals specially prepared for this sermon, and suddenly a hideous, writhing, snake-like thing, several feet along, arose out of the glass, and squirmed over its edge into the pulpit. As this was going on, Dr Tyndall stood on one side and, pointing to the snake, cried, " The. next time you like getting dr-nk think of that!'

After reading this our local Prohibitionists, it is to be hoped, will make haste to send for Dr Tyndall. Their hired lecturers hitherto have been remarkable chiefly f,,r a plentiful lack of originality. The sain■■; old arguments, the same old anecdote?, the same old statistics tha same old stock p< etic quotations,—we are tired of all this. Sneaking for tnyttlf, I fed that the moral appliances for converting me to Prohibition are at present totally insufficient, and I thug the whole re?poj -ibiiii.y on the local committee. If these gentlemen have any proper sense of duty Iht-y will open communications im-mr-iji;,t,-.iy with the sensationalist of Broome street Tabernacle.

After all that has been said p.nd sung in praise of the Holy Coat of Trcvt-f. one chief virtue of that, venerable relic of antiquity remains os yet uncelebrated in prose or verse, although, curiously enough, it is the one solitary virtue which nobo'Jy can deny. You may not be able to believe in thf*' Holy Coat —the " venerable r.dic of antiqui y " may be for you only a venerable impotti: o—but you can't flatiy Unit it, is always possi-U; to get up a row about it. That is the one iicontef-tible virtus inherent, in the Holy Co.'—you can always get up a row about, it.: .mil in dull times arid dull places r.nd an.cr.gst dull people l hat is a virtue indeed. A1; Arrowtcvvn, for csnmrjr; (a place which probably satisfies the conditions justnnnr- )the yditor of the loch.l paper has ucen fceaii ■' up a r.nv about it with the local Hom:".i Catholic priest. Whether this row, considered as a row, has given public satisfasHon on the Arrow I don'b know; I dare say, however, that the inhabitants found it as interesting

|at leau us a dogligh', at.d that is saying a good deal. The row began abut', tho Holy Goat, but pie^ntly the combatants forsook the original banner of llidr contradictions and went on lo tight about something totally different. That is the beauty of this kind of row; you begin about the Holy Coat, but Heavin only knows what you will end about! In thu Arrow case,'the point finally at issue seems lo bo whether it is the editor or the priest who writes the worst English. The editor has submitted this critical question (which touches him in the tenderer point) to three brother clips, the editors of the Australasian, tho Oanif.rbuiy Times, and tho Otiigo Wiines<, ur d they unanimously give it up. Both write bad Kuglish, sny the editorial referees; which wiitos the worst, is merely :>. que.-tion of taste. This seems a cruel decision, but the litigants may bo consoled. Messrs Moon and Hc-dyson have nerved to demonstration that ail our ohi^ kvi.i writers have written bad Kngli.-h, and 'hat, on tho poiut of grammar, odq of tho greatest offenders known is no other than Liudley Munaj ! I exhort therefore the Arrowtown editor that lie bo net discouraged, and the Arrowtown i.rie>t that. he cheer up. For the publio eutoriainment ! let them "at it again " and keep it up! I

There 13 amongst uj, goicg to and fro like a beast of pivy, a begging apostle whose panicular department of philanthropy is remote and unintelliaib'o. This is a "Olwldean priest" —so his testimonials dp.-cribe him -a minister of the

I "Church of Mesopotamia," whose business in the colonies is to raise funds for a Sunday _ school at Nineveh ! I have seen this mendicant Mesopotamian about the streets, armed with a greasy co!Uvtuig bo-jk, 'nut- my information ' about him is derived from one of his victim?, a wellknown cleric, vho expressed to me l;is prof_'in:i iii-belief in the Sunday school at Xi.u-vh, albeit ho had reluctantly cmtnbiitis! ~>s to its fund.--. " What was Itodo 1 ' h? a*!;ed plaintively,—" the man bad letters from people all over the colonies-IsUh»p this and the Rev Dr that—selling forth the urgent spiritual needs oE the Nir.evitcs, though Inspect they know no more aboutit than 1 did. There was positively do getting rid of the fellow after I had committed the folly of consenting to examine his papers ; he stuck to me like a lo^ch, and 1 wns afraid at oco time 1 should have to ask him to stay to dinner. Enf luckily ho sharnbl.d til as scon a* he had pouched my f-vo half crowns." I

"Yes," said I, "and, like Dogberry, you thanked God that you were rid of a knave! " To that remark my clerical fiitnd made no audible response, though there was a suggestive twinkle in his eye. As for the "Chaldean priesr," lie is doubtless still on the war path and miking war pay for war, according tD the well-known Napoleonic ruK

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