PASSING NOTES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 10761, 27 March 1897, Page 2

PASSING NOTES.

I did no!; come out in one of the first four ships, and am deeply sensible of the merit I lost thereby. Perhaps I came out as early, or even earlier, to Melbourne, or Sydney, or Auckland; or perhaps Isaac was then in the loins of his father Abraham;—l am sot going to tell. Anyhow, in missing the first four ship 3, either by going elsewhere to the wrong place or by net being born in time, I missed the chance of heating my example commended in prose, and verse, and of haying my name handed down to postsrity by tha pulpit, the platform, and the monumental stone. This is a hard case. What was the spscial merit in coming out by those particular ships'? Merely thatiof get.ting here first. It wss a good place to get to. We hear much of forest, and swamp, and tussock, and flax; but the back settler is not altogether unacquainted with these embarrassments at ths present day. Wild beasts there were cone, except the rapacious birds enumerated by Mr Gourley, nor any savagas, excepi such as might ba propitiated by a stick of tobacco. Professor Sale, writing recantly ia tha Christchurch Press, assures U3 that the early days of New Zealand settlement ware the happy days. There ware, no drapers' bills, no labo"ur unions, no university examinations ; life was a perpetual picnic, and the nearest approach within the professor's knowledge "to the paradisiacal state. The Rev. Mr Gibb lass Sunday set forth thac the. first settlers came here with a due eye to the main chance for which small blame to them. They cirriod with thera tlmir own minister and schoolmaster ; they were all of one religion, eonsaseqaentlycould qaarrel the more intelligently. Altogether they Eeem to have been as cosy, comfortable, and canny a company as ever Bailed the salt seas. In this we are to give them an annual day on which their praises may be sung. As' one who did not come out in the first four ships but arrived later, to find all the corner lots taken up and the H old identity "in full possession, I feel that £ have a grievance.

According to the telegrams Lord Ranfurly has been "mentioned" in connection with the Governorship of New Zealand. So the Colonial Office has remembered us at jast. Thanks, very much. Perhaps by the time this note is in print Lord Ranfurly will Bave been appointed, and in the cotirse'of another two months may be in Wellington They do these things in England with • sufficient deliberation* and cannot be accused of precipitancy. Yet there was wisdom in the old custom of announcing the King's decease acd the King's accession in the same breath;— Le rvi est mor't, vive le roll A breach of continuity is perilous. If the State can exist without its chief functionary for a day, why not for a week, a month ; why not altogether 1 Wa hays existed without a Governor for a. month, or more; nobody has complained; nobody has seemed conscious of any lack; in fact, nobody has made the most distant allusion to the subject. This indifference is of evil omen. That we hava had opportunity to be indifferent is the blame of the Colonial Office, and I respectfully recommend the Colonial Office not to do it again. Why not have-a new Governor here to slip into, the old Governor's shoes before they havß time to cool 1 There mass be any number of rsssdy young peers available for.a vicsroyship—at £5000 a year, is it? —with no duties worth Breaking of beyond courtesy, good temper, and ability to stand Mr Ssddon.

If Lord Ranfurly turn out to be the man, it will be no disadvantage to him that he has tried M 3 lnck at go!d-diggiDg and at one time ran an unsuccessful fruit farm at Mildura. In our part^of the world this is the recognised road to greatness. As head of colonial society the new Governor will bs all the better for having gone through -the colonial mill like the rest of us. He may even possess the nnsDeakable advantage of baing able to talk" to Messrs Seddoa, JH'Kenzie; and Co. in their own lingo— who knows J If' in this democratic country we must have a pee^ let ifc be an up-to-date pear.. The more iecaat his "creation" the better—perhaps. Of tbe present House of Lords more than 150 once were cornmonera —soldiers, sailors, backers* brewers, lawyers, cotton-spinners,—and, I t^ara say, are about tbe best of them, Anyhow they are farthest away from the piratical Normans from ■whom the British peerage' took its origin and of whom Emerson'writes-: Twenty thousand thieves landed al; Hastings These fouuders of the Souse of Lords were greedy and ferocious dragoons, Sons of greedy and ferocious pirates. They were ail alike • they took everything they could carry, they burned, harrlfed, violated, tortured, and killed . until everything English was brought to the verge of ruin. Such, however, 13 the illusionofantiquity and wealth, that decent and dignified nlen now, existing boast their descent from these filthy thieves, who showed a far juster conviction of their own merits by assuming for their types the swine, .goat," jackal, j leopard, wolf, and snake, which they severally ' resembled. >, ! These are the wild words of Ralph Waldo j Bmersbn. But then Emerson was an ) American. -The National Council of Women is holding its second convention in Christchurcb, aud is to sit; it is alleged, for nine days. Nine days of feminine loquacity, uninterrupted by a single dissentient male voice, should surely satisfy "the most avid claimant for.women'a rights. As I write I have before me the telegraphed report of tbe presidential addresses an.^ as T wade through its dreary length I am' ! constrained to ask what women will do when ! they obtain all the things they are now ask- j ing for. Possibly they will then ask for still i more, though at this point the awf al possi- 5 •bility suggests itself that Iby that time ! they will be in a position jto take what j they want/without the necessity for asking for it. |7hat they now ask for seems j moderate enough. Admission to Parliament [ the repeal of the CD. Act, prohibition,! prison reform, equal pay with men, hydropathy, technical education, the compulsory cessation of truancy—these are nothing now that the plunge has been taken. The most cdnvincing proof that what they want will I be granted is the cockaureness of the 1 women. Notwithstanding what is at present I experienced in India they talk of the CD. i Act as an anachronism, Hydropathy is pra- j ferabla to tbe administration of drag 3, I Technical edncation in a panacea for vica ' and poverty. The propoiiuder of each nostrum is as certain of its efficacy as of tha existence of the law of gravitation. Sirs I Hendre found it to be so to her confusion, j Having had the temerity to criticise Mrs ! Tasker's paper unfavourably, she was brought i up standing—taken aback, as it w;ere by the • dreadful question how many children sha j had. She pleaded guilty to the crime of j Having only one, and thereupon seems to j have been snuffed out. One child, indeed! 1 Imagine a hen with oae chicken venturing j to criticise the work cf a woman who has ' a quiver full. Sonw women are really ' unbearable! . |

The famous Captain Jackson Barry is still in the land of the living, it seems, and wants to go Home as New Zealand's representative instead of Mr Seddon, if that gentleman finds that he cannot be spared, I would suggest that the gallant captain be taken in any case. He would serve admirably as a foil to Mr Seddon, and they would display to the people of the Home country two distinct types of colonists—the political and the nonpoliticaL True, they would hav9 one attribute in common. When the Premier told such stories as that about (-he wonderful homing pigeon that flew from Wellington to Victoria any lingering suspicious of his veracity would be dispelled by still steeper yarns by Captain Jackson Barry. Moreover, the gallant captain haviag been, Home before, and having moved ;r: aristocratic circles, knows the ropes, and would be able to iaatract oar Premier ia those details of deportment with which, he cannot pretend to be familiar. I look upon the captain's offer as a distinctly advantjs^aons one, and it will be a great weight 6£E our minds if Mr Seddon takes him along. A»:d while Mr Seddon is about it he might taks with him some more STs?/ Zealand curiositi^. We could make np a choice little assortment for him in Danedin alone.

There is a queer irony in the fact that it should fall to thg lot of the Licensed Victuallers' Aesoeiatiou to urge npon the City Council to pftvi.de a public morgue, and it is still more striking to find the City Council about equailv divided'in its desire for a morgue and to: a fish market. Why ths mention of a mmgae should suggests, fish market ia ona of tho3B things no on© (seems able to explain, but they certainly have a mnemonic connection in soma councillors' minds. Aad they will continue %a be concatenated, for the doable task o£ ©oasidering about the erection of a flsh

1 market and a morgue has beea remitted to a committee. No donbt the proj hibitionista will say there is a peculiar ; appropriateness in the licensed victual- ; lers interesting themselves about a morgue.' Whether there is nny ■ special fitness in their connection with it I do not undertake to say, What lam concerned about is the connection between morgues and fish markets. Councillor Thomson wants the gaol site for a morgue because it, is so near the police'station, and Councillor Carroll wants it lor a fish market because it is co near tha railway station. Ha thinks the raorgua should be at th 9 Town Hall or at the police station. No donbt he wonld make it one of the sights of the city; as in Paris. Bat it is moderately safe to prophesy that when tha council obtains the gaol j site it will be torn with the conflicting claims of morgue and fish market. It must provide the morgue; the law demands it. If need | not provide the fish market, so it will I probably be erected at the Greek Kalsnds. •| J ij_ ■ ' ■ ■. CIVIS.