Passing Notes

Otago Witness, Issue 1474, 14 February 1880, Page 16

Passing Notes

Since the prohibition of "Happy Land," business in the "Victorian Parliament has been of the most animated and interesting character. There has been a general confession of sins — that is, of other people's sins — each hon. member, with the most edifying frankness making a clean breast of whatever he knew to the personal or political discredit of any other hon. member. In this vicarious fashion, each man divulging the deeds of his neighbour, the House in the gross made out for itself a very pretty pile of iniquities indeed. Every crime in the code of political infamy was included, from stealing the public funds to polling dead-heads from the public burying grounds. One hon. member, in allusion to his successful industry as a resurrectionists was described as "representative of the West Melbourne Cemetery ! " The proceedings were diversified by playful references to each other's personal peculiarities and private avocations. Thus, of one gentleman we learn that he is a seller of spring onions, and that another deals in shoddy. The Minister I of Lands was addressed as "The Smiler," 1 and was informed that his smile would

"take all the varnish off mahogany, and turn all the milk in the country sour." Whereupon, in reply :— Mr Longmore waa understood to say the hon. member was a cabbage seller. Mr Beat was not ashamed of that, but he did not steal the public money. Mr Longmore: Who stole the ratepayers' money? Mr Bent : Who stole the coal company's money ? Who robbed the money or! everybody else ? Who robbed J. Gr. Francis ? An Hon. Member, (irrelevantly) : Who billed Cock Eobin ? Mr Bent : Who robbed everybody attached ! to the coal company ? &c , &o. ! Mr Ferguson, the member for Easb Bourke, had the misfortune to be obnoxious to the Opposition not merely for political reasons, but because of the hue of his whiskers. The hon. member was suspected of assisting the failing energies of nature by means of a hair-dye. One member called out " We will whiten your hair for you," and another, "We will give you a wig, old man, to match your whiskers." Goaded by these taunts, Mr Ferguson rushed to the Speaker's table, apparently in quest of the mace. Fortunately the House was in committee, and " that bauble " had been removed. Disappointed of a handy weapon, Mr Ferguson essayed to wrench off the stand which supports the mace, and failing in that, seized a heavy volume of statutes, which he hurled at Mr M'lntyre. Missing that gentleman, the book of the law felled to the ground Mr Bent, who was hurrying up to share in the fray. In the melde which followed, Mr Ferguson, mindful of the nature of his wrongs, seized Mr M'lntyre by the beard and whiskers, and then, borne down by the weight of numbers, beating the ground with his heels, and crying out "Let me at him, the blackguard !" was dragged on his back across the House to his seat behind the Government. After mutual apologies and (metaphorical) hand shaking all round, the Hou&e, feeling that it had done enough for one night, reported progress and adjourned.

Virtuous politicians in and out of Parliament are doubtless lifting up their hands in dismay at these Homeric doings in Melbourne. All thing 3 considered, I am not clear that the Victorian Parliament is very much worse than others. Its vituperation, no doubt, lacks elegance and artistic grace. The mace which Mr Ferguson wanted to lay his hands on, and couldn't, may very well represent its quality. It savours more of the bludgeon than of the stiletto — the keen and trenchant weapon with which the political bravo, Disraeli, attacked Peel. Moreover it is indulged with an abandon which is perhaps the product of a warm and stimu lating climate. But Victorian vituperation is essentially very much what we are used to elsewhere. Is not "blundering and plundering" the description which one great English party, gives of the policy of the other ? Has not Mr Bright just defined Sir Stafford Nor th cote's finance as " thimble-rigging ?" And, to come nearer home, does not Sir George Grey, in season and out of season, descant on the "frauds" of our political land rings? Then, as to violence, St. Stephen's tia3 witnessed scenes as disorderly as any reported from the Melbourne Assembly. Burke, in a transport, flung a dagger on the floor of the House of Commons ; Feargus O'Oonner was arrested by the Sergeant-at-Arms in a rough-and-tumble meUe very like Mr Ferguson's ; and Mr Whalley, expos bulating in dumb show with a hooting and howling House, used to be greeted with cries of "Sing, Whalley, sing !" The scene in " Ten Thousand a Year" where Tittlebat Titmouse smashes and puts to the rout a great party speaker by interjecting, during one of his rhetorical pauses, a shrill and piercing Cock-a-doo -die-do ! is scarcely an exaggeration. All the noises of the barn-yard may be heard in the House of Commons during a great party debate. And if Victorian legislators have just come to blows, one may remember that British M.P.'s have not so long left off duels, and that in France the duel flourishes as a necessary pendant to Parliamentary institutions still. Finally, if Melbourne politicians are corrupt, did not Sir Robert Walpole use to say of his Parliaments, " All these men have their price ?" And did not the four Auckland members have their price ? And don't they still wish they may get it 1 Pot and kettle is my estimate of the comparative morality of politicians all the world over.

Varnish and dead flies ! Such, and no other, according to Professor Bickerton, was the nature of a compound forwarded through the post to Pastor Chiniquy — doubtless with nefarious intent — in Ohristchurch last week. The papers indeed are talking of an " attempt to poison " Pastor Chiniquy, and if we may credit the narration of the Pastor's secretary, there waa certainly something more in the mixture than met the eye — the eye of mere mundane intelligence, at all events. After handling the envelope Pastor Chiniquy's secretary applied his fingers to his nose — with what intent is not stated— and soon after became aware of an "itching eensasation" in that important organ. This symptom was speedily followed by a swelling of the lip 3, and the secretary, confident that he was on the traces of a "Popish, plot, rushed off with the envelope to the police, who in their tnrn, submitted it to the examination of Professor Bickerton, with the result above stated. " I find in it," says the Professor, " nothing more « than varnish and dead flies." Is this , another Romish miracle? What more probable than that this mysterious com- , pound, so innocent, and even bo con-

temptible in its ingredients under the professional analysis, would — had it but reached its destination— have proved to be some subtle and diabolical Borgia poison meant to rid the Church of a dangerous and indefatigable enemy ! This is an explanation of the mystery to which zealous Protestants, acquainted with the arts of Rome, will doubtless give due weight. Another solution which has been suggested appears to me quite beneath the gravity of the occasion. The varnish, it is said— a viscous fluid, sticky and unpleasant to the touch — has a recondite reference to the venerable Pastor's anti-Popery addresses, whilst the dead flies typify the simple people who are attracted thereto. It is suggested, also, that the phenomenal effects on the secretary's nose may have been due to a morbid irritability in that organ, induced either by frequent poking into other people's business, or by the numerous pugilistic assaults to which it has been subjected since its owner entered the Pastor's perilous service. But, as the late A. Ward would have said, this is sarkasm. It is lamentable to think that these two good men, who want to teach us all to love one another, should not be allowed to pursue their mission of peace unmolested.

"Couples are quiet." Such is the cheering announcement made by Mr Skene in his weekly report. I am glad to hear it, for we occasionally get glimpses of the domestic economy of some families in which the couples are anything but quiet. I was myself witness to a fierce assault by an infuriated and inebriated husband upon his wife with a kitchen bellows, by means of which he inflicted a serious blow on the head. I appealed to the police, but found they could not or would not interfere to protect the unfortunate woman, whose only remedy was the slow process of a summons. In cases therefore where couples are not quiet ; where the husband is savage and the wife aggravating— for it must be admitted that wives can be aggravating— they generally have to settle their differences between themselves. I suppose there is some good reason why the police don't interfere even when a woman is lying on the pavement with a broken leg— broken by a savage kick from her worser half, as we all know was the case in one instance not long ago, whereupon the woman thus judiciously let alone took it into her head to die. Policemen are pretty much the same all over the world. A friend of mine was once spending an evening at a friend's house in one of the Welsh mining districts, and coming home rather late he saw a crowd, and heard screams. He soon discovered that a man with heavy boots on was actually jumping on an unfortunate woman who lav helpless on the ground, while a man in blue stood calmly by. My friend excitedly remarked, " Why don't you interfere 1 he'll kill that woman !" " Well," was the philosophic reply, " we have sometimes interfered in such cases and got into trouble, and our orders now are not to do so unless they go too far /" I presume when actual murder follows, then they take the matter up with gusto. As these domestic troubles do now and then arise, I do not wonder that "quiet couples" are in demand just now in the labour market, and, that hence Mr Skene advertises them.

A visit to the Resident Magistrate's Court in Bond street is always interesting. The place, unlike the Police Court, iB fairly clean, and not malodorous ; and you get queer glimpses into the "natural lives " of many of Her Majesty's liege subjects. On Wednesday, I found that one Dollins (his real name, of course, was Solomon ben Moses) had lent one Tipler a quantity of furniture on the time-pay-ment principle. The meaning of that is easily explained. Tipler had to pay five shillings a week for the ostensible use of the furniture, and was to retain it as his own as soon as ten pounds had been paid in instalments. Well, he paid about a dozen instalments, and then had a mild controversy with his wife, — they weren't a " quiet couple " — and went out to seek peace elsewhere. His wife promptly sold all the furniture to a well-known dealer for about three pounds. Here was a nice mess ! Dollins came to Tipler's house, demanding either his instalments or the "sticks;" and finding the place empty, sued the purchaser for the original value of the goods. The whole thing was so complicated that I could not follow it any longer, and left. The moral of it is, I think, that you can always furnish cheaply as follows. Get your things in, pay your first ss, and then offer your Jew a pound down to close accounts. If he refuses, threaten to destroy the things and then allow him to claim them. I really think the time-payment system will be fruitful in cases of this sort,

That is a good story told at the expense of Sir George Grey— regarding whom, by-the-bye, how many good stories are told — how he advised the Maories to devote a tenth of their income to works of charity, and was subsequently roused from his sleep by a deputation from the dusky ones anxiously inquiring " did he, Sir George, devote a tonth of Ms income to charity ?" The Mentor was obliged to confess that he did not, and thus once more illustrated the inconsistency of human nature. "Do as I say and not as I do," that is about the size of it; an inversion of the principle " Deeda, not words, shall speak me." There waS ( a shrewd sense of humour in these Maoris, and they must have chuckled greatly when they thus cornered the great Hori Kerei. We have heard of other instances in which

the wily old statesman and moralist has escaped the natural deductions from his own principles, as when he paid only £8 3s 4d for land tax for his fine island of Kawau. With all his effusive regard for the working man, it is said to be a very hard task to get a subscription out of him for a "deserving case." No doubt he objects to pauperising people. But after all one is inclined when one reads fine speeches and knows that they are not backed up by corresponding deeds, to use Hamlet's laconic criticism —

Words, words, words! and turn over to the next page.

The fatal encroachment which the world is making on the church has just received a new illustration. The Knox Church congregation, Dunedin, is debating the purchase of an organ, and the parishioners of St. John's, Christchurch, have been polled on the question whether dancing shall be permitted in the parish schoolroom. To the discerning mind there is more than an accidental coincidence between these two facts. The St. John's people are a stage or two ahead of the disciples of Knox. but they are only on the same line. The former probably admitted an organ long ago. This may be regarded as the entrance of the thin end of the wedge. Instrumental music naturally brings dancing in its train. The people who favour the one are often found addicted to the other. An organ is known to be an arrangement of pipes, and "to pipe and dance "is a proverb. It is true that people in whom the passion is strong will dance to the fiddle, and even, it is said, to the bagpipes. On the other hand, it is not certainly known that dancing can be done to the strains of an organ. Nevertheless, the Knox-Churchers cannot be too careful. The seductive swell and dying fall of ecclesiastical music, especially if heard amidst the long-drawn Gothic aisles and 'neath the steeplecrowned roofs of our Otago churches, might in time soften the moral fibre of the stoutest Covenanter that ever stalked the heather, or droned his Tate and Brady. Let them contemplate the sad example of St. John's, and pause in time. The vision of their justly venerated paßtor handing down the leading soprano of the choir in a reel or strathspey, possibly in Old Knox Church school- room, is toopaini'ul for the imagination to dwell upon. I am quite aware that a subtle • casuistry may be employed to justify the ecolesiaßtical use both of music and dancing. The Psalms of David, it is said, were expressly written for instruments of music. Then Solomon tells us there is a "time to dance," and if dancing is to be done at all where can ifc be done so safely as beneath the maternal supervision of the Church? Further the elder brother in the parable who objected to music and dancing is not represented to us as an estimable character. To these sophistries it is best to make no reply. I am entirely of the opinion that David himself, if he happened to revisit the earth, ought not to be allowed to sing his own Psalms if he wanted to accompany them with "stringed instruments and organs." Civis.