WITHOUT A TRUMPET BLAST.

Otago Witness, Issue 1905, 14 August 1890, Page 15

WITHOUT A TRUMPET BLAST.

Simple merit rarely meets with its reward until too late to be of value. The friendless patriot who spends his life in the effort to get members of the right political persuasion returned to Parliament has but small joy in the J.P.-ship which comes to him only after he has sold out of the butchering business, and left the township in which he could have wilted up his enemies from the dizzy elevation of the Bench. The plain daughter of the family— who has contracted a squint from the constant; contemplation of that awful wart on her nose— darns all the family stockings, replaces the fugitive button, regulates the supply of hash, and washes the annual and ever-recurring baby, has seen all her sisters in orange blossom, but missed her own chances for the want of a trumpet blast. Yet she was admittedly the best of the lot. The same rule holds good throughout the whole social fabric, with but few exceptions. One of these, and the most noteworthy, is the Waterbury Watch. It came and conquered, absolutely on its own merits. The cheap, lacquered, gimcrack Swiss watches have broken many an honest bushman's heart, but were never known to keep time. Their case is tin, their works are lead, and their action is as erratic as a O.M.G. on a road contract. They go for either 10 or 14 hours a day, according to temperature, and scatter misery as the Maxim gun scatters bullets. They are shipped to the colonies as ballast ; the dealer's profit is the cause of their construction, and the crass stupidity of the purchaser the reason for their existence. The mendacious trumpet of the advertiser blares forth their alleged excellence, and the simpleminded, man with the grass seed in his hair becomes a mark for the finger of scorn, and a target for*his own contumely. The Waterbury came like a dream of delight, and in its own little mild and unobtrusive way stole into the hearts of Australians, and made its name a household word ; a synonym for all that js exact, trustworthy, and beautiful, 2