PASSING NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 1957, 27 August 1891, Page 23

PASSING NOTES.

Left in a deplorable minority on the women's franchise question, Mr Fish may have found some small consolation in the sympathetic support afforded him by the Maori members. On the subjecb of women's rights, women's duties, and the necessity of keeping women in their proper place, the opinions of the Maori members coincided exactly with the opinions of Mr Fish. That, of course, wae to be expected. In the North Island I have occasionally observed the noble savage when at home. A dozen women are digging and planting in the kumara patch; a dozen able-bodied men squat on their haunches, pipe in moutb, discussing the politics of the pah. That is division of labour a la Maori; naturally therefore the Maori members found themselves in entire accord with Mr Fish. However, all's well that ends well. The discussion in the House ended particularly well— in fact, nothing could be better. There was an epic completeness about it, Mr Fish being — metaphorically speaking — tossed in a blanket. The women of New Zealand already have their revenge, a revenge not very unlike that of the Merry Wives of Windsor when their traducer was smothered in a buck basket and pitched into the Thames. "I do begin to perceive that I am made an ass I " soliloquises Falstaff. I pass the motto on to Mr Fish.

Who is to be the new Agent-general That's the question of questions, and not even the din of the female franchise debate can drown it, The Opposition, whose chief function it is to press for information at inconvenient times> is urging Mr Ballance "to take the House and the country into his confidence," as Mr Bryce sweetly phrases it. Mr Ballance, poor man, promises to do so — as soon as ever he has any confidence into which he can take 'em, and I do most potently believe him. The post is a plum, but, alas 1 only one mouth can get it, and the mouths that water for it are so many, The ablest man is undoubtedly Sir Julius Vogel, and his four-columned deliverance to the London Times looks like a bid for it. But to give it to a mere absentee, whose sole title is his fitness, would be a wanton waste — a clear flying in the face o£ Providence ;— < so we may set him aside. There's Mr Perceval with a good presence, a good income, and a praiseworthy ambition to ruffle it in London with the best of 'cm — an ex-whip of the party too. What better qualifications can you want? There's Mr Buckley, who, I believe, is supposed to speak French, and at all events would make room for another Minister, a consideration, of no light weight. There's Sir George Grey, who must be got safely out of the House at any cost. And last, but not least, there's Mr Ballance himself, whose claims are based on bad health and the fact that he blocks the way of Sir Eobert Stout's return to the Premiership. Time was when people spoke of him as Sir Robert's warming pan, but that time is passed. If he is to give place now it can only be done by way of translation, and the Agent-generalship is a heaven-sent opportunity. Amid so many conflicting claims and perplexing considerations one can readily believe that the Cabinet has a difficulty in coming to a decision. My own impression is that we shan't know anything about it until the lucky man is safely shipped off beyond criticism or recall.

It is a well-known fact in the Highlands that all the Mackenzies are famous men, and in the House our political triad are no exception to the rule. Mr Scobie is renowned for epigrams, ontological and otherwise; also for epoch-making speeches. Mr John— the Hon. John— is a Meenister of the Croon, a terror to dummies, and a praise to the one-man-with-one-run; whilst Mr Tom will be gratefully remembered as long as the Californian thistle is alive in the land. Indeed, unless my memory bewrays me — I speak with the diffidence that becometh a city man — his successful efforts to introduce that agricultural product a few years ago, gained him the name of Californian Mackenzie, by which he is still known. Latterly he has expanded his mind by travelling abroad, and braced his nerves by exploring at home, whereby he has profited much both ways. His home explorations in the Sounds district, have, I believe, all appeared in print — and very pleasant reading they are, but of his adventures abroad the little we do know serves only to tickle the palate and whet the edge; of appetite. If ever he condescends to authorship, and tells a round, unvarnished tale, I predict a boom for his book. Comparisons are odorous, as Mrs Malaprop observes, but on the whole in a time race, say for the next sir years, I should feel disposed to pit Master Tom's career against that of either of his clansmen. Scobie has more sparkle than grit, and between his great speeches he lies torpid or dead. The cares of office are fast sapping the erstwhile solid constitution and spoiling the erstwhile genial temper of the Hon. John. But Californian Toms grows fresher and brighter and brisker and bolder day by day, and if he doesn't find his way to the Cabinet I'm no true prophet.

I like the healthy and breezy intere&t Mr Thomas Mackenzie takes in New Zealand scenery — an interest born, I suppose, of a natural taste and nourished on the exploring work he has done. And one can't help sympathising with him in the unhappy fate that befell his motion on the subject a week or two ago. In the innocence of his heart he asked the Government to open up the magnificent scenery of New Zealand by making a track between Milford Sound, Te Anau, and Wakatipu. Well, you say, no harm in that. No harm 1 Hearken to Mr Richard Reeves — " Long Dick," as his familiars call him — rising in his wrath and asking the hon. member what the deuce he means by calling Milford Sound and such places the magnificent scenery of New Zealand I Let him go to Reef ton with its beautiful climate (apparently only wanting a track to open it up) and beautiful scenery away in the far distance. Milford indeed 1 Then followed Mr 0. H. Mills, of Piston, who protested against Pelorous Sound being ignored. After him Mr Joyce, of Akaroa, took up his parable against poor Mr Mackenzie. Scenery 1 The scenery of Banks 1 Peninsula and the lighthouse was unparalleled, and if tracks were to be made there was the place for them. By a strange oversight he forgot the magnificent scenery of the Lyttelton tunnel — but let that pass; — he remembered the lighthouse. And so it went on, member after member getting up and assuring the House that if any Government money were available for tracks he would undertake to furnish the scenery from his own district. Even Mr Taylor put in a word for his beloved Sydenbam. Of course, said he, it was a matter of taste what scenery people preferred, but he wasn't agoing to allow his part to be run down, and within half a mile of Sydenham there was some of the grandest scenery in the colony (presumably the Ferry road drain). The next time Mi Mackenzie moves he must frame his motion with more regard to the susceptibilities of his fellow members or he'll come to grief again.

A correspondent favours me with the following: — "Mr J. C. Firth has returned from his travels more than ever enamoured with the beauties and advantages of 1 Greater Britain.' Mr Firth is not given to hiding his light under a bushel. His progress through the old world and America has been followed by a scintillating shower of sparks, which solidified themselves in the form of newspaper paragraphs and cable messages, all of them eulogistic of New Zealand. His route might thus be easily tracked, and by the same method we are now delicately informed that Mr Firth is

In Wellington. The intelligence is conveyed in a manner which is highly creditable to Mr Firth's patriotism, but cannot be said, we fear, to bespeak his dif crimination. He says that after having seen the principal Legislative Assemblies of the world he thinks the JNew Zealand Parliament compares not unfavourably with them, including even the House of Commons. Praise like this is praise indeed. Whenever there has been a scene of more than ordinary truculence in the Australian Parliaments we have been accustomed to say, pharisaically it may have been, that we were glad to realise that our Parliament was not like one of these; but never in the wildest moment of admiration did we venture to compare it with such as the House of Commons. Mr Firth's comparison was made on Thursday, too, when Mr Seddon was in the 'Brcles vein, and when Mr Earnshaw lifted up his voice against the tyranny of the Union Company. Henceforward, no jdoubt, honourable members will each cultivate his remarkable resemblance to some eminent statesman, and will consider such things as stonewalling or participating in an Otago free fight as altogether beneath his dignity. So mote it be I "

That good man Bishop Julius does not spare himselE. He is of the stuff from which •heroes are made. The other day be had -himself hoisted in a chair to the top of his •cathedral spire that he might with his own 'hands lay the last brick. A big crowd ■gathered, as was natural. It could hardly nave been bigger had the bishop undertaken to walk from the Godby Statue to the top of his steeple on a tight rope, pushing a barrow load of bricks and mortar in front of him. The spectacle was quite attractive enough as it was. Everybody was eager to Bee a bishop in an ambiguous situation, dangling in mid air at the end of a rope, hanged higher than Haman. Let us hope there was a collection 1 But of course there was. If it hadn't been that he had a view to the collection the bishop would doubtless have made his ascent in some less dramatic way. When they had got him half-way up, hoisting operations were stopped for a time in order to give a show to the photographers. That, too, was an excellent idea. The sale of those photographs, showing the bishop suspended between heaven and earth, ought to be worth a handsome penny to the building fund. Was the episcopal tobacco-pipe in evidence, I wonder? I have always fait kindly towards Bishop Julius since his famous speech at the banquet to welcome him, when he knocked the breath out of the ecclesiastical old fogies of Christohurch by his unexpected peroration. " That's all for the present," said the bishop — "I want to go home and have a smoke." Let us hope that the committee who superintended the bishop's hanging didn't forget his pipe. The photograph that shows him on his upward path ought also to show him blowing a cloud. Fancy the frantic suocess that such a photograph would be bound to have 1 Think of the money that would be in it 1 My suggestions come rather late, but something may be made of them even yet. Head the picture: "A Colonial Bishop in the Path of Duty"; swinging serenely in mid air, pipe in mouth, let him " point to the skies and lead the way ; " at the bottom add,- by way of motto : ' The path of duty is the road to glory. Copyrighted in England and the colonies and sold at a reasonable price this photo would yield an annual income for half a dozen curates.

I am not anxious to be known as a purveyor of small jokes. It is an office that fails to appeal to my ambition. Tet some correspondents seem bent on forcing it upon me. Seldom passes a week in which I don't receive per post one or more microscopical jokes which the senders think may, with advantage to the public, be inserted in Passing Notes. I infer that there must be somewhere a good many people to whom a small joke—say a bad pun, a printer's blander or the'lik'e — affords a keen delight. I envy these people. Although not myself a small jokisr, I by no means despise small jokes. All the great humourists, from Aristophanes down to Mark Twain, have revelled in verbal quips and cranks— Shakespeare more than any other. Far be it from me then to despise small jokes; I am willing to use them, in reason, though I cannot always undertake to laugh, at them. For example, here are two or three sent to me this week. A press telegram from Washington announces an American balloon accident, " owing to a parachute failing to open a woman." Make what you can of that ; laugh, if it is permitted to you — it isn't to me, — and then perpend the next. This is a sentence from a time-table issued by the Railway Commissioners which announces that on arrival of something (train, I suppose) at Queenstown " coach leaves for a short trip on the lake." Next, is a sentence from a letter in the Daily Times on the savoury subject of drains After picturing certain cifcy councillors " coming down the road holding their handkerchiefs to their noses," the writer says that a doctor suggests, as the only remedy, " to have them asphalted." Nobody would object to see, now and then, a city councillor asphalted, to encourage the others, but I am much mistaken if even then he would wake ap to a proper sensitiveness on the subject of drains. The next small joke is the last, and listinctly the best, In a suburban congreition the other Sunday, parson and choir were heard uniting their voices in the petition "Have mercy upon us, miserable singers." It is only fair to add that in that congregation influenza has been rife, also colds in the head. "

Miss O. A. Fulton, of Outran), Otago, has recently visited the " Ladies' Hostel," in connection with the Melbourne College, during a short stay in Victoria. She was greatly pleased with this comfortable residence for lady students. There is already one valuable scholarship attached to Trinity College Hostel, founded by Bfrs James Grice. Mr F. S. Grimwade, has given a studentship, or bursary, of the value of 60g8 per annum for three years, to be held by a student resident at the hostel. Bernstone, the Paria tailor, has the grandest show of stock in Dunedin, at 45 George street, and also in Christchurch (High street). He charges very moderate. Suits at £3 3s ; trousers, 16s 6d. Fib guaranteed or money returned, I