THE DAY IN DUNEDIN.

Otago Witness, Issue 2728, 27 June 1906, Page 28

THE DAY IN DUNEDIN.

The visible or organised mourning of this democracy for Richard John Seddon, the popular hero dead, reached its culmination and conclusion on Thursday. That the mourning was generally sincere there can be no" doubt, even though occasionally its manifestations were not especially Solemn or impressive. That the regret at Mr Seddon's death is poignant and deep there need, equally, be no doubt, even though regret has occasionally got > itself expressed in terms of almost intolerable pathos. Behind all manifestations, as behind lEose of all these recent days, there was a deep feeling of unrest Already, people generally are turning their thoughts rather to the future than to the past. Seddon is dead— what next? But Thursday's solemn ceremonies only Served to multiply instances of the affection in which the ckad leader was held. He was one of those raro big men who, even before they die, attain to the' dangerous dignity of a tradition. By dint of his magnetism, his humanity, his audacity, all the qualities that made hi 3 personal force, Seddon had got out of the perspective, and in the common judgment of him ordinary criteria did not apply. It has been notable right from the day of his death— it was notable yesterday— that the most gracious tributes to the dead statesman's memory have come from those who were politically his opponents. With them there has been no lapse to bathos, no tripping into that grotesque exaggeration of simile and epithet which, in such circumstances, becomes an indelicacy calculated in ignorance. The tribute from the opposing ranks has taken the form of generous appraisement based on knowledge drawn from deeper wells than the ditch of politics. It cannot be said that the city was cad. Sadness in all euch oases is pre-snpposed ; but tears are not for the highways. Regret for a great man gone has properly not the poignancy of a private or domestic sorrow. None the less, the popular tribute to Richard John Seddon yesterday was a worthy and a noble tribute. The people flocked into the city till the principal streets were thronged, and the great concourse of folk was not imbued with the ordinary spirit of holiday. There was no disorder, and no horseplay. There were none of the pretences, and few of the deliberate furnishings of woe; but there was, on all hands, a very general and genuine sense of the occasion. And thai, once again, was all that could be looked for. The front portals of the Post Office veie 'draped in black, and all the flags ware at half-mast Otherwise funpreal signs and tokens were few. It was. indeed, a crowd of bravest seeming. The streets were vivid with the colour of feminine apparel; and, brighter still, the uniforms of the Artillery and the barbaric splendour of the Highlanders. The day itself was perfect in its colouring— a day of suave grey reticences and gracious purple glows. It was just such a day as might most suitably be chosen for the obsequies of a man of the people, greater in his humanity than in his acquirements, ennobled rather by his personality than by his passing honours. Shorn of all factitious elements, the true honour of Richard John Seddon remains untarnished, and that will live his constant monument in the heart and memory of this people. Tears at such obsequies, save such as fall from' eyes he loved best in life, would seem almost a paltry affectation. Even the eternal "Dead March" from "Saul," and all such onomatopoeic musical bewailings, become conventional incidents, like the plumes on a hearse. The honoured dead need none of our dirges, and certainly none of our obituary advertisements. New Zealand to-day can honestly echo a sentiment finely expressed in a noble hymn of Whittier's — Not upon us or ours the solemn angel Hath evil wrought. The funeral anthem is a glad evangel.—* The good die not. Richard John Seddon has lived his large 'day, not ignobly ; . and in our memories of him his faults will be first forgotten.

>