Poverty Bay Herald AND East Coast News Letter. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 1879.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume VI, Issue 627, 15 February 1879, Page 2

Poverty Bay Herald AND East Coast News Letter. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 1879.

We review the events of the week. And here, we trust being allowed to introduce a little philosophical meditation. "We have had a serious fire, which has brought losses on a number of very worthy, thriving, business, pushing tradesmen. They will feel the pinch for a little, and then the whole will scarcely be remembered. New and more stylish shops will be built, new stocks of goods will be bought, and things will be as if they had not been. There is an old saying about something or other being all the same a hundred years hence; why, m this colony, things are so elastic, and so buoyant the people, that most sort of troubles are all the same three months hence. The greatest sufferer by the late fire was last evening sitting

calmly and composedly at the door step of our office reading the Herald. He had got no premises m which to carry on his business ; no little cottage to crowd himself and his belongings into ; but he was very contented, and quite unperturbed. Said matters were bound to right themselves m almost no time, and what was the use of fretting. And so things do, and what is the use of fretting 1 Don't we know, and see it, every day of our life. A man m the colony finds that business matters have gone wrong. He declares his inability to pay his creditors, and smashes, paying very little to anyone. Three months after he drives a buggy, and has re-furnished his bouse. He says never mind how it's been done ; he's done it. Perhaps it is that he has done other people to enable him to do it. Yes, we are a wonderfully elastic people. A man is clerk m an office upon a small screw. Three months hence he has entered upon a general store, with a large stock of goods. It does not answer, and we find him opening a baker's shop. This does not succeed, and he goes a bit further away, somewhere else, and opens a select boarding academy. Comes back by and by, and gets put into an hotel. Gets put out m a few months, and turns collector and commission-agent, or reports for a newspaper. Afterwards goes into the dairying business; doesn't succeed, and takes m lodgers. All this time he has had a continuallyincreasing family to support. There is always the last baby m the mother's ai*ms. The mother looks a little faded and worn, but she has always got what she wanted. The children go to school, and the father goes to the Masonic or Samuel Mason Wilson's, or round the corner to Jolly Dick's "pub.," and drinks his usual number of glasses, without any thougnt whether he can afford it. The money does come to hand. But how or from where is a mystery. Now, we would like to be told where is a more glorious country for one to go to. Behold ! What life that man has seen. How he has been keeping people alive m looking him up, and what lots of money they would have got hold of had he always paid his creditors. A fire ! Why what would a fire be to that man 1

By the next steamer, two gentlemen will arrive from Auckland to adjust the salvage from the fire. There was a great deal saved, and how it shall apportioned, will perhaps cause some little difficulty ; but there is no doubt matters will be adjusted. Insurers will get their insurences. Tenders will be called for. Contractors will tender, mechanics will look for stiff wages, and shortly there will be a confounded noise of much hammering of multitudinous nails at the lower end of the Gisborne Road.

Father Hennebery is m our midst, and is honestly performing his mission. His subject last night was Confession. " Confess ye your sins one to another." Those who do not confess to a Priest, wonder whether those who do, confess everything. Whether there is not some little secret allowed to lie hidden m the corner of his heart. Did a man or woman living or dead ever yet confess to everything? It is to be doubted. There are some beautiful things belonging to confession we admit. When a poor creature is borne down by the weight of his secret sins, and their consequences, it must be as • a great relief for him to seek consolation, and the strengthening of a good purpose, from some one so much better and more righteous than himself. Don't all of us know what it is to unburden the mind m the ears of those who will sympathise with us ; who will console us, and help to direct us. The timid girl, who, on some quiet leisure afternoon whispers to her mother, as she sits knitting by her side, now John has told of his true and earnest love towards her. How he has asked her to be his wife ; and the anxious mother enquiring whether her girl returns the love which has been offered her, is answered by the glistening tear which trembles m the eye ; and the girl's kiss upon her mother's cheek which tells more than any " yes" she can utter. Here is confession and no penance to be done for the sin. There are all sorts of confessions, some of them remarkably unpleasant, as when a man confesses that he is not able to comply with the demands of his hard-hearted, unrelenting creditors. Or when he confesses to the want of a new suit of clothes, and his tailor will not trust him. Or again, when he has concealed what he conceives to be the seeds of some fatal disease, which have lurked within him so long, he, at last, confides m strict secret to his medical man, who, m less than two minutes, tells him that he has only been sufiering from indigestion, and that a diet of broiled chops with stale bread, and weak brandy and water will bring him round m a week, and drive the blue devils out of him : That has been a happy confession. Much happier than the confession of a man who thinks he has married a woman almost akin to an angel and has had to confess that she lias turned out a good deal of the double distilled Tartar. Open confession is good for both body and soul. If we have committed a fault let us out with it. If we have offended let us apologise. If we have wronged anyone, let us make reparation. If we have potted a man's ball at billiards, let us acknowledge its a mean trick, and don't do it again. If we have cribbed a half-

sovereign out of a wife's dress, and she is led to believe that she has lost it from her purse, let vs — no, don't let us say anything about it. It will be such a rare, fine chance to twit her when she asks for money. We can say to her, " Now, old girl, don't you go and lose that as you did the last."

At midnight, on Tuesday, before the great lire had been extinguished, Mi*. Turner, of the Bank of New Zealand, had rented a building lately occupied by Messrs. Ferris and Pitt. At daylight on Wednesday carpenters and timber were on the ground. By dinner-time old partitions had been knocked down, and more convenient ones had replaced them. By ten o'clock — supper-time, a bank counter and shelves had been made, fixed, and secured. On Thui*sday morning a manager's sweating-room had been divided off, fitted up, and furnished. A bank sweating-room is a room where the manager sits to answer people who want to overdraw, or get a bill discounted, or obtain a cash credit. It's a horribly dreadful place, where there's a stern, hard-hearted manager. Worse than a dungeon deep under a castle moat. Worse than any Star Chamber. One thinks of Dante when he is going into a sweating-room — " All who enter here leave hope behind !" He is a fearful being is a bank manager m a bad temper, after Laving been blown up by his wife, to go and have to ask a favour of. But we have digressed. On Thursday morning the manager's sweatingroom, as we have said, was divided, fitted, and furnished. On the same afternoon a clerk's sleep-ing-room was effected. It's an awful feeling, is that of a clerk sleeping m a lonely room, m a large open sort of wooden building, with so much money knocking around. Supposing one of the Kelly stamp of boys was to drop from the roof, or appear mysteriously through a door, and, with a loaded revolver, demand the keys of the safe 1 Mind you, a bank clerk's bedroom m a bank building must be very sedately conducted. No young men allowed on the premises, no quiet game of cards and cigars ; no sky-larking allowed ; no nothing that a clerk may indulge m, as he can at an old landlady's apartments. We have digressed again. On Thursday the clerk's bedroom being furnished, the carpenters on Friday set to work m blockading and strengthening all parts of the building, putting up lining boards, and making everything comfortable. This morning the bank was open for business. Piles of notes m drawers, large bags of silver, little bags of gold, with all the machinery for carrying on business m quite an extensive way. The manager looked pleasant ; did a good deal of rubbing his hands, and we doubt whether a cheque was sent back up to the hour the Bank closed.

We commenced with an intention of summarising the events of the week, when, as we often have done before — We have got off the track, and we cannot afford to go back. This is a confession.