WELL OVER.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XIV, Issue 4898, 25 June 1887, Page 2

WELL OVER.

Is there anyone who is not thankful tho Jubilee business is over ? The thing »ot t<< be very tiring, though wo have been lot off comparatively light hero. In most places the papers have been filled day after day with pages of nothing but jubilee, till their readers must have wished the Quoon had not had a Jubilee to celebrate, and have hated the si»ht of tho word. Thnro was a good deaf of forcing iind make-believe about the colobratiou, and here in Now Zealand especially, things are so very low and bad with us that it wants a festival to come much nearer home fur us to jubilate with anything like enthusiasm. Very few men can be roysterous with the "bums" in the house and a few executions out against them ; and though the cuinniuniry is hardly iv that position yet, si ill it is so near to it that it is impossible to vamp up exuberance of spirits. It is a good job it ■s all over, and that the Queen has not been dynamited, nor anyone else, but lias been left to rci^n undisturbed. And sin; will go on reigning, except for accidents, and will probably put in twenty years more at it, beating George lll.'s score by ten years, and coming up to or surpassing the 72 years' reign of Louis XIV., who probably made the longest (and maybe the worst) time on record. What will happen nf tur that no one can say. Probably the Prince oi Wales will be deceased, and monarchy may not have the Lest of prospects, and the Queen may even be the last at tho business, and we may try something else and do worse. Anyhow, the Jubilee is ovor, and not one of us will ever see another, and very few of us would care to. The jubilating cost only one poor fellow his lifo instead of tho half dozen the great street demonstrations usually cost. As all experience has shown these affairs c;tn never pass off without fatalities, those get ting them up ought to have a heavy sense of responsibility. The thanksgiving for the lifo of the Prince of Wales being saved cost the lives of six others. It might have been worth it, or it misht not ; but before we scorn the poor heathen who throw themselves under tho car of Juggernaut it might occur to us that Christians do the same. A pageant is now and then got up which is certain to cost a life or two, but that certainty does not prevent thesacrifice being made. It does not seem quite right, somehow, but then a very great many things in the world do not seem ri^ht. London must have had a wonderful experience with its two millions of visitors. Fancy four times the whole population of this country on a visit to one city, and that would not make it at all crowded ! What a lot somo very self-sufficient young people who havo never seen the old world have to learn !