HERE AND THERE.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 5004, 11 May 1889, Page 2

HERE AND THERE.

. Lord Onslow was a little taken aback by the Maori deputation who waited upon him at Wellington to welcome the new Kawana. He listened to their interpreted address, and then the members of the deputation one after another posed in the middle of the floor, and “ offered a few remarks.” The interpreter told the third man this was rather too much of a good thing, and ; he shut up and set the example of shaking hands all round instead of spouting. The Governor appeared to have been very much puzzled how to reply to them, and ho filled up a gap in his appropriate thoughts by telling them that a deputation of natives from the great Continent of Africa had just visited the Queen at her home, and they were asked by the Queen whether they felt cold.

It is a pitiful fact that in this colony a young man’s value to his fellows is most frequently gauged by his skill in some jdepartment of athletics. Here a young schoolmaster leaves one district for another, and a published valediction sounds his virtues as a footballer. There a bank clerk is removed from one branch to another, and the local paper bewails the loss of a genuine cricketer. We are rabid on amusements. The first thing that could be offered to the new Governor as a relaxation from the terrible fatigue of being sworn in, and bowing all round the streets of Wellington, was a few days’ deer stalking in the Wairarapa; and he accepted it.

When it was proposed at the Charitable Aid Board meeting to sit in future at the hospital instead of in the Borough Council Chambers, a member jestingly said he supposed they would bo supplied with similarly comfortable furniture. They would not like to leavo such nice easy chairs. An economical member, taking the other’s remark seriously, said, No, they could not afford such luxuries,

What a dreary dreary thing must be a trip from Home to New Zealand in a direct steamer. The Coptic for instance. She arrived at Port Chalmers on Tuesday, and an account of her passage was telegraphed to all the newspapers. And what was there in it ? Left such a place at such and such an hour on such a date, arrived so-and-so, ditto; repeat for other sections of the journey ; add a few words about the winds; and that is the miserably dry, utterly useless record of a well on to 20,000 mile journey. Perhaps wo have no right to expect anything instructive or entertaining, but at all events we have a right to protest against such a bald chronology being offered us as “ reading matter.”

A special religous service was announced in Auckland recently, to be conducted by So-and-so, “ the converted athlete.” A critic wants to kuow what there is about an athlete as an athlete, that requires converting. Is “ I’m a regular athlete ” equivalent to “ I’m a miserable sinner ? ’ If not wherein is the sense of “ converted athlete ?” Why bring in this way athletics under the odium Iheologicum. They have done nothing to deserve it. That particular athlete may, but if so he ought to “ take his gruel ” like a man, and not try to injure a useful system of exercises by dodging behind it.