LIMESTONE PLAINS.

Southland Times, Issue 4154, 22 October 1881, Page 2

LIMESTONE PLAINS.

(FROM ODR OWN CORRESPONDENT.) The weather is golden — altogether superb. One is in tlie humor to say de mortuis nil nisi bonum, and to forget the sleets and the snows ami the winds and the rains that drove the teams from the fields in the early spring. A lingering memory of theni, however, is forced to survive in the late arriving and slowly advancing vernal bloom. The summer will have to be a genial one that will efface the effects of the lateness of its corning. Things are at a very hopeful stagy, notwithstanding. The labors of the spiing are being wound up with all hopefulness and animation. If the Patagonian element were Jess characteristic of the Southland climate, no one would have occasion to growl in the words of the ploughman poet : "If Providence has sent me here,'t\vas surely in his anger." And even as it is, it has its compensation. Lord . Jeffrey, in irritable mood, d d the North Pole, to a man who wanted to interest him in the expedition thereto. " Oh ! be d d tbe North Pole, did he ? Never mind, never mind. ' I heard him I myself speak disrespectfully of the equator," Sydney Smith consolingly replied. For my own part, I have sometimes felt inclined to make a stand on the forty-sixth parallel, or thereabouts, as a line on which tlie use of euphuislic terms might be ? cohsidered justifiable. ". ? The unwelcome visitation of measles is creeping over this rural aDd otherwise salubrious region, and our school will probably bave to be closed for a little. We had afforded Mr Goyen, Inspector of Schools, the usual intellectual treat just before this unintellectual element came into calculation. Tbe next- time he comes loundhe'll find at any rate .the outside of the platter clean. A new building will have replaced the present fabric, which is now seriously weather-worn; or, as Dr Johnson would have said, in a state of general labefaction. Our accustomed tranquillity is about to be agreeably diversified by the happy alternative of electioneering activity. It is on great occasions like this that we have an opportunity of contemplating our real greatness. Now we shall see how the leaven of political intelligence has been ieavening the whole lump. There is the promise of a rich efflorescence of pure patriotism ovcrsprea'ding the colony ; a grateful vision. As the whistle of Roderick Dim summoned up front bqsli and brake a cloud of ■ trusty warriors, the elections bugle is being responded to by a bright band of noble self-sacrificing Spartans. I think lam right in my estimate—at any rate aa regards some of them. I don't for a moment believe that that poor pinch of perishable dust from the cornucopia of the treasury originates any considerable share of the inspiration that impels towards public activity. ' Fie ! on it, no. Retrovadv! I like the modesty of the coining men too. " With fire in each eyo, and papers in each hand, they don't rave, recite,, and madden, round the land.*' No doubt there is fire, however^atenfj quiescent, and inj-eserve. .Meanwhile it is witli cOy trepidation, and at the earnest solicitation jof friends and constituents, that some of the candidates finally pgeyojl upon themselves to "consent to stand." In this,, to be sure, they resemble other great men, whose shrines are in the Temple of Fame. There was the great Grecian warrior, who was forced to doff ths'disguise of female habiliments and achieve lenown in arms. And was not a noble Roman forced frem the shafts df *the plough to assume the Dictatorship %&d save his country ? And was not the tallest of Israel's sons dragged from under the concealing straw to be anointed king ? I resented with some indignation a cynical and invidious illustration attempted in' the course of conversation the other day. It wki of the canny Scotch wifie, who said to ber husband, as they walked together towards a neighbor's house to which they had been invited to an evening's! entertainment — " Noo, John, when the glass comes round, I'll just say-, No ; but you (jar me tak' it." The preliminary notices from our coming men are admirable models, after, .which their future oratory might advantageously be shaped. No extravagance of rambling verbiage. The "cloture" will have no chance of a footing in a House conducted on principles of such discreet economy in the use of language. Excellent opportunity, nowyf orthis new House to-signalise the term of. its existence, . {md make itself immortal 'by' showing to "tliis^f ussy little universal world how a small fragment of its public business can be carried on with the same quietness and order and meiti sana that are considered essential in the conduct of other matters that affect oniy a few — how it is possible not to conyert the Chamber into a speaking " bee," and how " a part to tear a oat in" is an element that may be eliminated without detriment to the healthy discharge of its functions. A private firm, doing business in the same manner as our public colonial, firms woald be a : laughing-stock, and go to the dogs in a twelvemonth. A little inside Parliamentary reform might now be instituted. It is not necessary that we.Bb.Quld continue fbr ever so loyally in .thfe Wake of' the past. ] Limestone Plains/20th Oct., 1881.