THE WAYS OF THE WORLD.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1512, 13 November 1886, Page 2

THE WAYS OF THE WORLD.

The poet says that “ A little nonsense now and then Is relished by the wisest men,” 1 have occasionally tried to supply wisdom with the relish of nonsense, but I think now to spice it with any little grains of sense I may be able to pick up by the way will not render it less palat* able. The moat unmitigated rubbish will make people laugh, but solid wisdom will not always make them think. I would like to make people think, but I doubt my capability to do so. There is a time to laugh and a time to think, and it appears that the time for thinking has arrived.

To begin with, when I think of the falling off in revenue an uncomfortable feeling comes over me. According to all accounts the revenue will be very close on half a million of money less than the estimates this year, and that must mean double properly tax next year. This appears to me a subject that people ought to think about.

The high rate of interest is the cause of the greater part of our distress, and I will shpw you how. Supposing I had £SOOO to spare, what would be the most profitable way to invest it? Not in building bouses, because after allowing for repairs, bad tenants, moonlight flits, etc., I could not make as much interest out ot it as 1 could by lending it. Not in farming for the same reason; and not in local industries, because they are risky and seldom pay good dividends; Thus it is that the high ra*e of interest is crushing enterprise. The men who have the money find it more profitable to lend it out at interest than to employ it in industrial development. And it also crushes those who borrow it; no man can afford to pay 10 per cent for mopey. This is a subject people will do well to think about seriously. It can be altered if the people will it.

0»r credit in London is pretty near the end of its tether. The last loan of £1,567,800. raised a few days ago only only realised £97 ss. That means that out of every £IOO we get.only £97 ss, while we have to pay interest on : £IOO. Our credit is so much doubted that the bondholders would give only £97 5a for every bond worth £IGO, just as a man would give only 17s 6d for a doubtful pound note. We thus lose about £50;000 in a worse way than if we had dropped it in the sea, because, though we have lost it we shall have to pay interest on it. We never get it, yet we must pay interest on it. And next dny, after the raising of the loan, our,' securities in England fell £1 in £9B. About the same time Guinness, the Dublin brewer, floated a company to take over his brewery, and the capital was subscribed for dozens of limes over. It is not pleasant to think that an Irish brewery is regarded as a better security in the Loudon market than this beautiful country, yet such is the case. A little thinking over these matters may enable us to mend them.

Probably I have given enoigb food for thought now, and a little of something else would go down more palatably. I know of nothing better than the story of the Queensland Justice of which is going the rounds. This J.P. went on the “ bust” occasionally, and one evening while enjoying a “snooze" on a side-walk, a new-chum constable ran him in. Next morning he was released, but as tbe charge-sheet was filed his name could not be erased from it. When the time arrived for the Court to sit he was the only J.P. present, and he lock his seat on the benohi His own name ap*

peared first on the list, he called it out, and as there was no appearance he dismissed the case.

A writer in a Dunedin paper describes a drees as follows 1 “ One dress I noticed in particular; it was worn by a young lady with a pale, pretty face looped up in front and trimmed with most beautiful lace.” The dress may have been well enough, but “ a pale pretty face looped up in front ” appears to me to be a bit out of the common. If the immortal Barnuta heard that a girl with a looped-up face existed in Dunedin bow bis teeth would water to add her to his menagerie.

Discussing the gentler sex, the same writer says that the girls of Dunedin are small, weak, wishy-washy, namby-pamby creatures, who are good for nothing. He is not surprised at this when he recollects the diet of young girls is as follows : Breakfast.—One small slice of bread covered one and a-half inches thick with jam, half a pasty scone, and one pint of scalding taa. Dinner.—One and a-quarler ounces of meat, one potato and a little vegetable matter, half a pound of plum pudding, and one pint ot tea. ,■ During afternoon.—One pound of “ lollies,” thirteen gingerbread nuts, four apples, three jam tarts, and twelve cups of tea at different hours. . . Tea.—No food; two cups of tea. Slipper.—Large slice fruit cake, two cups tea. No wonder their complexions nre not good! There is at present a story going the rounds as sensational ’ and romantic as ever appeared in the most extravagantlywritten novel. A few years ago a young Norwegian named Qooghklimmer, married a Dunedin girl in Melbourne. A short time afterwards he disappeared mysteriously, leaving nothing to toll what bad become of him excepting a bundle of clothes which were found on the sea beach. He was given up for lost and his disconsolate widow returned to her friends in Dunedin. Recently she received news that be was alive, and on his way ..back from Norway to her. His story is that one morning he went out photographing scenery, and wae' tempted to ge bathing in the sea. After having enjoyed a swim h* was returning to land again when to bis horror, on the very spot where he had left his clothes stood a group of ladies. He put back to sea with the hope that the ladies would go away, but when he again attempted to return he found be could not, as with every movement he was carried farther seaward with the receding tide. When half exhausted he came across some wreckage, and laying hold of a plank he settled down full length on it. Shortly afterwards a sunstroke rendered him unconscious, and be knew no more till he found himself in Norway under the care of his mother. He has since ascertained that a vessel picked him up, took bin to London where he was placed in a hospital, after which he was removed to 'Norway, where he recovered. He is now said to be on his way to join his wife in Dunedin. Probably the Insurance Company in which he had his life insured will want to know whether all this is true. Gobi O’Lanus.