THE Evening Star. PUBLISHED DAILY AT FOUR O'CLOCK P.M. Resurrexi. THURSDAY, AUGUST 19, 1875.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2067, 19 August 1875, Page 2

THE Evening Star. PUBLISHED DAILY AT FOUR O'CLOCK P.M. Resurrexi. THURSDAY, AUGUST 19, 1875.

-These is a story told of advice, excellent in itself no doubt, administered to an elderly maiden lady—whose three score years' and ten of single blessedness geemed on the point of being cut short by the malady from which she was suffering— to put her trust in Providence and aperient medicine. But though she, we presume, placed great reliance in the one and took large doses of the bther, the first did not see fit and the second was. unable to avert the result which followed in what hai been so aptly termed " the natural order of things," which took their course in

spite of faith and physic. Some such idea must have been passing through, the minds of those who are responsible for what appears in the columns of the Auckland Evening Star when, quoting the words of one greater than themselves, they point to Providence and dry gunpowder as the last sad means left to the "People of Auckland"Vio avert the abomination of desolation which tincon stitutionai Centralists would force— ( so runs their metaphor, keeping up the simile of doctor and patierit —down unwilling throats in the manner of a stern parent administering a nauseous draught to some fractious child;-It is true that the particular form which Providence sees fit to assume, according to the discerning eye of the Auckland Star, is that of Sir George Grey, who has been lured from the well earned ease he enjoyed in Kawauwhere he has been "luxuriating," (we use the word of the Auckland Star to avoid the perhaps more apropos one — vegetating) by the cries of " deliverance from oppression and wrong to dash into the fray." In him the Auckland Star sees the incarnation of deistic virtues, as, like Achilles before him, he betakes himself to his armour to revenge the death of his friend. Far tie it from us to say a word against Sir George Grey, for he, we feel sure, in spite of his devotion to his cherished form of Provincial institutions, would be loth to see these institutions preserved at the cost of fire and bloodshed—the mild course recommended by the Star, when it urges its mob of noisy advocates to surround the Custom House, armed with butchers' knives and bludgeons, which, we suppose, would be the best substitutes available for the Editoral "cutlass and brand." We do not wish to do Sir George so great injustice, but we do not forget that, if, like Achilles, he rises to the occasion, and arms himself anew, he, like Achilles, has a Thersites in his train in the shape of the Auckland Star, as ready to abuse and vilify as the champion himself to bear the brunt of the battle. It is quite amusing, too, to see the different lights in which much the same sort of things can be regarded by two biassed pairs of editorial eyes acting as one, and condensing their rays to pass thrbugh the columns of the Auckland Star.;' When meetings are called at the Thames and elsewhere to consider which is for,their advantage, Centralism or Provincialism, and decide in favour of the former, they "areinstigated, by the Ministry or their miserable hangers on, who batten in corruption!" But when a similar meeting held at Auckland howls down with cries, hisses, and indignant groans (vide the report in the Auckland Star itself) every one who would say one word in its favour, and holds up a "forest of hands" (wet no doubt with honest sweat, for we believe that to be the conventional phrase), they are the embodiment of all that is. true, and good, and pure in human nature; though they assumed for the nonce the outward form of unpaid brickmakers from the Whau, and others equally well Versed—we suppose _ in ploughs and chronometers, science and Sanscrit! Well indeed has Charles Dickens earned the reputation of a good drawer of the characters of men, for even the silly and abusive nonsense which he puts into the mouth of the editor of the Eatanswill Gazette has its parallel in the columns of the Auckland Star. But, whereas we can laugh and be amused at the one, and wonder sometimes —as we allow we have—whether the character of the mighty Pott be not somewhat overdrawn, we confess we do not like to find that it can indeed be true, and actually, have in our possession a journal ■which, while deprecating a parliamentary measnre in its strongest language as unconstitutional and illegal, can with charming consistency advocate its opposition by what it seems to regard as the perfectly legal and justifiable measure of open and armed resistance. The Auckland people, at least those who are wise in their generation, may well pray to be saved from their friends, if the Auckland Star be reckoned among* the. number; for though, no doubt, it would "draw" immensely, and, perhaps, numbers would come from afar to see " a cordon of men," in accordance with the advice of the Star, drawn round the Custom House, endeared to them by the stains of provincial ink spilled by provincial writers within its walls, with one Editor pointing to the fstars" of glory to., fee won by a performance involving " hands waving I hurrahs" (!) varied only by the same hands waving "a cutlass or a brand,'' and the other Editor inflicting the.stripes which fall to the lot of those who have "wallowed in political filth during five years of unexampled public extravagance," yet, after a time, the authorities which be would grow tired of a ridiculous spectacle which had ceased to be amusing; and, having abandoned the principles of the Heptarchy, under which we are told much was fo»tered that was good and noble, and betaken themselves to a more central form of Government, would also take another leaf out of the chapter of the History of England, and Inflict much necessary punishment on the sowers of mischief and sedition and their misguided followers.