Page 5 Advertisements Column 2

Observer, Volume XIV, Issue 794, 17 March 1894, Page 5

You may see ' By Appointment to His Excellency the Governor ' over dozens of shops in Wellington. And yet many Wellington business people will tell you that the vice-regal patronage is a very expensive article. It is the complaint of the bookmakers in Auckland that the business is ruined by amateurs. All sorts and conditions of men start books on the eve of a big race, and if quite one-half of them were to lose jBIO eaoh they would be utterly crushed and insolvent. But it pays them. If they have no capital, they cannot lose it. Ladies are supposed to remove their hats when they patronise the dress-circle in a London theatre. But not one woman in six removes hat or bonnet before she takes a seat in Auckland Opera House circle. Which accounts for the cheerful expression worn by many male frequenters of the circle lately. To pay four shillings for a seat and then to have stage and performers completely blotted out by an avalanche of felt and feathers is enough to make even a saintly person savage. And yet this nuisance is as nothing compared with that of the man behind you who has regaled himself with fried onions at dinner and who will persist in watching the play with his chin on your shoulder. There is a gruesome story in circulation to the effect that while the arrest of the natives was in progress at Opuatia one constable made a blow at the head of a Maori woman with his baton and that another policeman (Foreman, we believe) with a gallantry that put his comrade to shame, interposed his arm and received the full force of the stunning blow on his hand. That little episode should be enquired into. But stay. The Seddon Government is very partial after all to constables who shoot defenceless men, and arrest little toddLers in bed with a huge display of sultry language. Why should they not also have a sneaking regard for constables who are prepared to break women's heads on slight provocation. Besides, they are only Maori women. What a picture it would have made ! — five lovely visions in white muslin imploring a North Shore ferry captain to ' save them !' It came about this way. The five lovely visions were through passengers from Australia. While their steamer was lying alongside Queen-street wharf they went off to spend the day at Lake Takapunu. Coming home in the gloaming aboard the ferry boat they espied their steamer puffing calmly away down the harbour. She was off ! — and with all their belongings aboard ! Hence their frantic appeal to the ferry boat captain who signalled the big steamer and then put the five charmers off m a row-boat. Their subsequent hauling on board the steamer they had so narrowly missed was watohed with breathless interest by the ferry boat passengers. That was a capital idea of Adam Porter's, that harbour trip. Pleasure combined with business. The notion was characteristic of the new chairman of the Harbour Board. He is not the man to waste time on talky-talky. ' The wharvea form an important feature in connection with our duties as members of the Harbour Board,' Mr Porter argued in effect, if not in so many words, ' very well, let us go and inspect the wharves, and find out all about them, and then when any discussion upon them, or about them, crops up at our meetings we shall know what we are talking about.' Could anything be more practical or more Porteresque? We congratulate the Board, and the citizens of Auckland on having got hold of such a chairman. The Premier is innocent to Maori ways and usages. When he visited the native kainga at Tieke, on the Wanganui river, he allowed a young Pakeha lady from Pipiriki to accompany the party. It was not the fault of the natives who executed the song and dance of welcome on the approach of the visitors that their costumeß were not quite de rigueur. They expected not a lady to visit them. Severe therefore was the shock to the feeling of some of the male dancers who were attired merely in vests and shirts, when they espied a lady in the stern of the canoe. They stampeded for their whares, and reappeared a few minntes later hastily buttoning on theirnether garments in order to take part in the reception ceremony. Much credit is due to Mr Wilding for his opposition to the request of the Educational Institute that the Board of Edacation should reoonsider its regulation that corporal pnnishment could only be administered by the head teacher or by an assistant in his presence. The Institute argued that this rule had seriously impaired the discipline, but such a contention iB absurd. The more caning there is in a school the less effective this extreme method of punishment will beoome, while nothing is more improper than to put it into the power of any mußoular youth or man of hasty temper to thrash boys as he chooses. It is right and proper that this power should be confined to the head-master or his deputy and 'that the head-master should be held responsible that the caning is not unduly severe.