RANDOM GOSSIP.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 4309, 14 February 1882, Page 3

RANDOM GOSSIP.

[BY VkBOBS.] " A good old ma-u, sir : he will lie tnlkinfj." — Skaeesteark. When are the deeds to bo mado out? Tho deeds, I mean, which shall givo the Telegraph Department free, full and perfect posseasion of and power over every street in this town. With tho onward march of Fcience ha? come the telephone, and fire-and-forty »er chants' firms and business houses only hare as yet availed themselves of its Bid as a saver :i labour. But in ten years time, the ranks of these progressive gentlemen will bo swelled by hundreds of others, and people will then think lesa of having a telephone inthe house than they io now of hating had a cucumber. By that time wo shall, I suppose, havo wires crossing and re-crossing till wo aball walk unier their "pleached shade:" tho fat people among the towns- folk will stop at homo because tho footpaths are so taken up with telegraph poles that they cannot squeeze b? tv?oen them ; the sun will bo dimmed by these latter at inid-dav, and the electric light — the Gas Company will havo gone to the worat-lighted corner in liinbo by that time— will throw their hiigo sharp black shadows through tho etreote at night. 8t Valentine's Day has corse round again, j and sad to say, has brought Valentines round i with it, too. I fear me the anniversary of his sainlship's birth has muoh lost caste in tttcso later years. In the dainty asd elegant little trifles offered at the shrine of Fathor Christmas, wo now display an amazing amount of taste and artistic skill • but South Kensington, Marcus Ward, Raphael Tuck, and their deft fingered lady limners, seem to have dono nothing for old Bt Valentine. There appear to bo but two styles of altarpicture for his votaries. In the one, broad vulgarity abounds 5 in the other, a sort of sickly eentimontulity, with an odour of musk, is unpleasantly rampant. Was there no mean to bo found between the great clumsy daub3 in staring colours (hideous as one of Dr Lomon'B precious poles, by tho way) representing n rod or black gentleman with cloven hoof and horns and tail, and those silvor filagree inanities full of badly-tinled fqrget-me-nota oud roseß and posies— with the muaky odour as aforesaid P Time was when the old gentleman's birthday was moro honoured. Those were the days when Mr Pepya was his good wife's own Valentine, and mndo entry in his diary to tbo effect that : — " I am aho this year my wife's Valentine, and it will cost me £5 ; but that I must have laid out if we had not been Valentines." And soon afterwards, goesiping in his quaint old stylo about Miss Stuart's (afterwards Duohess of Richmond) jewels, " tho Duko of York, baing once her Valentino, did give her a jewel about £800 j and my Lord Mandeville, her Valentino this year, a ring of about £300." They did not post off sixpence worth of red ochre and paper or eighteenpence worth of gilt papsr laco and a pansy in those old Cavalier days. They took their pleasures more seriously to heart in those days, than we do now. Note : the birthday of the early Christian priest and martyr— circa 270, is the date cautiously given as tho yc-ar in which he firßfc saw the light— is memorable for tho death of one far more akin to us hero in New Zealand. It was on the 14th of February, 1779, just a little more that a century ago, that James Cook, cabin-boy, master mariner of Whitby, navigator, geographer, discoverer, and explorer — a man so groat that his country's vevy enemies had orders from their Government not tomoleat him— fell by the club of a garage in the Bandwich Isles at the early age of 50, sacrificed in a miserable squabble with the natives. With our three lines of rails to Addington, our long tunnel, and our " express" to Dunedin, we are apt to givo thanks, like the Pharisee that we are not as other men are — in railway matters. But wo are not perfect : few people are. The other day tho difference between the Union 8.8. Co.'s foresight and regularity, and the want of method displayed by our railway authorities was noticed in this column. Anothor thing might ba altorod,or rather introduced. An.-l that is, a proper railway clock outside tho station whoro it may be seen. At present a friendly wave of the whip, or a gruff, " beat look slippy, sir ; she's just a-goin' hoff," from a friendly cabby, 13 about all tho warning — and that generally comes too late — which those who " Bhave it cloeo " get of the near departure of a tr*in. Tho mathematical straightneßS, and the breadth of our streets, would permit of a dial placed over the bridgo being soon for a quarter of a mile at least, and save many a balated passenger chagrin and wrathful language.