THE TRAMWAY BOARD.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7607, 17 January 1903, Page 4

THE TRAMWAY BOARD.

Next weeik we have to choose the men To wbcim to hand our new-made powero In unknown fields— ;-it follows, thera, Th^t cool, • oalm judgment eihould be oiwa, Lest platform orios end polling tricks M«ike business into politics. This is no time for clap-trap speech j Or cramping pledge to catch support; ! Wo want no office-sfieiWs screedh, No log-rolling axe-grinding sport. j This matter of our pounds and pence j Must run' on business cammon-sariEe. We want the men. who in the past >. Have managed well tfoedir own affairs, Whp'ro not 100 slow, yet not too fa*!, To whom we'd care' to trust our shares. Wove got some real good men to stand — Return them with -unfettered hand. ■ . . /♦ . • . Says an Aucklander :—" Through an uhfoitunate accident of nomenclature spiritualism has lost an imminent convert. The other night curiosity led! an impressionable young Mend and I to a seance out Newtown way. He was openly cynical at first, but a<? he watched the earnestly believing fac«s of Bevcral to whom spirits were talking* per medium lie waxed gradually serious and grudgingly admitted) there might be something in it. Then the medium said a spirit wished, " to talk to that young man fitting on the right of the intellectual-looking gentleman with the black mc-ustaclie. (I was the 1.L.6. with tie 8.M., and the young wan was my friend.) She describedi a girl to whom he used 1 to write bad verses and send good bouquets, and otherwise make an ass of himself; until she met the other fellow—described her with startling accuracy, go 'he said — and then began to speak to him as. fr<sn her. The description had reduced my friend! to the verge of belief, and he drank in the words <rf his old-time mash like a thirsty pup at a water trough. And such words— such insinuating evidences of a long-suppressed but never-dying affection ! The poor chap forgot me— forgot the seance — forgot everything, but that sweet echo from the halcyon days of old. The'

voice of the\girl trembled' with emotion, and my friend squirmed 1 in sympathy as she commenced her farewell. ' Good-bye, goodbye,' she ended, ' but we shall — we must — meet again, my darling, darling Frank!' At the last word h& shot up endways like an erupting geyser and made for the door, remarking it was ' all rot!' Then, it dawned on me that his name was Horace."