THE SPEAKER.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16456, 18 June 1921, Page 15

THE SPEAKER.

(By WALT MASON.) The man who wants io make a speech infests all towns in which we dwell : he stalks along tho lonoly beach, and lingers in the ay Ivan dell; for years I’ve tried in vain to reach a placo where he won’t corac and yell. He spooks, and will not bo denied, wherever thero is standing room, his mouth is ever yawning wide, and multiplies the public gloom, and when a delegate has died, he talks a circle round the tomb. I see him on a soapbox stand, and hear him howl until he’s hoarse, predicting that our native land will be tho heme of all that’s coarse, unless the Government is canned, end Russian notions put in force. I hear his wordy thunders sweep beneath tho fretted state house dome; 1 meet him on the rolling deep, I sec him everywhere I roam; arid if the dog should be asleep hobl even invade my bumble homo. Tho chronic speaker seldom knows enough to last him over night; he hasn’t conned the stately orose of sages who have deigned to write; his shallow stream of language flows without a saving thought in sight. Tf he’d but quit when he is done, we might forgive him now and then, hut when his works begin to run there is no end. and no “ amen ” ; ho thrashes "liesiputs by the ton, then thrashes them all o'er again.