DUNEDIN NOTES.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 4871, 6 July 1901, Page 3

DUNEDIN NOTES.

[Own Cobbesponpbnt.]

We are cleaning up tbe rubbish. The work of weeks is disappearing in a few hoars. Oar flagpoles, Venetian masts, colored pocket-handkerchiefs, triumphal arches, greenery and ferntrees have been swept on to tbe rubbish heap, into the auction room, and down to Invercargill. Down South they are hard up for - flags and banting so we have lent them some of oars — cheap. Therefore, when tbe bands begin to play and Johnny comes marching home, he will be able to admire the flaunting streamers that have been thrown to the breeze in his honor, oblivions of the fact that, they have already done duty for Royalty. What puzzles me, however, is why Invercargill doesn't borrow our exmayor. Anyone can fly a flag bat few can make a patriotic speech, and for a thoroughly genuine, original, freedom's-battle-once-begun oration there is no one to beat oar am Bobby Cbeesbolm. Sometimes I long for their return. We had grown so accustomed to them, at intervals of three weeks, that there is with many of us an aching void that Mr Denniston cannot fill. Tbe dear, dead days of flag flying, speeches before breakfast, street promenades with an accompaniment of empty kerosene tins are sorely missed. So is the all pervasive, all pervading smile. We had grown to look apod these as part of our municipal paraphernalia and only realised our loss when too late. Anyway there must be something wrong with Inveroargill. Sorely they can raise the price of a return ticket and three square meals. I think it could be done. Why not try P

- As for Mr Dennis ton, our new Mayor, ' I forgot to tell you laßt week that for the first time in Dunedin's history our ohief citizen came out in all the glory of ; a £65 gown. It is made of black silk and rabbitskins — I mean ermine. I was one of tbe first to see him and it. This is how it happened — for it is desirable that such historic events should be duly recorded for future reference— l bad to go to the Town Hall at about a quarter past five on the Tuesday before the great day. Finding the front door shut and barricaded with platforms, I made for the door known only to the initiated and nnregenerate. Carriages were standing in all their trappings in tbe roadway and as I turned the handle to go in — not to a carriage, bat tbe doorway aforesaid — I ran almost fall tilt into the corporation of the Mayor. Not, mark yon, into the members of tbe City Corporation, but into that member of the Mayor's body known vulgarly as the corporation ! I *yeeoile<) — as in doty bound, and then before my astonished gaze there passed, with a rustle and a bustle, and mid a flash of white and black, a woman I At least I thought so at first, but catching sight of some trousers and two feet of an extra size I recovered and looked again. Yes ! it was the Mayor ! but it was more than tbe Mayor; it was the new robe of office and I, I, modest soul that I am, was the first to note the pomp and majesty of it all and to proclaim it to the world.

That unfortunate robe ! What an outing it bad to be sure on the Wednesday ! I first saw it riding in a carriage towards the Octagon, then it came and sat near me at dinner, then it flaunted before the children at the Caledoniau grounds, then it toddled along the Agricultural Hall, then it rustled into the Horticultural Show, then it dined with the Duke, then it wont to the Reception, and then something came oat of it and it went to bed.

Poor, blessed robe ! No one wanted it, no one cared for it, and to give it its due it did not know what to do with itself for long together. Everybody smiled at it, the small boys grinned at it, the girls snickered at it, and the men turned their backs on it. Distinctive gown, outward and visible embodiment of dignity and civic greatness ! your baptism was not very encouraging. Certainly I don't intend to buy one — just yet. Anecdotes are in order. Some are true, others are inaccurate (I think this is a nice word) and some are stupid. Here are two. I won't vouch for them, but the man in the street says they are alright. They are both apropos of oar ten and sixpenny reception and, by the way, I have reason to know that when this charge was brought under Lord Ran fur lay's notice — as it was — he was very much annoyed, and care had to be taken that H. R..H. was not made acquainted with it otherwise the latter would not have gone. However, to retarn. One lady received, in common with the rest, a cordial shake of the hand from the Dacbess. Straightaway she took out her handkerchief, wrapped it round the honored member, and registered a vow that no one should ever touch it again. So far she has lived up to her vow. In fact, the gossips say that she hasn't washed it since. And that's a week ago.

The other carries a moral. A lady was at her dressmakers ordering a dress. " Are yon going to the reception P " queried the cutter and fitter. " No ! " came the quiet reply, " but my servant is."

Perhaps one of the funniest sights on Wednesday — of course, I mean tlie Wednesday — was to watch the long tail that followed after the " Dook and Dookess " wherever they went. Who told them to do it I don't know, but there they were, all in a little row, the tail of the comet, the courtiers of a court, the hangers on to royalty's skirts, the modern substitute for our dead and gone favorites and select circle. Nob that the Boyal couple wanted them, or cared two straws for the most of them, but " wherever little Mary went the lamb was Bare to go." I won't mention their names, it would be unkind, but oce saw sufficient to indicate that we had all the makings of a fairly large circle of gennine flunkeys it ever the occasion demanded. We had some on the Press, too. Silly writers talking of the Boyal lady's " beauty," forgetting, if they ever knew, that snch talk is peculiarly offensive especially as every intelligent person can form his or her opinion ; and instU tuting comparisons between Frederick the Great, Napoleon the First and the Duke because, forsooth, all three are called little men, Inches are not the standard of manhood nor kinghood and both Frederick and Napoleon not only looked " every inch a king " — if history be worth anything at all — bat even, in very trnth, " kings among men." One cannot draw inferences without being rude, although it is hard not to hit back when such stuff is gabbled and garbled fcr, presumably, an intelligent community.

Oar mining boom, that is the tail end of it, is still with us and likely to bang on for some little time. The Magis* trate's Court having done a very fair share of work lately in the direction of sweeping up the debris, it ia now the Official Assignee's turn. He has commenced extremely well. He bad an admirable sample case of bow our boom was run before him the other day. It was the case of a man who, with no more capital than hundreds of other decent people posses — that is none at all — went dabbling in mining schemes with a recklessness and sang, froid characteristic of a New York billionaire on the Stock Exchange. He invested in everything that he felt inclined to and, as the directors of the companies he honored with his applications made no enquiry into his financial status, he was allotted all the paper he could reasonably want.

Then, what is termed by gamblers, " the slump," came — honest men term it the inevitable outcome of greed and folly — and our speculator could not pay his calls. He struggled on for a little, owed a few firms a good few pounds, and then applied to the Off. Ass, to wipe everything out and give him a clean slate! Out of nothing nothing can come. A man starts with nothing and winds up with nothing. He is, therefore, none the worse. Only in the process, and daring the progress of his march from o« to o. he manages to let certain tradespeople in for a good thing. And no one says a word ! In fact we all think it perfectly proper and gravely stand up and more than our enterprising fellow-ppeculator cm nothing but impertinence, be granted his discharge ! And be gets it ! !