DUNEDIN LETTER

Tuapeka Times, Volume XXXIX, Issue 5499, 18 December 1907, Page 3

DUNEDIN LETTER

[Own Correspondent.]

I am not the least interested in Lionel Terry's prolonged picnic, and I am not going to constitute myself an amateur detective. People who disappear should, when found, either he put under lock and key or spanked. In our maudlin sympathy and gushing hysteria, we do neither. We make heroes aud heroines of them and confer a notoriety that is a reflection on our sanity. In London, a few weeks since, a Russian girl named Lapoukhine chose to disappear from the care of her sister and governess. For a week all London was in a hub-bub. Scotland yard and its detectives, hundreds ot self-appointed Sherlock Holmesos, Russian officials, an army of newspaper reporters, and all the wealth and skyrockets of the gutter press were pressed into service while a broken-hearted father came over from St. Petersburg and a distracted governess passed sleepless nights. After which the girl coolly walked into her father's lodgings arid the father absolutely declined to give a word of explanation. Spanking (she is 18 and would appreciate it) spanking, good and hard, as the Americans say, is the only legitimate punish- 1 ment for crazy tricks of this sort. The > longer I live the more I am convinced that we leave off our nursery discipline far too early. It should be extended and developed until we are well within cooee of the Psalmist's limit.

What they will do with Terry (when caught, lor like the hare in the cookery book you must first catch him) I don't much care. Possibly, what they have done all along — give him as much liberty as he wants I am more interested in how he got away. Two men told off to watch him night and day (at your expense and mine, dear reader) and yet he walks down a passage, opens a window, and steps out ! Result — two warders get the "sack" and Terry gets away. That is the irony of it. Everyone was so certain that he couldn't or, if he could, wouldn't. Listen to this : a certain eminent medical authority, a student who has devoted more time to seeing that babies shall not overload their little tummies with non-sterilised milk and has invenbed a feeding bottle that is apjreafc improvement on the parish pump, or beer bottle with a tube run through the cork, has placed himself on record as a believer in the tameness and gentleness of Terry the Lion.

The story says that on a certain evening .some three weeks back, when dining at a house at Dunedin, he passed the time with interesting gossip anent (I like that word though I am doubtful of its etymology) the innocence and docility and good intentions of his lion. " Why, I'd trust his word, and take his promise as soon as I would those of a member of my own family. He often comes to my place and has a game of chess and chats with Mrs Queen as rattanally as lam to you at this moment. He'll never seek to get away — not he. Just say to him ' Terry, on your word,' and the matter is settled. He draws and he paints and he writes (poems), and he is really quite a superior, rather harshly-treated individual for whom I have a lot of sympathy.'' Just then there oame a ring on the phone, and a moment after the girl entered and said that Dr Queen was wanted immediately. And the doctor went, and he spoke through the phone, and there were gasps and shakes and quirks and staccato inquiries. Then, he rang off and came back to the dining-room. The diners looked up, and the doctor looked pale, and cheie followed dialling questions and, luially, with a thin ghost of a smile, he solemnly announced that Lionel Terry had escaped! Everybody laughed. (P.S. — Since writing my note Terry has been recaptured. What will they do with him ?) Ben Rudd he was a settler bold, A worthy man of mstUe, At trespasser^ he'd rail and scold, Or bang them with a kettle. If sticks were scarce he'd take a prong, A spade, or L H shovel. Or anything that came along, and run you at the double. A railing, ranting Avight was he, A bhai p and fiery nettle, The *-oi t of man we seldom &cc, And never want to settle (near us).

" lion,' in f.icfc, h.is gained a reputation , that Tliei.sii.e-> niiglit envy and otlier men's i dogs admire, lie always gives his dogs a run ior their money or dinner. If Ben > spie-> ;i pair of trousers and a white petticoat m iking n,cro.-s hii paddock he doesn't "shoo" them b:iek at once, nor immediately beijin to pelt them with cow dropjinj;s. No ! Den believes in fair play. He lets Adam and Eve, who are amiably , strolling avioss his. property, get a good \ half-way across and, if he is extra thought- ' ful, comfortably e-conced beneath a fig tree, then, lie ,set> the dogs at them or, , better cluiges them in his own per- i <-on like a body of cavalry, armed with a rake tnd pitchfork bellowing 'the meanwhile, like the (Jieeks before the walls of ' Troy. Then follow complimentary interchanges of what smart journalists with a . turn for oiij>hi.ility love to term " airy pmvillayu."' Mo?t frequently Phyllis catches up her skirts and runs for the j fence, while Corydon, grasping his charmer's parasol, makes for the gap in the opposite direction. Result : Much fun for Ben Rudd. He chases the girl and the dog | chases the youth. Whichever wins Ben | has the cream of the joke. Phyllis' hair | gels out of curl and Corydon feels like an ass. Hence there is a coolness when they meet an hour and a-half later on the high load, and the hospitable Ben retires to his family prayers reasonably happy. That has been the general way. Ben has spoiled more trespassing holiday makers' tempers and clean collars than the wet weather on the Chinese lauudryman. But, like all things human, there are exceptions even to the smooth working of Ben Rudd's philosophy. Sometimes the chased and roared at hits back and hits hard. Most of us prefer loss of dignity, Phyllis's black looks, and that small feeling, to a taste of Ben's fork or his dogs teeth. A few, however, object, and when the objection has been lodged, lieu is the posse&sor of a cut cheek, a black eye, and a damaged countenance- Ido not recommend this method of retort because it lays its user open to an action at law and Ben, as a man with a stake in the community, loves law.

Last week he brought one for damages against an indignant picnicker who objected to take his puni&liment lying clown. He claimed £10 and he got Is without costs. Clearly a losing game for his own lawyer would want more than Is. I was wicked enough not to feel sorry. I know Ben Rudd has sympathisers— some time ago, he was made a sort of Job laboring under an accumulation of wrongs and was posed as the hero of a newspaper-story — and I am prepared to admit that there are those who may have annoyed him. But Rudd is living in the wrong country. I have a distinct recollection as a lad, of being ordered off the nearcuts-across fields in our dear, free, liberty-loving Old England. — I learned, too, in after years, that all a freeborn Englishman is entitled to is the right to walk the high road (in my time not even that, for toll-gates were everywhere) though in these days of motor cars he does this at great risk to life and limb. And, remembering these things, I protest against any landlord, or "owner of paddock, seeking to perpetuate so ignoble and servile a condition of affairs in Ne^y Zealand. Technically we may be trespassing, but let the trespassed-on, bring his actions, and there would be a cry of disgu&b from end to end of the Co I mean Dominion.

And if this be true of a mere formal refusal to permit the public to utilise a paddock for a picnic or short-cut, how much more is it when inoffensive and harmless pedestrians are rushed at by some roaring human bull, axe in hand, shouting and gesticulating as though murder had been or was about to be done. Theßudd specimen of landlord is a preposterous one. Punish deliberate and destructive and offensive " trespassers " by all means — that should be done whether in country or town — but that any man should have the legal tight to carry on in the Rudd fashion is a ghastly mockery. The man should be compelled to behave himself. There ought to be enough work to do without wildly pursuing, at great waste of energy and t>re«*cb, the unfortunate -»vanderer who is as innocent of " trespassing " with intent, and nioie innocent still of doing any damage, as the unborn babe. At the same time, when I do take a walk up Flagstaff way I shall "go round" My conversational powers are as weak as .my physique. No Ben Rudd for me. , ' • We had a passing, whirlwind' rush of Prime and other Ministers a day or two ago. Wards and Millers and M'Nabs were scattered as thick as raisins in an I economically mixed plum pudding ; and as k each had one or two private secretaries

there was quite a dignified, if pro. tern., air around the neighborhood of the Grand Hotel (bar) and finest railway station south of the line. How amusing these ministerial hare and hounds cross country runs are ! No sooner is Parliament House shut amid the smiles and cheers of a grateful people than some joker puts a charge of dynamite under the Cabinet and scatters its members to the four corners. What on earth they do the good men themselves hardly know. Why should it be necessary for Mr Millar to.run down to Dunedin one. day and back to Wellington the next no one but a Minister can tell. It looks well and reads well, and over a quiet cigar and game of nap, for the minister, it feels well — but the poor country ! Personally, I interpret the destruction of the talking-shop by fire as a warning. To me it means " close down, cease yonr chatter, get to work, we will resume ten years from now." Happy land and people could it only be so.