BY HILL AND LAKE.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XXX, Issue 8378, 20 February 1906, Page 2

BY HILL AND LAKE.

(From Our Cross Creek Correspondent.)

The powers of the air appeared to be in the throes of revolution until the last few days. Revolt is literally as well as figuratively "in the air." Else how can we account for the depressing and irritating unscasonableuess of the weather of late ? We have been wont to extol the climate of New Zealand over much ; and the tourist who has been beguiled by our boa&ting will have his ardour chilled.

People sometimes wonder at the prodigious amount of knowledge which man has acquired of the workings of Nature ; but I am much more impressed with the vastnes of what we don't know. What, for instance, do we really know of meteorology ? Remarkable things are happening in space just now, of which we are profoundly ignorant. "Sun spots," we say, airily ; but that is only a convenient phrase conveying no real idea, no grain of scientific demonstration.

That bit of pedantic discussion as to the term " hairdresser and tobacconist," jointly to denote ono occupation, was interjje esting to grammarians ; but the mass people who are not grammarians resented it as taking them out of their depth. By the way, a good many years ago in Otago, a municipal election was invalidated on the petition of a defeated candidate, the grounds of the application to have it quashed being an alleged erroneous ruling by the Returning Officer. The case came before tie late Judge Bathgate, and it is interesting to recall the circumstances, as this case led to an amendment of the phraseology in the direction to voters.

It was a first election of Councillors for a new Borough.. Nine were needed, and thirteen or fourteen candidates came to the poll. At foot of the voting-paper the direction said the voter " shall leave only nine names uncancelled." The Returning Officer ruled that the voter must vote for nine candidates, and as plumpers for particular candidates were about, this ruling caused much dismay. On the hearing of the appeal, the Returning Officer maintained that the direction was mandatory and that the word "only" meant " simply," and "no more, no fewer " than nine. The Judge quashed the election, but admitted that the Returning Officer's contention was absolutely sound, adding that expediency did not admit of such an trary construction. The joke was that aw*the subsequent election, when plumping was permitted, the disappointed candidate was again rejected, after all ! I came across a remarkably epigrammatic sentence the other day, by a Madame Caillard, writing to the " Contemporary Review." It is worth reproducing :—-" Where personality comes into play, the domain of science ends, and the domain of religion begins. But just as science is nothing if not impersonal, so religion is nothing if not personal"

Hyperbole is quite charming when one encounters it in these prosaic and unimaginative days. I heard a fireman the other day extolling the fine qualities of an engine he had once been connected with. She was as docile as a favourite horse, he meant to say, but he put it this way :

" Why," he said, "you had only to open the firebox and show her the coal bunker, and she'd fly along !"

The Railway Department ought to be approached, on behalf of the community here, and asked to put up (or assist in putting up) a public hall before winter comes round again. For dances, meetings, entertainments, and religious services, such a convenience is greatly needed. The Library is not suitable, and the school-room is 100 much isolated ; besides which there is strong objection to a school being used for other than its primary purpose. The i pnrtment has plenty of old fittings from dis- i mantled stations, that could easily be knocked together to build a plain hall such as is required. As a matter of policy the Department would Jind that a little liberality in this direction would tend to promote the happiness and contentment of the employes.