ECHOS FROM THE CAFE.

Waikato Times, Volume XVI, Issue 1383, 14 May 1881, Page 3

ECHOS FROM THE CAFE.

Mil Bkookl'lKld has been appointed a Judge of the Native Lands (Joint, and people say that the appointment has been conferred on him as a rewaid for the services which he rendered to Mr Fenton, the Chief Judge, in getting Mr Maciae ousted from his position c's Head Master of the Auckland College and Giammar .School. People are very apt to impute improper motives, and Mr Biookfield may have qualifications for the office ot a Judge of the Native Lands Court, but the appointment having been made so soon after the services were rendered, there are undoubted grounds for the imputation. Mi* Fenton seems to wield unusually large powers. He gets Acts of Parliament passed : he gets new constituencies appointed to elect Governors of the Grammar Schools ; he gets those constituencies to elect his own nominees ; he gets the Governors to come to a decision within twenty-four hours of the conclusion of the evidence given at an enquiry which lias lasted t\\ o months ; he gets all the masters of the Grammar School dismissed ; and lie gets one of the Governors who has assisted him in the cairying out of his wishes appointed a Judge of the Native Lands Court. Governor, Ministry and Parliament seem to unite m carrying out Mr Teuton's schemes. At the same time as Mr Broolcficld was appointed a judge of the Native Lands Court, a similar appointment was conferred on Mr E. M. Williams, who was formerly Resident Magistrate f.t the Bay of I«land-<. I believe that Mr Williams is eminently well qualified for the office, but it is a pity that his son and Mr Fenton should bo mariied to sisters, for "people will talk." Last Saturday afternoon Mr Slater, or£<ini»t of v t. Maiy's Church, gave a " Matinee " concert in the Choral Hall. It was, on the whole, very good, but was not so well attended as it should have been, considering the undoubted ability of those who took part in ifc, among whom were Madame Simonsen and two of her daughters, Siguor Paladini, and Mr Goidon Gocch. By the way, why should a concei t given in the afternoon be called a "Matinee" concert? If I remember aiight, "Matinee" is the French word for ' ' morning," but I would not like to be too sure about ie, as I may be wrong, aud, if I am, I will lay myself open to such another seveie caatigation as I leceived last Saturday. The casti sration was from the editor of the Ilei/dd, though given by " C^inbua " in the 7''/ a Lui'u, It may boieine'uibeml that I accused the editor of the Ihiahl of mis-translating a Latin proverb, beginning " P.illula inors." Of course, it would be infiudig for the editor of the Hd aid to leply to a poor scribe like me, so he handed me o\ er to the tender mercies of '' Cambria." He attempted to demolish me by saying that the translation which appeared m the Herald was that of Mr Alexander Pope, and that beside it, mine is a "very knock-kneed translation." It would have been teirible if I had attempted to correct Mr Pope, but. to the best of my belief the translation which appeared in the Herald is not Pope's. The quotation, which I learned among a lot ot Latin proverbs when I was a school-boy, is taken from Hoi ace's Fourth Ode. I could not find a translation of the Fourth Ode in my own copy of Pope, so I looked up four other editions, with the same result, so I have come to the conclusion that' the translation is not that of Mr Alexander Pope, and it is a good thing for the reputation of the poet in question that it is not, as there is no poetry in it. If the editor of the Herald had wished to make use of a poetical translation of the quotation, he might have used that of Lord Lytton :—: — " Pale death with foot impartial knocks alike at each man's dwelling, The huts of beggars and the toners of kings." There is poetry in that, but none in the " knock-kueed " translation "Cambria" tries to foist off on poor Pope. By hv>t mail I received a copy, of an illustrated paper of ten pages, called the Daily Gxtpjic the price of which is five cents (twopence half-penny), and which is published in New York. It ds called an evening ne wapaper, but it might more appropriately r-e called an afternoon newspaper, as there are four editions published — at noon, & p.m. 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. There is a large quantity of very readable matter in it, and a goodly nu?n : ber of illustrations, which are niore tHafcpasnable. None, of the illustrations Ob the American newspapers, are, I think, $&l good as those in the English papers, but" the Dally Graphic is as good in this respect as the best of the American 1 puwi? cations. I wonder how long it will be before Auckland 'can support an "evening, illustrated Kewspaper,'',<publi|hod in the afternoon, and sold for Wopenoe halfpenny; , *, Apropos of illustrated newspaper I',1 ', a number of the Illustrated London Nftvs, which came to hand by the list imail, contains pictures of the new Church recently opened at' Norfolk Island, the interior of the Church when Mi\ Ppto'n was reading the' request to ! tbe 'Bfbhop to consecrate it, 3 isfao P Selwyn &c. ; The pictures are very 1 poor.' No" one< would f reoognise 'either Bishop Selwyn i or Ml". Upton, and I have beea tioW by a' gentle.

man who was at^fche consecration that the picture of the interior of the Church conveys quite an erroneous impression, and that the,<only picture which is correct is that of the <- exterior, Vhich is very "gtyMr McMaster, a member of the City Schools Committee, seems to very nice sort of man. At a recent meeting of the committee attention was drawn to a number of teachers who had been absent from their duties through illness, when Mr McMaster calmly proposed to stop the salary of all so absent. The salaries of school teachers are, as a rule, none too large, and ilness always entails extra expenses, so I think that a man who would make illness an offence," to be punished by a stoppage of salary^must be very hardhearted, and quite unfit to be a member of a school committee. Of course, it may happen that some of those who were absent were malingerers) or, though unwell, were not so ill as to be incapacitated from performing their duties, but I believe these would be the exceptions, and it would be a great hardship to make the innocent suffer with the guilty. It would not be unfair to make a rule that no teacher should be absent unless a doctor's certificate were fient to show that he or she was ill, but it woul4 be very wrong to stop a teacher's , salary when he or she was ill. , Last Sunday-reference was made in almost all the city and suburban churches to the terriblef ''Tararua" disaster. I see by the telegrams that the Rev. D. Sidey, Presbyterian minister at Napier, referred to it as a judgment from Heaven for the wickedness ai the Directors of the Union Steamship Company in compelling their officers and men to work on Sundays. Could anything be more unieasonable or more at variance with the teachings of the Master whom Mr Sidey professes to follow ? Surely j\lr Sidey has never read the first four 'verses of the chapter of .St. Lukes' Go.spel. If the loss of the "Tararua" had been intended as a judgment on the Union Company. It missed its mark (I speak without meaning any irreverence), as the Company's loss wd-? compaiatively slight. They have lost some thousands of pounds, perhaps, but the loss being spread over a large body of shareholders,itwill not be severely felt by any. Thohe who have suft'eied most severely by the disaster are the widows anl orphans of the pashengers who were di owned, as, for instance, the widow of the Key. J. Armitage, who, during her husband's lifetime, shared an income sufliciont for all ordinary wants, but is now reduced to a pittance of £30 a-year. There is no doubt the Union Company overworked both officers and men in their employment, and, that they ought to compel them to do as little work as possible on Surdays, but I cannot believe that the loss of the " Tararua" is judgment from Heaven on the Company for not observing the Sabbath. St. Mcxoo.