YOUNG LEGISLATORS.

Waikato Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2137, 20 March 1886, Page 3

YOUNG LEGISLATORS.

A feature of the new House of Commons which appeals to have struck several observers, remarks the St. James's Gazette, is the number of very young men among its members. This is a return to the old order of things, for Sir Robert Nannton, writi»g in bis Fragnifuta Regalia, touching the reign of Elizabeth, says :— " I find not that the House was at any tune weakened and pestered with the admission of too many young heads, as it hath ben of later timea, which lemcnibers one of Recorder Martin's speech about the tenth of our late feoveieitn, loul King 'ames, when theie weie accounts taken of 40 gentlemen not above 20, and collie not exceeding 16, which moved him to say, " That it was the ancient custome for old men to make laws for young ones, but when he saw the case altcicd, and there were children elected into the meat Councell of the Kindome, which came to invade and invert natuie, and to enact laws to govern their fathers." ' An Act of William 111. sought to put a stop to the practice of returning youths to the House, by making void the election of any under 21 ; but it was often evaded. Charles Fox was only a little over 19 when first given a seat, and he made his earliest «peech when he was 20; but when a contest had taken place and a minor had been returned, the law could be successfully invoked against hinis as it was in the case of Sir Thomas Mostyn, who having been elected for Flintshire, in succession to his father in 1796, wax unseated on this ground. To the Parliament of 1880 one member was elected who had only just passed the legal age ; and though in the present House there may be no single member so young as that, there are moie who have not reached 30 than have been returned at any recent general election.

Writing of the fixed idea in the minds of most farmers that they know all that is worth kuowing connected with their calling, a shrewd Yankee remarks :— " Alas, poor fellow, he knows it all ; wont listen to reason ; refuses to organise; won't read agricultural literature j raises his children in partial ignorance ; and lives in his stubborn belief thinking no one is well off as he. Bless his ignorant heart, he will some day, or his children after him, find out that he was wrong ; that times have changed ; and that such a farmer is a prey to the banker, merchants, fertiliser man, and all the other occupations in life ; and he will find out the reason, which is because he is not comprehensive enough —that he does not organise for his general interest. If it were not for the sharp competition of trading men, he would have to pay all the way from 100 to 500 per cent, for everything he uses and some 24 per cent, for money. And it is his own fault that he does not have things his way ; all he has to do is to organise, appoint leading men of his calling to represent him in everything, and, my wonl for it, a few years hence a great change will come over the appearance of afl'airs." Novel Use of Sparrows. —The electors of East Lothian will go down to posterity as the "sparrow constituency." Never was there such a constituency for sparrows. The free and independent electors take them to the meetings of both candidates concealed about their persons and let them off at some interesting point iv the speech-making. Afterthat there is such lively interest in the fate of the liberated sparrows, that no one much minds what they are saying or doing on the platform. Evidently, however, it is one thing to set imprisoned birds free in the streets —as General Gordon did—and mother to scatter them promiscuously through a lecture hall. The other eveunigwhen Lord Elcho, the Conservative candidate, was speaking, one poor unfortunate sparrow, bewildeied by the nglits, doubtless, or the noise, or his accession to liberty, met with an untimely fate in one of the lamps near the platform, his singeing wings putting out die light before he toppled to the ground. •lAh, ' said the weaned candidate, "I wonder whether the unfortunate sparrows 01 myself will be most glad of the termination of the contest." —at. James' Gazette. Thk Great Eastern is superannuated at last. She has found a refuge at Gibraltar, where she is to perform duty as a coal hulk. The Czar's yacht, Livadia, not vet five years old, is employed in a similar way at Sebastopol. The first was a product of the gold fever, built for the purpose of conveying intending diggers ty Australia; but the blue clay of Ballarat was exhausted before the Leviathan was launched, and her occupation was gone before it had been entered upon. The Livadia was a monstrosity from her birth—one of Admiral Popoffs failures—and had much difficulty in crawling along shore, in a rickety state, from the Clyde to the Black Sea. She, too, was never applied to the purpose for which she was built, the Czar's advisers not considering that it was safe to risk his sacred persou on board her. Nautically speaking, the Great Eastern was not a failure, but there was no room for her in commercial enterprise. The Livadia was condemned by nautical men before she was launched. I

Reading on Board Ship.—Mr J. A. Froude, in his new work, says : —" What did passengers do on long voyages when there were no novels? They must bless the man that invented them, for at present they are the only resource. The ship's bookshelves hold them by the dozen. They stream out of private portmanteaux—yellow shilling editions, with heroes and heroines painted on the covers in desperate situations. The appetite for such things at sea is voracious. Most of them will not bear reading more than once; we consume them as we smoke cigars; and on second perusal they are but ashes. One only wishes that they introduced one to better company. Villainous men and doubtful ladies are persons whom one avoids in life and though they are less objectionable in a book than in actual flesh and blood, their society is not attractive anywhere. At lea«t, however, there was an abundance to choose from ; each of us could have a new novel every day, and there was no need to fall back upon the ashes. But besides these I had a few volumes of pocket classics, which I always take with me in distant expeditions. Greek and Latin literature is wine which does not spoil by time. Such of it, in fact, as would spoil has been allowed to die, and only the best has been preserved. In the absence of outward distractions one can understand and enjoy these finished relics of the old world. They shine as fixed stars iv the intellectual firmament—stais which never i set." No one with the master-mind which evolved the famous declaration that 1 Canterbury must have the East and West Coast Railway or " bust" could have I penned eloquent sentences like these subjoined (says the Dunedin Star), which formed part of a stock report in a recent issue of the Lyttelton Times: — "Tho yelping of political jackals, who had so persistently followed the trail of progress measures, has t>o paialysed the position of trade for ths time being that exchanges of freehold are few and far between. The voice of the croaker has been long and loud ; so much so that that discreet men decline to sell, and the would-he buyers <of whom there are plenty) decline to operate until a definite outlook is placed before the country. The depeopling of the prov ince seems the object of some, while our desire is to see a considerable augmentation to our population under enlightened laws, and upon the rails of sure and assured progress. The Physiciaus of wait and see the while are gloating over the carcase* of depression, in view of the hope of early absorption. Our candid advice is hold—do not offer, do not sell unless the vice of extortion has so tight a grip that you mnst make an effort, struggle and hold—tho darkest hour is before daylight!"