STRAIGHT TALK

Fair Play, Volume II, Issue 27, 1 November 1894, Page 1

STRAIGHT TALK

Months ago we wrote at some length about the necessity for the better inspection of the food supply of Wellington, and now at last the Council, has taken our tip and decided to do something. The Inspector of Nuisances is to be an inspector of meat, fish, and fruit, with special instructions to look out for diseased meat. Several Councillors spoke of having heard of cancerous meat being sold, and there can be no doubt the awful increase in cancer cases is due to the eating of diseased meat. The Jews never get cancer. Why ?, Simply because “ Mo” sees to what he is eating, or gets some one to see to it for him,. whereas we Gentiles go on devouring meat which ought to be burnt or buried. What is the good of tho “ inspection” the Council has ordered ? Can the Inspector of Nuisances possibly have the requisite time for making enquiries and fossicking out the evil doers ? Of course not. The steps taken by the Council are absurdly andmiserably inadequate. We look to the Council to initiate a thorough and searching system of inspection. It is badly wanted, more seriously wanted than many people imagine. We shall wait and see how many cases the Inspector can get hold of in a month. Not one, we venture to prophesy. The Country Jay Pee often does some strange things, but an Otago member of the “ Great Unpaid” recently beat the record. A man was brought up for stealing a cheque from a station hand. It was proved that the prisoner had cashed the cheque and spent part of the proceeds at the local store, and the remainder at the local . “pub.” The Jay Pee solemnly deliberated for some time, and then delivered himself as follows “We find that theprisoner undoubtedly stole the cheque,

but as be spent the money in the place, T have decided to lot him off with a caution.” Beautiful!

Max 0’ Roll may have given the Australian ’ornoy ’uncled once round in his book, “ John Bull and Company,” but ho doesn’t spare the “ snobbery.” This is how ho smites them with his sharp French razor : —“ Yet there are to be found in Australia, a country which owes its existence and its outlook to valiant pioneers with faces wrinklod by toil and suffering, and arms burnt by the sun, people who are already beginning to boast of not working with their hands, parasites who imitate &U the idlers of the Old World, and whoso only aim in life is to obtain a footing in a certain ‘ sot.’ These people who have inherited fortunes earned by moans of hard work and a life of complete abnegation, already run down the Colonies, and would think it beneath them to drink a glass of the excellent wine that Australia produces. They shut their ears to Madame Melba whilst she was among them and of them, but to-day they would willingly pay five pounds tor an orchostral stall, I have no doubt, if the diva would go and sing in Melbourne or Sydnoy.”

Max hates humbug, and likes to call a spade a spado. Thus docs lie discourse upon the fair sex :—“ And hero lot mo frankly say that I am getting a little tired of hearing about the modesty and seriousness of the Bnglish-woman, and of hearing the Frenchwoman called frivolous. Have I not soon, at bazaars in England and its Colonies, sanctified fairs organised to provide an organ for the church or a peal of bolls foe the tower—have wo not seen women and girls conducting themselves with unblushing effrontery to fill tho coffers of the cause ? Have I not seen in the shop-windows their portraits in low-necked dresses, and with their names attached? ‘Why not their address?' a Frenchman would say, if such things wore seen in France.”

Curious how Australia is following the New Zealand lead in advanced legislation. The new Victorian Government announce their intention to impose Land, Income, and Absentee taxes. The, tariff question, however, is funked until next March. It’s long odds agaist the Turner Ministry lasting until then.

The new bridge over the Tiraumea river, opened by the Premier the other day, will be a great boon to the settlers in the Makuri district, where great progress has been made of late. The improvement in the Forty-Mile Bush during the last five or six years has been something marvellous—a striking testimony, by the way, to the value of small holdings. The dairy industry is the main source of employment and income.

The Union Company would be glad to know, no doubt, who put the fire-sticks into the Mararoa, the Taviuni, and the Ohau. The fires were undoubtedly the result of incendiarism —probably the work of some discharged hand or hands.

H. D. Bell, alleged Prohibitionist, was a shining light the other day at a meeting of the Christchurch followers of Isitt, Taylor, and Co. Why does he not start a Prohibition campaign up at the Wellington Club? Some of the members are not teetotallers—oh dear no 1

Mr. Bell, is we believe, opposed to Home Rule for Ireland. This being so, where did he get the Dillon.from ? •'• , ' o

Colonel Fox is, so goes the story, to marry Miss Russell> daughter of the genial Captain of that ilk, early next year. The marriage will take place at Flaxmore, Captain Bussell’s home station near Hastings.

The English Radicals are getting cn. Lord Rosebery openly advocates a campaign in favour of the House of Lords. If he goes to the country on this he will be licked as sure as fate, for the days, or perhaps we should say the years, of hereditary legislators in the Old Country are numbered. When once the English Liberals—real Liberals—make up their mind to a policy, that policy generally succeeds. Home Rule is an exception, it is true, but then the rank and file of the party were always luke warm on this. Itwas Gladstone’s policy, and now that he is out of the game the Liberals are dropping poor Paddy’s cause;

Down at Greymouth there is hardly ever a case of cancer now-a-days at the local hospital, where at onetime there used to be many. Reason: stringent inspection of the cattle imported from the West Coast of this Island, and ruthless destruction of all diseased animals. But at Wellington—but no need to go into details; diseased meat is sold here by the ton, and the local authorities are doing next to nothing.

The horrors of the Cayenne French penal settlement in G.uiana, South America, are something positively fiendish, judging by accounts recently received in Paris. Fancy the poor devils of convicts bound down across ant hills (the Cayenne variety is about the size of a bee, and a determined bloodsucker) and then smeared over with molasses to attract the insects. In other cases, live men were chained to the bodies of dead prisoners, The Frenchman is still half monkey, half

devil, as Voltaire said of his fellow countrymen over a century ago.

Mrs. Besant drew big houses during her Wellington season. She is certainly a very clever;woman, so clever, indeed, as to perfectly enthral her audiences, and yet not one-out of twenty who attends can give anything like an intelligible account of what he or she heard. As to Theosophy, it appears to us, judging by Mrs. Besant’s description of it, to .be a mixture of mysticism and downright humbug. How any apparently sane creature can give serious credence to such twaddle is to us perfectly incom. prehensible.

Mrs. Besant has held about six different faiths during her life, and in each case she has glowed with enthusiasm, each in its inevitable turn being dropped with contempt. What is the practical value of such a female weathercock on any kind of religion ? She will probably end her life as a ’vert to Romanism.

“The dear Glasgows” dontcherknow, have departed for Christchurch, and the Thorndon snobocracy are in bitter distress. Happily, the “ Guvmentouse” people return oefore Christmas, otherwise we don’t know how Thorndon would survive the shock of the separation.

“ Jimmy ” Carroll knew what he was about when he spoke so gushingly of “ the Army,” when opening the Rescue Home, The Salvationists, are very strong in Gisborne, and they have votes. At the last election these went principally to De Lautour, once member for Mount Ida, and a bosom friend of Stout, and now practising his profession as a lawyer in the Poverty Bay capital. De Lautour had the Army and the teetotal vote at the last election, but next time the Salvationists will no doubt remember that “ Good Mr. Carroll who spoke so nicely at the hopening of our ‘Ome in Wellin’ton.” Oh yes, Jimmy wasn’t born yesterday. Not by a long chalk.

The Government did quite right in rejecting the proposal to stick up a bust of the late Mr. Ballance in front of the Parliament Buildings. Either have a proper statue or nothing. The truth of the matter is that the Ballance memorial got into the hands of the wrong men at the start. If the bumptious Trades Council, young “Know Alls,” hadn’t rushed in there would have been a much more truly national and much more successful movement. As it is— Well we won’t say any more to-day.

A country paper thus pleasantly “ touches up” a recent folly of the Hon. John McKenzie :—“A royal proclamation has been advertised warning settlers against killing so called “natural enemies” of the rabbit. Amongst which are cats! After a few bad nights the Minister of Agriculture will soon ■- withdraw this notice, for

“ Let Hercules himself do what he may, The cat will mew and the dog will have his day,” and a cat' mewing at midnight is something more than cheerful

Scobie McKenzie is always ranting and raving about Ministerial one-sidedness and injustice, but his own little rag, the “ Mount Ida Chronicle,” publishes Scobie’s address at thePomohaka enquiry in full, but gives none of the evidence or of Dr. Fitphett’s reply. Is that what you call fair play, Scobie ? .

The “ Woodville Examiner” is greatly exercised in mind because some of the men on the co-operative works in the Forty-Mile Bush have had injunctions granted against their wages by the B.M. The “Examiner” calls this “a brutally cruel state of the law.” Where does the brutality come in ? Does the “ Examiner” mean to contend that the working man should be allowed to run up debts, and that creditors should have no claims upon their wages. Pay your debts is a good old rule.

The Wellington Cycling Club has a membership of seventythree. A capital recreation for our city young men, but Fair Play suggests that the unwritten law’ as to bells and lights should be more strictly carried out.

George Irons, who has left Briscoe, McNeill and Co.’s to manage Henry Williams and Sons’ business at Napier, is one of the most popular of Wellington business men. He was the right hand man with John Duthie for a number of years. Williams and Sons, whose Napier business he is now to manage, is one of the oldest and best established business concerns, and has widespread connection throughout the province.

Mr. Gordon, the inspector of mines, is evidently not very popular with the Beefton people. At an indignation meeting held at that town of money companies—and. small dividends—the other day, one speaker remarked, “ Mr. Gordon should not display such ignorance qs exhibited in his op the gold

fields of this district. Ho is a goologist with sevorallotfcers attached to his name—ho is an F.G.S. and an M.A,” Here, according to the report in the local paper, an individual interjected “Yes, end a 8.F., too.” “What does that mean?" asked one of the audience. B.F. moans “ Bifurcated Fossil ” was the reply amongst roars of laughter. Evidently some of the Beefton peoplo are as ingenious as they arc rude in their choice of definitions.

What will the “ New Woman " say to the following, from the Southern “ show:—“Over 100 machines wore on hand, including several ladies.” Another examploof the way in which that monster Man misrepresents the fair sex.

At Masterton the other day a witness in a bushfalling case had the nerve to tell the Court that ho had worked on the contract for nine days without any meat. One of the long-robed gentlemen engaged in the case thereupon remarked:—“ Indeed, then you must have been nearly starved.” The witness, without a blush, “ Well, I was, so thin that I had to stand twice in one place to cast a shadow.” Lawyer: “That will do, thank you. Next witness!”

Talk.about John McKenzie, even he isn't in it for elegancy of language as compared with Sir George Dibbs, of “Damn Chicago “ notoriety. The other day in the New South Wales Assembly, Dibbs addressed the Colonial Secretary, Brunker, as follows: “If you put them up to this, you ought to have been hanged long ago.” Choice, very choice l ,