ECHOES FROM THE SOUTH.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume VI, Issue 24, 14 June 1890, Page 10

ECHOES FROM THE SOUTH.

With the disappearance of the Exhibition all our distinguished visitors have left us,except aeertain Mr Collins, who Is reported to have arrived in Dunedin from Melbourne or Auckland, it is not known exactly which. There is another Mr Collins in these parts who is going around telling all sorts of stories about the Pope : but this one, christened • Toni,' is übiquitous, and in the matter of everybody’s private affairs a perfect demon of omniscience. He seems to know all your friends, and to have communicated to them the most harrowing account of your antecedents elsewhere. Hence he has lieen waited upon by many of our leading citizens, both singly and in paw rvmitatm. but never apparently at the right place, for no one has enjoyed the satisfaction of an interview. < >ne evening, w hen after high tea 1 was sitting smoking the cigarette of peace before the fire, reflecting upon the many virtuous actions of a long and well spent lifetime, a fellow-boarder casually remarked that be had met a Mr Collins from Auckland, a traveller in the oils and varnish line, who bad known me : that Mr

Collins was credibly informed of my record there ; of my depredations in the money-box at St. Thomas’ : of my attempt to cash a worthless cheque at the Bank of New Zea land : and of the troop of infuriated husbands, fathers, and brothers w hose inability to leave their businesses alone prevented them pursuing me hither. Like the man who doesn't know he has a stomach until he gets indigestion I instantly realised that I possessed a character, and muttering the Shakespearian words, ‘he who steals my purse steals trash,’ we ran down the street to the spot where Mr Collins was reported to be found. On the way I met a friend coming out of Watsons’. •Do you know a man Collins f said he. ‘I am looking for him. ’ • No,' I replied. ‘ but lam dying to make his acquaintance.’ We then compared notes, and it gradually began to dawn upon us that Collins must be more than mortal to know so much, and turned into a neighbouring bar. where, on recounting our troubles. we were greeted with shouts of laughter. Since then, though relieved in mind, I have felt somewhat smaller at thus being taken in by the creation of a joker's imagination. Fauntleroy is such an ideally cbivalresque name, has such a touch of the anas peur ft sou reprvche sort about it, that one fancies it must have been communicated by an angel of inspiration to the hard-bound brains of the labouring novelist : but it is no invention, and really figures on the page of history, or at least on that part of it known as ■ The Newgate Calendar.' Some sixty years ago a banker of that name died. If he were descended from Paladins he died as a Paladin should die. with his boots on. for Fauntleroy was hanged. Hehadlived speculatively, andhadgotintothe deep waters, and at last found himself in the ' Stone Jug ' awaiting the summons of Jack Ketch, for those sw the good old times when fraudulent bank directors and bubble projectors di<l not always escape. Now. Fauntleroy had been a sort »f ■ lion ' in good society ; his dinners hail been so good, his cigars so superb, and his champagne superlative. Every guest longed to know where Fauntleroy got such champagne. The thought of such a connoisseur going away where there is no dining or giving of dinners with the secret of that champagne unrevealed, seemed intolerable. A friend, therefore, in the interests of good living here below, called p.p.c. on poor Fauntleroy at Newgate, and after having bade him an affecting farewell, concluded with. ‘ And now, my dear Fauntleroy, as you can have no earthly motive for concealing the fact any longer, just tell us. ere it is too late, where you used to buy that excellent champagne. ’ M hat does the Calabrian brigand do for a living m the slack season when no tourists are abroad ? Does he sit upon a rock and pipe the most melodious airs of his native land, in the hopes of attracting some victim ’ What does the insurance man do in desperation, having exhausted all known methods for taking life ? Man is apparently too sanguine ever to be convinced of his mortality—at least sufficiently for the purposes of a brisk business in policies. Even octogenarians think that they are never going to die. I knew one who commiserated the • shakiness ’ of a man ten years his junior, who has, however, outlived him ; an! another who, six months before he died, would have his • shaky ’ octogenarian sister insure her life to carrv out some speculative project of his own. Hope is apparently stronger than love, despite the poets, for neither of the gentlemen seemed at all apprehensive of the future. If then the insurance man eannot overcome this, what is he to do to strike the imagination An ingenious member of the craft in Otago having been warned off the premises during «-ffice hours, has hit upon the diabolical expe*lient of invading the sanctity of our evenings with popular lectures on insurance. In these, sandwiched in between music, recitations, and singing, the mysteries of premiums, bonuses, paidup policies, rates. risk, and preferential paymentsin the event of decease, are to be elucidated. " here is this going to end ? Some company more enterprising than the others will perhaps engage a Gilbert and Sullivan to write them an operetta bearing on the subject of insurance, with a [sitter ~<>ng like that of Wellington Wells, holding forth the advantage they offer, so that even in the drawing-room we shall not escape from the grisly spectre from the skeleton at the banquet. What would Froissart, who said that the English took their pleasures sadly four centuries ago. say to this ?

After much toil and talk Bishop Julius has managed to get afl-jat upon his See ; but despite his good qualities, which he is quickly showing, the Bishop will not lead a happy life if he immediately attacks the fundamentals of the church. Perhaps he is taking advantage of the fact that at present there is no Metropolitan to bring him to task. But if the Bishop is going wrong at all let it not be upon the cardinal point of religion, compared with which Luther's impugning of the Papal infallability was a mere trifle. What, after all. are questions of transubstantiation, or vestments, or doctrines of redemption, and atonement, conq*red with the all-absorbing dogma of the bawbees? There are miracles compared with which those worked by

saints, apostles, and martyrs pale into insignificance, and that is how, in a village of 200 inhabitants, six ministers pn>feasing religions as obviously different as are half a dozen Chinamen seen so often endeavouring to raise the wind. It was much easier in the olden times to raise the dead, but then faith was strong, and the standard of living was low. The clergy were not married, and as a consequence there was no appropriation in the supplies of an annual spring Gurnet and frequent nocturnal summonses of the neighbouring ;esculapius. The ladies, therefore, realizing howmuch their earthly failure turn- upon the doctrine of ways and means, have with a prescient clergy devised the l>azaar. It is strange that Bishop Julius condemns this. As his huge mouth is to the whale, his tentacles to the octopus, his long legs to the hare, his keen eyes and swift flight to the eagle, so is the bazaar to the modern hard-pressed ecclesiastic. It is his sheet-anchor, lus strong bower and defence at Christmas-time, when the bills come in. the outcome of his necessities, and an evidence of the doctrine of evolution. They all protest, but thev all do it: and so it will continue until the end of the world".