THING'S FROM THE EMPIRE CITY

New Zealand Graphic, Volume X, Issue 24, 17 June 1893, Page 555

THING'S FROM THE EMPIRE CITY

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THE AUTOGRATIC IDLER.

_. ... , Mr Seddon, the Premier of this country, is The Minister not invariably to be reckoned on as accessible. If he was told that a lord was waitMlner ‘ ing to see him, be might say ‘let the lord come in,’ or he might say * let the lord wait ’ —it all depended, not so mnch on who the lord-in waiting was, as on the temper in which his lordship the Premier happened to be at the moment. If there be one man more than another, however, whom Richard John is always glad to see, it is some shaggy, labour-begrimed, and leaden-hued miner whose aspect tells, plainly enough, of hard work, for heaven knows how many long years, down below, or if not very mnch down below, at all events in a tunnel ever so many hundred yards in. At Westport the other day, Mr Seddon was informed that such an unkempt, uncouth, and perhaps not altogether sophisticated, ancient digger, wished to see him. ‘ Very well,’ said the Minister, * show him in.’ And in strode the unvarnished son of the soil, carrying in bis hand a rusty wire on which were strung countless bits of paper, coloured and stained with the smoke and dust that had pervaded the miner’s hut decades ago. * Hullo, Jim,’ said the Minister, * thought yon were dead. How are you; what can I do for you ?’ The Miner : • What, dead ? No fear. Been in the gully all the time. Hard at work all the time ; working for the Government. And now I want a job.’ The Minister : ‘ A job, eh 1 What sort of a job ? What’s that string there, that you’ve got in yonr hand ?’ The Miner : • Yon ought to know those things pretty well. Miners’ Kights ! Miners’ Rights at twenty shillings and ten shillings each, and all for the Government! Oh the Government has had a tremendous lot out of me. This has been goin’ on since 1865 ’ The Minister : ‘ Miners’ rights, eh ? I'here’s a rare lot of them. But one can hardly establish a claim for Government employment on those sort of papers. Can’t you do better than that?’ The Miner : ‘ I was afraid you wouldn’t think so much of these Rights as I do. I’ve got something better.’ (Here Jim pulled out from his pocket a bag stuffed full of old papers.) ‘ Will that convince you that the Government has had a lot of my money ?’ The Minister : * What ; more Rights still ? Are these Miners’ Rights also?’ The Miner: ‘Not at all. Receipts for dams; for head races ; receipts for tail races, water rights, hearings, rehearings—all good money paid into the Warden’s Court since 1865—0 h, the Government has had a whole heap of my money. AU the gold that Ive got for thirty years has gone to the Government — and now I want the Government to do something for me.’ The Minister: ‘ Well, but Jim, the lot of it is rather a stretch—a pardonable little exaggeration. The Government didn’t get all the gold you got ?’ The Miner : ‘ Didn’t they ? I thought you would say that. No they didn’t—not exactly all.* (Here Jim put his hand into bis breast pocket, and drew from thence a photograph of the Mine r Jim family—about a dozen children.) ‘ There,’says Jim, handing the photograph to Mr Seddon— ‘ that’s where the balance went!’ The Premier (after looking at the photograph) : ‘Jim, say no more. That’s enough. I can sympathise with you now.’ (To his Secretary) : ‘ Hamer, put Mr James Robertson’s name down on the list I’ , » ♦ * * » « The Welling The on 'y pl anet at present favourably situated for observation is Saturn, whose widenton Obser- . . ing rings may now be viewed all night long, vatory those fortunate enough to possess a good telescope. As my own glass was appropriated last September by the bailiff (whose respect for bad law is greater than his admiration for good science) and sold, under the strictest judicial procedure, to pay a debt which I did not owe, I asked a Wellington savant bow I could get admission into the Wellington Observatory ? He said the Professor came there regularly, and was to be seen every day, from 8.30 a. m., till 4 p.m. This celebrated Observatory, I may mention, has been brought to its present pitch of perfection by

three respected citizens, known as the Abounding Brothers, whose powerful reflector is unequalled in these seas. It is highly polished, of course, as all reflectors are ; and the process is one of extreme delicacy and also expensive : Lord Rosse spent £20,000 in the mere polishing of the Parsonstown glass. I may say at once that there is nothing in the whole scope of Creation which is too big, or too little, for the sweep of this reflector. The Professor, who directs the movements of this instrument, and who, in fact, has the control of it, is just such a man as one would expect to find in charge of it. But there are some things which he quite fails to understand, and when he finds this to be so, he says so plainly, and procee Is to take it for granted that nobody else can, or anyhow, ought to understand these things. One of the things be can’t understand is, why the burly Jupiter wears the belt. He believes that this belt should be worn by Mr Rolleston or Captain Russell. It is quite needless to say that such an indefatigable observer has made many discoveries so many indeed, that hardly anybody has discovered anything, but him, of late ; and if it should happen that any professor or other individual should say he had just discovered something that was not known before, the Wellington Observatory professor would, the very next day, show, conclusively, that the alleged discovery was, in point of fact, no discovery at all, but that the fact, or circumstance, or object, so said to be discovered was known to the Ancients, and especially to the Chinese, and bad been expressly mentioned by that great observer, Ma-tuan-lin, or Bryan O’Lynn, 613 years before our era. The boldness with which our friend, who observes from 830 am. till 4 p.m., enunciates truths is only equalled by the readiness with which he totally ignores what he himself said, last week, when he surveys a thing from another, and a newer, point of view ; thus again proving what all men are now beginning to see quite clearly—namely, that truth is progressive, and that a thing may be quite true to-day yet not quite true to morrow, or a year hence. A very celebrated paper by the Wellington Professor on ‘ How to find Easter,’ will, it is expected, be completely overshadowed by a later one, soon to be given to the Philosophical Society by the same author, entitled ‘How to find Yesterday.’ But it is on nebulous and meteoric discoveries that the undying fame of this astronomer will most safely and surely depend. He has solved or resolved many nebulous masses into galaxies of stars, all under the complete reign of Law ; and has demonstrated that some of them are blue, some yellow, and a good many of them of the right colour. From the position of the observatory, there has latterly b=en noticed in the direction of the Government Buildings at Thorndon, some very strange appearances in the surrounding region, resembling, some of them, in shape, the sticks of rockets, and altogether such insignificant meteoric casuals that they quite escaped observation, or were thought too insignificant for notice. Not so thought our professor. He adjusted his glass, so as to take in the whole region referred to a region, as he remarked, up to a recent period altogether occupied by certain fixed stars — and he saw a mighty number of these stray and straggling objects where before all was order and serenity. Such an intrusion on the eternal fixity of things was protested against in two or three papers, by our distinguished philosopher. He showed conclusively (1) Why the ‘casuals’ were there ; (2) what they were doing there ; and (3) how much better it would be if they were somewhere else. And he pointed out a remarkable peculiarity in these foreign bodies, to wit that while they were of all colours they were, at the same time, of one colour, namely, the ‘ right colour,’ which was the most wrong thing about them. This is all I can tell you about this observatory at present—not being able to see Saturn’s rings at the hours mentioned. Eight thirty a.m. isn’t a good time for anybody except a professor, like our friend, to begin his survey of creation. Pleeceman In8 P ector lender has amongst his gallant force a poetic policeman in receipt of 7s 6d X On tne _. per diem; who, notwithstanding his small Fair Sects. earn j n g 8i has a considerable desire to be surrounded with such a family as the Westport miner afore-

said. The Inspector handed me the latest production of this poetic youth, and here it is :— Oh ye Mewses, fair; and Graces Three—and all so good and trail— Help me, with yer smiling faces. While I tell my simple tale. Misther Homer ye w-ere kind to : Also Byram and Tom Moore, If a peeler has a mind to Court you, ye won't slam the doore I Hard to say bedad ! For Mewses Are but wimmen after ail: And they do just as they chooses With Kings David or Saints Paul. Let alone an ill-paid Bobby With ' BX ’ upon his coat: Which it is his constant hobby On the fair sects still to dout. Eve, they say. brought ruination With an apple, on the world. At the time of the Creation, And from Paradise got hurled. But methinks it was the cherry— Cherry lips—of pouting Eve Was the real tempting berry That made Adam sin and grieve. There is a good deal more of the same sort of thing. Anybody who wants more can have more. I prefer to present the effusion as a fragment. Tennyson’s ‘ Break, break, break ’ is a fragment.