WELLINGTON JOTTINGS.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XIII, Issue XI, 15 September 1894, Page 247

WELLINGTON JOTTINGS.

(BY OUR PARLIAMENTARY SENTINEL.) IT is not often that a Lawn Tennis Club makes its appearance before the House of Representatives. When youth and beauty devote themselves to chasing the hours with flying feet within the chalk lines which mark the mysterious boundaries of lawn tennis courts, they are generally about as far as possible from wishing ever to come into contact with anything so hopelessly heavy as politics. Last week, however, a humble petition of the Picton Lawn Tennis Club came before a committee of the House.

The Pictonian petitioners, it appeared, had been for some years playing their little games upon a piece of land belonging to Her Majesty the Queen. They were allowed to do this on sufferance, on certain conditions, with which, so it was alleged, they had not complied. Therefore an inexorable Minister of Lands had descended upon them, and caring nought for the prayers of youth and the tears of beauty bad evicted them. It was a pitiful tale. But alas ! the Petitions Committee was as hard-hearted as the Hon. John McKenzie. It cared nought for the sorrows of Pictonians, and curtly * squelched ’ their petition.

A bonquet of flowers is almost as uncommon an apparition in Parliament as a lawn tennis club. I think I remember Sir John Hall proudly displaying one or two floral trophies last year, tokens of gratitude for bis feats for Female Franchise. Last year, too, those Legislative Councillors, who supported the ladies on that great question, were decorated with white camellia button holes, sent them by enthusiastic feminine admirers. Not to be outdone the ladies, who did not want the Franchise, procured a basketful of red camellias and promptly employed them to adorn those senators who opposed the entry of women into politics. Thus for some days was the Legislative Council divided into parties of the White and the Red, as in the days of the Wars of the Roses This week the Hon. Richard Seddon was the recipient of a tribute of gratitude from the ladies of the Wellington Telephone Exchange. It was something more than a button hole, being, in fact, a bonquet of the very largest size. As it was slowly brought in through a side door and carried across the floor of the Chamber during the progress of an exceedingly dull debate, it became the cynosure of every eye. A murmur of laughter swelled into a round of applause, as it was solemnly deposited in a large vase in front of the Premier. King Richard likes bouquets, and has—more power to him—no dislike to the ladies. With the broadest of smiles, therefore, he rose, and expanding the broadest of chests, informed the House in a resonant voice that it was a gift from tbe telephone lasses. The House treated the incident with befitting good-nature.

Not so that implacably Oppositionist organ, the Evening Post. Either the editor of that vigorously conducted journal must have been suffering from a bilious attack, or else his hatred for the Premier must have deprived him of any sense of humour that he ever had. Certain it is that a solemn and ponderously written article appeared in the Post the day after the bouquet incident, couched in terms of scoin and sarcasm withering enough to have blighted the petals of tbe fairest flowers in the bouquet. In the most serious and inexorably logical fashion the Posf set itself toshow that if the telephone lasses were to be permitted to express their approval of one public man, the next thing that might be expected would be that they would express their disapproval of someone else. Indeed, the article went on to hint at the horrible fate of some intrepid but unpopular politician, pelted with eggs, thrown by the fair hands of the telephone lasses. Why the writer did not go a step further and recall the sad fate of Orpheus, torn into fragments by the furious hands of the Mtenads and Bacchantes, I hardly know ? Such a classic allusion would have adorned his article and could not have made it more absurd. Meanwhile, the Editor of the Post has deprived Mr Fiatman, M H.R , of the proud position of being the slowest man in Wellington to see a joke. It was Mr Flatman, you will remember, who took so seriously the story that the Premier’s boisterous speech on the Budget had actually cracked the plaster on the ceiling of the cellar over which he was standing when he spoke with such stentorian force. Good Mr Flatman actually paid the cellar a visit to ascertain the truth of this story, and on his return gravely assured a convulsed House that tbe plaster was entirely uninjured. Very earnestly did he deprecate the circulation of snch improper and untruthful stories. * Why, an elephant could not have cracked it, sir, much less the Hon. Premier !’

I cannot say that I am an enthusiastic believer in the entry of ladies into Parliament. Dr. Newman is. But then the little doctor, as his name would imply, has always a strong craving for the latest novelty. Yet, listening last night to the House plunging headlong into tbe mysteries of

the baking trade, and laying down the law with tbe most magnificent and dogmatic ignorance on the snbject of tinloaves, cottage-loaves, breakfast rolls, cakes, and confectionery, I was almost tempted to wish that one or two practical house-wives had been present on the floor of the House, to tell hon. members what was what. How the ladies in the Gallery—and they were there in strong force—must have chuckled to themselves as they listened to the hnsbands and fathers dilating upon crust and crumb, bread and bakers. Not that the discussion was confined to hnsbands and fathers by any means. Some of the bachelor members of the House were in evidence, and seemed to know all about it, or at any rate to think they did. Nearly everyone made a speech, and the discussion occupied several hours. The great, momentous, and tremendous question at issue was as to whether fancy bread was, or was not, to be sold by weight. Members for Auckland were of conrse to the fore. Mr Button exclaimed with Shakespeare: 'Tell me where is fancy bred?' and got no answer. Mr Crowther spread himself upon jam tarts and hot cross buns with a zest that showed that, old as he is, he has not forgotten the delights of boyhood. He saw in tbe Bill a fell purpose on the part of the Premier to suppress these delicacies. * Hot cross buns were born before the Premier, and will live after he is dead,’said Mr Crowther, in that forcible if not exact language which enchants all listeners. Very impressive and indignant was the second member for Auckland, so much so that he must have exhausted himself ; for I noticed when I left tbe gallery after midnight that he had fallen asleep in the armchair belonging to the Sergeant at-Arms, and was reposing there, with his white beard spread into the precise shape of a small ivory fan.