Things from the EMPIRE CITY

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XIII, Issue XV, 13 October 1894, Page 344

Things from the EMPIRE CITY

BY

THE AUTOGRATIG IDLER.

. The Moon and Mr Collin., MH R -

This very minor planet, the moon, was the r subject of a Sunday evening lecture last Sabbath by Mr w w Collins, MH. R. I didn’t go to the lecture. It so happens that I know

as much about the moon as anybody else does—l do think I know a great deal more about the moon than Mr Collins does. The ascertained facts with regard to the moon are accessible to anyone who can read ; the other facts are to be learned from the man in the moon—whose personal acquaintance, and even friendship, I have had, for some years past. Mr Collins, I believe, disclaimed all imputations of shyness, with reference to the moon ; and said that both himself and the full moon were about as wide awake as need be. I haven’t the smallest doubt about either luminary. As to Mr Collins, the thing is obvious—and there needn't be any argument about it: Mr Collins is manifestly very wide awake indeed. Ido hope be and the moon will continue to get on happily—and prosperously—together. The moon, to be sure, exhibits no less than four erratic and rather strange phases within even a month : sometimes she seems to be anxious to kiss Venus : at other times she exhibits a strong partiality for Mare—and she rises from behind the gloom of Mount Victoria in Wellington in a most unexpected way, and sails through the sky all night thereafter in a highly satisfactory manner. Collins, in like manner, phases, and rises, and sails along ! Very good—let him ! And, as to rising, Collins may rise—from any quarter he has a mind to, for all I care. As to his setting —I hope to live to see it ! Collins will, without doubt, set in the vicinity of the Wellington Club : it won’t be long till he gets there, if he goes on lecturing on the moon and on other things as he does—and I haven’t long to live, maybe, after all ? But whether I live to see it or no—Collins will set in the pleasant golden sky of the Wellington Club, all the same : he longs to be there, even at this moment 1

The Grey QorKe •Barber.’

Mr Arthur Robert Guinness, M.HR. for Greymouth, and Chairman of Committees has been known to this present Idle person for eV er so many years. I long ago concluded that

it would be an almost impossible thing to disturb his wonderful equanimity. A trace of anything in the way of emotion, or chagrin, or pleasure, or pain, or anger, or petulance, or deep annoyance, never, to my knowledge, passed over his serene and placid countenance. His Honor the Judge doesn’t often attempt to sit on this suave and bland, and altogether cold and clever and clear gentleman of the long robe, but I have seen the thing tried on in a mild way. Mr Guinness took no more notice of the intended rebuff than he does of a puff of gorge wind—but cool as a cucumber continued his argument—only with more deference than ever to His Honor, and His Honor’s superior judgment, and all the rest of it ! Not that I mean to say that Mr Guinness is not warm hearted. He isn’t impulsive ;he controls such emotions as possess him from time to time with consummate art; but beneath that waistcoat, which is concealed by a gown rather blue, and by no means captivating, the heart of the true West Coast man beats—and the heart of the West Coast man beats louder and stronger than any other in these islands. I have known Mr Guinness to travel twenty miles to defend a friend who was penniless, without fee or even expenses. But it was this same impassionable, placid Mr Guinness who an evening or two since, electrified the house by a short speech, full of impetuous ardour and burning indignation. What was the matter? The Wellington. Post relates the incident in this way Mr Guinness strongly denounced the Minister for Labour. The class of ha«ty Radical legislation that Minister was bringing down would lead to the ultimate ruin of the Liberal party. It interfered in the most unreasonable manner with the liberty of the subject. If a person was a master and employed no one, he or she should be allowed to carry on business as thev liked. He took strong exception to the conduct of the Minister in attending the Committee of the Council. It was not the duty of any Minister to go to a

Committee of the Legislative Council and advocate or dictate to the Council how it should treat any measure. Such action would tend to mutilation of the measure, and should be stopped. If such things had been done by other Governments Mr Reeves would have been the first to use harsh and strong language against the member who bad done such a thing.’ And the member for Greymouth went on to ask what technical or special evidence could Mr Reeves possibly give the Legislative Council (or anybody else) as to the precise conduct of lollie shops, barbers* shops, fruit shops, or other shops ? It comes to what I have all along said, that Mr Reeves is running to seed over these Labour Bills, and it was a good thing for Mr Guinness to tell him so, in the straight way that he did. There are scores and scores of small hucksters and other shops in all our cities, and a good many in our larger towns—shops kept by brokendown men and old women who employ no bands at all, and it is simple nonsense to say that Liberalism demands the closing of these humble premises for a half holiday, if the occupiers desire to remain in them, on the holiday afternoon. The mere fact that even the calm Mr Guinness grew indignant over the proposal, shows that there is something radically wrong in it. Mr Reeves, I must acknowledge, as everybody does, has taken immense pains with a number of the Labour Bills and bestowed as much thought and more learning, perhaps, upon some of them than many other men could. What everybody—and more especially what all democratic men—say, is, that in some of his proposals he is going altogether too far, and interfering too seriously with the personal liberty of many hundreds of our fellow colonists—fellow colonists who have no powerful Trade Unions or other organizations at their backs to help them or to speak or act for them. Liberty is the main object of the Liberal : and no Britisher ever forgets that every man’s house, however much of a shanty, and every man’s shop, be it even a huckster’s, is his castle, in the one case, and still his castle, in the other, if there he resides and if his home be in it. As for the argument that the half holiday is still required in the case of these people, if not for themselves, then for their families—there isn't anything in the argument. As a rule these people have no families worth mentioning; their children are grown up and out at work, if they have any—which, in most cases, they haven’t. But

where such people have children and young people about them, they require no law to teach them to be kind to their own flesh and blood. These people are mostly poor—the poor are kind to each other, and to their own people. It isn't the poor who take the most work out of those whom they have control over. I qnite feel the force of the blast of Gorge wind which Mr Guinness blew over the Legislature ; and I hope Mr Reeves will teel it too—and go round to a sheltered and safe coiner as speedily as possible.

A Cynh

Mr W. T. Rowe, the Chief of the Wellington Public Library, read a paper recently at the

Technical School, before the Empire City branch of the Australasian Home Readers Union, on * Vanity Fair.’ The lecturer found it impossible to discuss * Vanity Fair ’ without saying a good deal about its author—of whom he is an ardent admirer, and a considerable portion of a remarkably clear and concise address (containing indeed a compendious history of Thackeray and bis works) was devoted to a consideration of the life and character of the man, the gentleness of whose fine spirit was so misunderstood by those many early critics of his, who called him * cynic.* As a satirist, Mr Rowe said, Thackeray especially attacked all forms of affectation and snobbishness and insincerity—to which let me add cant and cad-ism. *Of an extremely sensitive nature himself, be was gifted with a preternaturally keen perception of the meaner and baser side of human nature.’ This did not at ail sour the milk of human kindness in bis own bosom, however. * Vanity Fair,’ Mr Rowe said, was Thackeray’s best, best-known, and most characteristic work : a moral novel, the moral not being painfully thrust upon the reader, who is left to find it out for himself. The prose style of * Vanity Fair ’ stood above that of any novelist of this century. It is marked by the utmost lucidity and limpidity. In * Esmond' Mr Thackeray adopted, with perfect success, the characteristics and tone of the Q leen Anne style, and by thus giving a supposed eighteenth century tale an air of complete verisimilitude he succeeded in prodncing what is commonly accepted as the finest specimen of historical novel in the English language. Thackeray was found dead in bed on Christmas Eve morning, 1863—with all the appearance of having suffered intense pain. His nervous dread of fulsome eulogy, says Mr Rowe, led him to request that there should be nothing of the sort about him after bis death, and his daughters have observed this admonition perhaps too sacredly, and, as a consequence, no adequate biography of the great man has yet been written. On the Thursday following his death Tom Taylor described the genius who had passed away in a few true and touching words in London Punch He was a cynic! By his life, all wrought Of generous acts, mild words, and gentle ways ; His heart wide open to all kindly thought; His hand so quick to give, his tongue to praise. He was a cynic! You might read it, writ In that broad brow, crowned with its silver hair ; In those blue eyes with childlike candour lit. In that sweet smile his lips were wont to wear. It was this cynic who in visiting a sick brother journalist and penniless man, used to leave a pill box on the chimneypiece on leaving, labelled, * one to be taken occasionally.* On opening it it was found to contain golden sovereigns. A * cynic ’ only could think of such a delicate way of help ing a brother in distress !