HERE AND THERE.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXVII, Issue IX, 31 August 1901, Page 417

HERE AND THERE.

A lady made her way iuto one ot the Auckland banks lasi week, ami laid down four half-pennies on the teller’s counter. “1 understand,” she said, ‘’that you are purchasing these.” The teller looked a trifle puzzled, but he had "been teller for some years, and knew how to cont vol his features. He didn’t, for the life of him, know what she meant, but he ventured the reply, “We don't sell stamps here, madam. Try the chemist.” “I did not ask for stamps,” she rejoined, a trifle nervously. “I wish to know if you would purchase these coins. 1 understand you are giving £3 19/2 for each. They are of the right date, I believe.” The teller’s face cleared. He grasped the situation, and at mice began smilingly to minister to a mind diseased. But his client had all her wits about her, and resented the reflection on her sanity, which his gentle voice and soft manner revealed. She dived into the depths of her reticule, and pulled out a newspaper cutting, saying with some frigidity. “I understood from this that you were buying these coins.” The teller looked at it and read, “Among the curiosities of collecting is the fact that 1900 Victorian halfpennies will now bring £3 19/2 at any bank.” As he elegantly expressed himself to some friends afterwards, “He did not tumble to the joke at first,” and took the cutting to the accountant. The manager was called into the consultation, and between the three light broke on the mystery. There was a roar of laughter in the back which reached the lady’s ears, and made her feel uncomfortable. Then the teller appeared and explained that 1900 halfpennies, that is, one thousand nine hnndred, would fetch £3 19/2 anywhere, but that that faet d'd not affect the coin value of four halfpence. The lady left hastily, mad in quite another though not less dangerous sense than the teller had thought her.

The Hon. Mr Feldwick’s proposal to destroy or fumigate the clothes of returned troopers on their arrival here, in order to guard against the introduction of disease, was bound to meet with a rebuff. It may be true as he said, that measles have been brought into the colony by our boys coming back from the war, but what is the danger compared to a remedy which would be destructive of half the romance surrounding the battlestained warrior. To deprive the latter of his uniform on his arrival, or even to. submit it to the indignity of fumigation on or off his person, would be to make a common man of a hero. The Government might as well have fresh tweed suits for the men to change into before they landed. The sentiment that sent them forth with glory demands that they should return showing as much as possible traces of the rigorous campaign, and measles or no measles, mothers and Sweethearts would not think half so much of the boy who did not arrive just as if he had stepped off the battlefield itself.

The decision of the Auckland Tramway Company to stop the cars at certain fixed places only, instead of whenever signalled by those travelling. has no doubt been arrived at with the object of accustoming tins public to the newer system before the arrival of the electric cars. If meant as a humane reform in the interest of the horses, the arrangement comes rather late in the day. Why it was not adopted years ago, is a puzzle to humanitarians, who have in vain bemoaned generations of poor geegees driven to an untimely grave by the cruel thoughtlessness of the individual who insists on being set down exactly at his own front door, though the car has already stopped within twenty yards of it, or the indignant lady who villifies the driver, conductor, and company generally for not drawing up on an incline of lone in five.

In the new Presbyterian Church in Wellington, of which the Premier recently laid the foundation stone, a full brass band will take the place of the organ. This innovation has been de-

cided on with the avowed object of making the services more attractive to young people. Tempora mutanter et nos mutamur in iilis! I remember the time when an organ was just tolerated in the more advanced Scotch churches, while in country churches it was regarded as a temptation of the devil. But even the most advanced clergyman of that day never contemplated a brass band. Whither will this effort to be attractive, this deference to the light tastes of the young lead the churches? 1 wonder whether it is the actual music of the brass instruments or the secular, not to say frivolous, associations belonging to a brass band that is to' be relied on to allure the young. If the latter, then a radical departure from the present style of church music may be necessary in addition to the change of instrument iu order to keep the youthful.

A cable message from London this s', eek announced that Tom Mann, the Labour leader, had been fined £lO lor selling- uiluted beer in his hotel. Nothing th.it Tom could have done would have discredited him more swiftly in the eyes of his followers than, tampering with their drink. No doubt he had poured out on them rivers of sSpcialistie nonsense, or diluted Nihilism, without their intellectual taste suffering or their intellectual stomach being offended; but, alas’ they are connoisseurs in the matter of beer, and are not to be deceived so easily.

The Inglewood schoolboys whose daring conspiracy to deliver themselves from the slavery of home lessons came to nought through a craven fear to support their leader Harris at the critical moment, are thinking of forming a union and bringing their case before the Conciliation Board.

The late Major Fox's advice to his people that they should not go to England to the Coronation “lest they be made as dogs” would seem to indicate pretty plainly that the old chief —loyal though he was in outward expression, and in .heart too, I believe—had his grievances. Probably the Rotorua Royal kowtow was not much to the taste of a warrior who could remember the time when the favour of the Maori was sought after in the land by the now all-powerful pakeha. But the present generation of natives have no feelings of that kind, and would suffer no sense of indignity in going to England to grace His Majesty’s Coronation Bay next June. To be frank, it is quite as much a love of excitement as excess of loyalty that prompts the native proposal to send a native contingent to the great function. Similarly, although it may seem a little ungracious to question the sincerity of Hone Toia’s “deep regret” for the Hokianga trouble, which he has expressed to the Premier, one cannot help thinking that his desire to atone for his conduct by going “to fight for the King in any part of the world” may be due to ennui of the wet winter in the North and the stirring of the ancestral passion for a fight.

It is only in accordance with the legislative tendencies of the colony to regulate everything that the Statutes Revision Committee should have recommended. a legal limit being put to the amount recoverable iu a breach of promise suit. A broken heart or damaged affections should have some fixed maximum value attached to them, whereas, a the law 'now stands, the amount clai ed, and often given by a sympathetic jury, is generally in proportion t..- the ability of the defendant to pay. There is no business principle in this—and breach of promise cases are as a rule business affairs—and the proposed amendment of the law is desirable. If it is adopted wealthy mules will he considerably less at the mercy of designing females who make a breach of promise action the profitable alternative to a rich marriage. The utmost amount recoverable even from a millionaire will be £550.