After Dinner Gossip and Echoes of the Week.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXI, Issue VIII, 22 August 1903, Page 515

After Dinner Gossip and Echoes of the Week.

A Dull Parliament. Does anyone nowadays take the remotest interest in local politics or in the sayings and doings of our legislators in Parliament now assembled? If so, the average man, it must be confessed, dissimulates exceedingly well, and must be acting on the principle of the old lady’s parrot, which “talked little and thought the more,” for assuredly one scarcely hears a word of politics or politicians round the dinner or luncheon tables, or in trams, trains, etc., and sucli places in which men are prone to air their wit and wisdom in friendly discourse on affairs in general. Certainly, up to date the session has been the dullest on record, and there has not been even the most moderate relief from the boredom Of an exceptionally prosy Parliament. It may possibly be that in the House itself things are brisker and brighter than they appear through Hansard, and the records of the press gallery, but I doubt it. Mahuta has quickly tired of it, anyway, and another new “lord,” the Hon. Seymour Thorne George, treated himself to a nice little holiday last week, so he evidently is also not enthralled and held captive by his new duties and dignities. The old game of “beg, beg, beg” for this, that, and the other, the same questions here, and the same elusive answers, familiar ever since Parliaments began, all are in full swing. Because one tinpot borough or township had a new post office, half a dozen others must have the same. They could get on quite well and happily without it, but they must have a grab for it just to prove that, with towns and villages, just as with men, “Jack’s as good as his master in New Zealand.” Yet, consider, is it not a shocking waste of money? What a pity the country could not authorise its representatives to take the pledge in the matter of asking for small matters for five or six years ahead, so that available funds could be devoted to several great and important remunerative works urgently requiring completion. The “pound for pound” cadge for every imaginable object is overworked, and the average New Zealander expects the Government to do literally everything for him and will, as was remarked by an eminent Churchman the other day, only disburse benevolence or charity through the medium of the rates. The House is dull just now because there is no question of grants and grabbing, and the representatives seem to take little interest in anything else. This is bad, but it is our own fault. We teach our members to believe this is what we want, and that the best member is the one who can lay hands on the most money for his constituency, whether that money is really Urgently wanted or not. The suburb in which I happen to reside, for example, demands a new post office, a brick and stone one. There is about as much necessity for the outlay as there is for a town hall or art gallery for the borough, but Onehunga got one last year, so this prideful little suburb of Auckland must needs have one too. A more crass or Stupid waste of money could not be made, and this sort of thing is going on all over the colony from north to south. There seems no national conscience m the matter. Surely it would be worth while to say, “No. here are some three expensive and desirable works, let us have these carried out, and until then let ns do what -we do in private life when money for luxuries is scarce—do without.” Free (nominally) Schools, free universities, free libraries, free hospitals, free art galleries, etc., are good, but the system is not without its disadvantages. Of course, we pay in another way, but the habit of indirect payment, the habit of never directly saving, is not morally good for the character of a young nation, and tends to sap the high sense of personal and general responsibility, which is the basis of probity and prosperity in countries as well kB people.

Tbe Home fop Imbaolla Children. The foregoing remarks on the inordinate affection we have in the colonies for indirect benevolence, and for perpetually petitioning the Government for subsidies, I had intended to make under the above heading. A capital and muchneeded movement has been set afoot to erect and maintain a home or institution where children of weak intellect can be attended to instead of in the walls of adult asylums as at present. There is surely no need here to explain the necessity for such an institution, or to enlist the pity and sympathy of our readers for the unfortunate children whom the incomprehensible decrees of Providence have sent with the world mentally affected. Every parent with bright, quickwitted, amusing youngsters must shudder as he (or she) thinks “had it been mine,” and must feel, in a rush of gratitude, that anything and everything that might ameliorate their lot should be done, whatever the expense. I am sure we all, all feel this, but at a meeting the other day, the old plan of asking the Government to take the matter up was first resorted to. One notices with profound satisfaction that one speaker, the chairman, thought the principle of going “hat in hand to the Government” was wrong, and that the people of the colony should show their self-reliance and build the home for themselves —by direct donations and subscriptions. This is unquestionably right. How are we to foster and encourage a spirit of philanthropy and unselfishness if we never really give any opportunity for the exercise of the same. “Why should I make any particular sacrifice, why should I go out of the way to make myself of service to mankind; I pay my rates; let the Government or the borough or the town council do it.” Such is the spirit we are breeding up. Such is the general expression of opinion to-day. Granted, that rates and taxes are a business-like way of distributing the burden, but sentiment plays as important a part in the life of a community as business methods, and when you abolish direct responsibility and neglect the direct support of philanthropic institutions, you kill an important and a vital sentiment —the sentiment of directly doing good towards one’s neighbours. ♦ 4* ♦ Bunday Trams and ** the Continental Sabbath. Though interest in the Sunday tram question is at present confined to Auckland —where opinions do much differ, by the way—it is bound to spread to the other capital cities when once the battle begins to be fought out in real earnest. Holding, as I do, that questions of religion are strictly to be tabooed in “After Dinner Gossip,” I do not propose to set forward a special plea on one side or the other. I certainly believe trams would to some extent encourage churchgoing amongst men, but at the same time think half those who put this forward as a reason for the Sunday service are humbugs, who would not attend church if free carriages were provided from their own doors. The class who would be attracted to church by Sunday trams is the not inconsiderable section who enjoy and require a good, sound, commonsense, helpful and, if possible, eloquent sermon. Now, preachers of such are Tare, but in every city which has raised its population to the height of making Sunday trams payable there is likely to be at least one. Well, say such an one has his church at Epsom. How shall Ponsonby, Parnell, Kingsland, or the city hope to hear him? Sunday trams would solve that difficulty. Moreover, the standard of preaching would be raised. People would go where the sermon was best, and the emptied churches would be bound in defence of their existence to procure better qualified and more capable clergy. But whether this evil would counteract or counter balance the others which the opponents of tho

Sunday tram so eloquently denounce, is a different matter, and one 1 do not propose to argue here. But what I do want to point out is that a very mistaken impression is being put about by persons ignorant of what they are speaking of—the Continental Sunday—in connection with the establishment of the Sunday service. To one who has resided abroad there is something amusing, yet irritating, in the extraordinary exaggerations concerning, we will say, a Parisian Sunday. “Would you have Sunday as in Paris?” I heard a man say not an hour since (in denouncing the proposed service). “All the shops open and everyone working?” Now, here are two direct misstatements. The shops are not all open, and the number of people working is relatively small. The restaurants are open, the ’busses, trams, etc., run, and there are places of amusement open. But the shops, the factories, the business premises are shut, exactly as are our own. I am not going to enter into the question as to whether the French view of enjoying the afternoon and evening of Sunday as a fete day is right or wrong, but certainly I believe in justice being done. That morning mass is attended to as great an extent in Paris as morn ing service in Ixindon few can doubt who have lived in both cities, and there is something very ludicrous and yet irritating in our natural assumption of being the only pious nation on earth.

Seeing: the Fo'nt. A fairly long acquaintance with the-atre-goers in Auckland and other parts of the colony has convinced me that we colonials like our humour broad. If the point be very fine we are apt to miss it, and wonder what the other fellow is smiling at. Most of us would prefer “Alley Sloper’s ’Arf ’Oliday” to “Punch,” or one of the smart American comic journals. Personally, I don’t know much about Alley Slopnr, and don’t even know whether his ’arf ’oliday fell on a Wednesday or a Saturday, or whether he had to engineer a bill through Parliament before he was allowed to enjoy the boon which Mr Seddon is rapidly conferring on us all. But I say “us” somewhat on the same principle that Rudyard Kipling added that pregnant little line in brackets to each verse in “The Vampire”—(“Even as you and I”). When you do that sort of thing you can say a lot of things that you would otherwise hesitate to utter. He was pretty well provided with the wisdom of the serpent was this same Kipling. I say was, because he seems to have lost a lot of it. He is now, and has been for some time, imitating himself, and one cannot get half the pleasure from reading him now as one did some years ago. To return to the subject of humour in colonials. If you desire to test the subject for yourself, you could not do better than step into the theatre occasionally. Of course, if you haven’t a nice sense of humour yourself the test will not be a great success; but we will suppose you have this necessary ingredient for the experiment. Observe closely, and you will be surprised how the delicately thrown shafts of wit miss their mark. It takes a pretty obvious and solid bit of ordnance to penetrate the rampart of Je ne sais quoi with which the colonial is surrounded. Years ago, when the agricultural shows used to be held at Ellerslie, adjoining the racecourse, there used to be a strengthtesting machine, which excited the interest of the yokels. You dealt a wooden block a mighty “swipe” with a mighty hammer, and a small figure jumped up a graduated post, which registered in pounds avoirdupois the worth of your swipe. When a great big hairy drover, with red face, and all the concomitants of a life among the kine, bumped the figure up to the top of the pole, great was the manifestation of pleasure—except on the part of the proprietor, who, if I remember aright, had on such occasions to bestow a bonus on the man of muscle. I don’t know quite how it is, but whenever I hear a joke cracked and appreciated in the theatre, it always reminds me of that scene of the man with the brawny arm and the figure going to the top of the pole with a bump that made the prize bullock move uneasily in his stall. A piece like “The School for Scandal” would not have a ghost of a show (to speak colloquially) if “Why Black Came Home” or “Are You a Plasterer?” were showing in the same town. The thing has to be patent and rollicking before a colonial audienco

hall-marks it. Why, if an actor at Home were to label his jokes as do some of the actors who strut the colonial stage, he would be hissed off the boards. Here we get our humour handed out to us made up into convenient parcels, and “marked in plain figures,” as the bargain sale advertisement saya. Of course, the actors must have found their course of action necessary and popular, but it is not a high tribute to us colonials. They say the last thing a race develops is a sense of humour, bo perhaps our time has not come.

An Knraged Parent. The unintentionally comic letter always has a fascination for me, and I have a fine collection of authentic specimens of the same. The following, which, it is alleged, was forwarded to a reputable New South Wales citizen, is in its way a gem: Dcre Mr. , I heerd you was out stroleing with my Melia Anne on Saterday night, having met her at the raleway station just before the male train left the station, for wich I mean to make you sit up for. Taking a young girl out to the cemetery, wich ain’t a fit place for Melia Anne, who was born a twin at 2 o’clock in the morning on the date, the other poor little girl been dead, and Saturday night been a dark night, my poor dead husband what ain’t cold in the grave if he was alive, having died through having eat too much poisoned sardines, for wich the docter wich was a quack couldn’t cure him. he having been pretty good with his hands, having one time bent Dick Davis, wich was the best man at Bullocky’s Bend, he would make you sit up. and Dick Davis what we called Nosey Dick, because he had wort on his nose, wich my ole man called a beauty spot, it having made Dick wild, if he hadent eat too much of the poisoned tin-fish, wieh having no dinner on that date it made him hungry, and he died quite peaceful! and happy while the quack pumped him with a stumick thing they call a pump, and he having said me ole man was full of beer, wich was a lie, the sardines having poisoned him at 12 o’clock at night on New Year’s morning, he was buried at the Bend, and Dick Davis went to the funeral ns best man, leastways he helped to carry the coffin, wich was heavy, my poor dead husband having been 14 stone in his socks, if he didn’t have ent. the fish he would smash your ugely jore for having taken Melia Ann out on Saterday night, wich was a nice night for a young girl to he stroled about at the cemetery, wich no young girl should be took to, and me a poor lone widow wieh had the twins on the I4th of August, at 2 o’clock in the morning, aint going to have my poor little girl what is too young to go ont taken cut walking by a counter jumper like you, what aint fit to take no decent girl to the cemetery, wich you did. I will take proceedings against you, and if Dick Davis comes over here, for wich I mean Melia Ann to marry, he will make you sit up.—l am your obedient servant, • * * * Rain-Making 1 .

Dr. M’Carthy’s rain-making failure at Broken Hili was being discussed. “It reminds me of a remarkable dream told by Clarson the other night,” said the auctioneer. “You know he was one of the few survivors of that great flood in Johnston City, United States, and is rather fond of talking about it. Well, Clarson dreamt a couple of night ago that he was telling his experiences in heaven, and all save one white-haired old man were impressed by the anecdote. This man simply remarked, 'Bosh!’ Clarson, who is always touchy on the subject, retorted, ‘I don’t care whether you believe it or not—lt’s a fact. About 70 million tons of water fell in 24 hours, and over 50,000 people were drowned. I was one of the few survivors.’ 'Don’t notice the old man,’ whispered a friendly chorister, ‘he’s a little vain on the subjest of heavy floods. That’s Noah.’ ”