WITHIN THE COMMONWEALTH

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLII, Issue 13, 31 March 1909, Page 49

WITHIN THE COMMONWEALTH

Music on Wheel*. /ATA USIC has all sorts of devotees, ill from the Marshall Hall orehesA I f tra to thetin-kettlers who get J shots fired at them. But I saw a band the other night which for downright novelty fairly capped anything in my exprience. It was a cyclists’ band, and tiie musical instruments consisted of mouth organs and bones. There were four bone experts, and their bones were actually tuned to treble, alto, baritone, and bass. The mouth organists rode in the centre. They numbered about sixteen, and" the bones men were at each corner of the square. The noise they made was musical, but that is all that can be said for it. Still, there must be a lot of music in the souls of .these young men to cause them to come together and make up a band of that sort. Old Women Tramps. An old bush battler, generally known as "Mirboo Meg,” recently passed out in the Wandin Valley. Her age was somewhere about 70. She knew the backblocks from Gippsland to the Gulf probaldy as well as any overlander. She was supposed to be dotty, but in her travels, always on foot, she would accept no food without working for it. Her life story centred round an only son, who left her alone in her humpy at North Mirboo what time he went shearing. He sent her money for a couple of years; then, suddenly—silence. After a weary wait, “Meg” rolled up a swag, and started out to look for her lost laddie, following supposed clues constantly. But the game old woman never solved the mystery of his disappearance. She was still following a clue .when rheumatic fever dropped her by the wayside, blind and completely worn out. She had kept the track of her vain search for seventeen years. Let us hope that she will have better luck “over on the other side.” Meg’s wanderings remind one of another bush battler —Granny Whiteaway, of Tasmania. The old dame was an expert needlewoman, but she hated the four walls of a house as a brumby hates a bridle. She sewed her way around and across and (all over Tasmania, froni farm to farm or station to station, time after time, always camping in the open if possible, and it was she who first told a newspaper man that Tassy was so small that she was awful feared she might fall off it in her sleep. The last I knew of the old woman was at the Launceston Hospital, says a Melbourne Writer. Granny had been sick almost unto death, and some well-meaning society ladies secured a berth for her in tlie Benevolent Asylum. Growm convalescent, however, Granny would have none of it. “They want to cage me up! They want to cage me up!” was her constant plaint to other patients. “But I'm not too old to work; I’m not too old to -work,” she would add (she was 74). They did not cage her up, for when the ladies called to remove her, Granny was not to be found. The patients had made a collection to see her comfortably on her way, and the old gipsy had contrived the rest.

Melbourne Welcomes Melba. Melba’s reception at the Melbourne railway station was more like a riot than a welcome. I am sure that the dominant note in Melba’s thoughts as she was “received” by the horde of women who fought and struggled all round her was D natural. She smiled, and tried to look pleased, but there was a lot of the old Nellie Melba peering out and just on the point of turning round and saying blistering things to the v crowd. I know of few things more undignified for a woman than to have her hat knocked out of position, so that it drops down over one’s ear and tilts down on to the nose at its own sweet will. Melba's hat was affected that way, and she could not right it. It gave her a leery, won’t-go-home-till-morning sort of air. i would give a good deal to know what she really felt like, and what she would have said if she dared. Mrs. Peterson’s white-robed angel choir was horribly disappointed. They were all drawn up at one end of the platform ready to break out in a top C when Mrs. Peterson waved the baton. Of course, Madame arrived a quarter of a mile, away from the choir, and the top C was never let go. It would have been lovely if Mrs. Peterson had started her ehoir off just the same. Then the crowd would not have rushed Madame. Depraved Young Australia ! At any rate, we can always look for* something entertaining from the Australasian Women’s Association conference, says “Punch,” The lady members of these new turbulent bodies are excellent at discovering obvious evils and suggesting extraordinary remedies. During the recent sitting Mrs Henderson, representing Flemington, moved—“ That, in order to suppress the gambling evil in boys, all cards be prohibited in cigarette packets.” The lady put her idea with great gravity. She was quite convinced in its utility, and satisfied that she had put a remedial finger on a shocking abuse. - She had touched the spot, so to speak. Combinations of female reformers do not often exhibit a commanding sense of humour, and this conference accepted Mrs Henderson and her astonishing reform witff the utmost seriousness. Mrs Triggs, of North Melbourne, recognised the colossal nature of the evil. She knew the boys gambled with the cards. The dirty curds disseminated disease, too. Another lady echoed this. The gambling instinct was inherent in Australians. The very youngest children say “I bet you.” The motion calling for the Suppression of cigarette cards was carried unanimously. This is simply delicious. The conference gave no thought to the fact that boys played in precisely the same way with a score of other articles before “cigers,” as they are called, came in, just as they will continue to gamble With something or another when the association has succeeded in destroying these wicked cards. Writer remembers the time when the craze for match-box tops was just as strong among boys as the craze for “cigers” is now. Why does not the association clamour for a bill for the suppression of match-box tops?

Then came a boom in obliterated stamps. Every boy had a collection of stamps, and there were half a score of more or less gambling games with stamps for stakes. There are button crazes, too. and when the button madness is on the button represents wealth to your small boy, and he wants buttons early and late, and will gamble for them like a mad Asiatic. The button boom may come on again at any moment, so, for heaven's sake, let us awake, arise, and secure the immediate suppression of buttons and the extermination of stamps. S> <s> <S> Mildura's Clubs. During the couple of hours’ wait before breakfast the new-ehum will have ample time to look for an hotel: he won’t find one, of course, because Mildura is a no-license settlement (says’ 1 Sydney "Telegraph” writer, in an articW on.' the well known Victorian fruitgrowing district). A large coffee palace /<fiite*.cfose to the station "provides meals and beds to travellers, and quite recently this place has been granted a wine license; but for the rest, if one must have a nobbier, well, he must belong to one of the three clubs, or have a friend who belongs to one. The clubs are: The Mildura, which is the oldest and quietest; the Settlers’, and the

Working Man’s, which latter is one off the show places of the township. Th* new building, which occupies a prominent position in the main avenue, cost between £ 4000 and £ 0000. It is well-fur-nished, contains bathrooms, card rooms, a magnificent billiard-room with three large tables; and last, but not least, by, far the largest bar of any hotel in Victoria. The membership runs into about SOO, at an annnal subscription of 5/, with a small entrance fee. So that the revenue must come from the beer; and in this connection it is stated that the club keeps a reserve of 100 casks in its cellar*, lest anything should happen to the regular supplies en route. On Saturday, nights seven barmen are hardly sufficient to cope with the demand for liquid refreshment. I understand that all three clubs are subject to this restriction—• that members must not take away with them to their homes or elsewhere more than one bottle of whisky or a dozen bottles of beer per diem; but, judging by appearances, the township suffers no discomfort from this limitation. It is hard, of course, for a casual visitor to estimate the consumption per head of population in a settlement like Mildura. but, roughly speaking, it would be very little different from the average township where hotels are permitted. In justice to Mildura. it should be stated that the clubf are invariably well-conducted.

(According t-o Mr- Dea kin's own speeches, he is very dissatisfied with this Parlia ment. He wants one that will give him absolute and unquestioning Alf Dakin: “Twas a sad day for Australia to put me in this dirty position. ’Tisn’t for meself I care at all at all; it’s for poor Australia—me helpless cou»try.”—"Melbourne Punch.”