ECHOES OF THE WEEK

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XII, Issue 733, 24 March 1904, Page 15

ECHOES OF THE WEEK

(By

“Ithuriel.”)

T loved Clorinda, that’s a fact, There cannot be a doubt about it, Until I met dear Marguerite, And then—well there’s no need to shout

I worshipped her —I did indeed, I asked her to become my own, Then little Phyllis crossed my path (Excuse me if I give a groan). Sweet Phyllis shall I e’er forget ? She held me captive for a year, And then came Fanny, tall and slight (Forgive me if I shed a tear). We went to Brighton and to Cannes, We went to other spots as well, And then it happened that I met The dear, delightful Isabelle. I vowed I’d be her slave for life (I really meant it, ’pon my word). But fate put Moyra in the way. And then —it really sounds absurd — I didn’t keep my plighted troth (She’s married now and twice a mother), For then came May and Sue, and now I’m on the lookout for another.

Anything’ about Bedford, the “ boy orator ” and prohibitionist Member for Dunedin City, is interesting. Mr Bedford recently started on a trip round the world, concerning which “ Civis, in the “ Witness,” has this to say : — “It was fitting, as I remarked at the time, that Mr Bedford, having been born and bred in Dunedin, and having been elected at an early age to represent Dunedin in Parliament, should be sent during vacation on the grand tour. It was desirable that he should see men and cities, enlarging and correcting his ideas, investigating the round world for him-

self. In quite the early stage of his travels Mr Bedford has discovered Honolulu and the Hawaii archipelago. He has a descriptive letter in Tuesday’s Daily Times,’ and I have met with nothing, of similar interest since the voyages of Captain Lemuel Gulliver. Respecting the Japanese, who in Hawaii are 60,000 strong, Mr Bedford has been informed that ‘ the Jap is little more than an anthropoid ape.” He imitates Western civilisation, but misses its ‘ central ideas ’ —such an idea, for example, as the plug-hole. Similarly, I suppose, with a magazine rifle, and a Russian in front of it the Jap, such is his intelligence, would as soon point with the butt as with the muzzle. Then we have the Hawaiians themselves and their Parliament. It has been moved in the Hawaiian Parliament that the 20th parallel of north latitude be made to pass through the city of Honolulu. A Bill has been introduced ‘ to dispense with the ebb of the tide, on account of the convenience to shipping of having a tide- always at the flood.’ Then ‘ four whole days have been spent in acrimonious debate on the manner of spelling the word “ forty ” ’ —a valuable hint to New Zealand stonewallers. Alto-o-ether, with one or two additional touches —the weaving of cobwebs into silk and the making of ’sunbeams out of cucumbers —Mr Bedford’s account of Haiwaii might be Laputa and Gulliver s Travels over again.”

How sorrowing to literary, and sporting men in particular is the story of the gifted, brave, but ill-starred Adam Lindsav Gordon. On June 23, 1870, he called on his publishers to know how his book of splendid verse was- going. He came away with only the £3O bill for publication in his pocket and a numb sense of hopelessness in his heart, as he turned into Collins-street, Melbourne, like one in a troubled dream. Luckily he met Marcus Clarke, and Marcus met a man who was “ good for half-a-sov.” A joyful hour or two followed, and later on Gordon met Kendall, and the pair spent a couple of cheerful hours in the “Argus” hotel,-as.., cheerful as could be expected, for both were miserably poor, and incapable . of fighting the dire battle of life. Going home alone in the train to Brighton, however, poor Gordon could think of nothing but. his debts, the imaginary disgrace, the dreary outlook, and the dark clouds of despair rolled heavier as the dark hours flew by, until the Wintry daybreak came, and then, after kissing the sleeping wife he loved so well, he took his rifle, strolled out to the bush, and

some hours after a bushman came( across him—dead. Most truly he described his own life as

A little season of love and laughter. Of light and life, of pleasure and pain ; TV horror of outer darkness hereafter, And dust returneth to dust again.

Why he and many other gifted Australians have had to die such a terrible death (remarks “ Boondi,” in the Sydney “ Referee,”), is a question their alleged “ friends ” will have some trouble to answer with any degree of satisfaction to themselves

A popular, and not very scrupulous, preacher, when he was venturing a remark about which he was not very certain, used to preface it with the words—- ’“ As a learned Divine has said.” If he found it went down, he gave it next time without any guarantee of good faith. This is like some of our politicians, who make references to “economic law,” and quote the authority of great names for the views they are setting forth. No one takes the trouble to verify their references, and so they hoodwink the public, and finally hoodwink themselves.