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COLONIAL LIONS.

Society at Home must always have somebody to lionise, and it does not matter much whether those whom it delights to honor have white, red, black or yellow skins, or whether their special qualifications are military, diplomatic, artistic or scientific, or all, any, or none of these; all that is necessary is that the fashion of the hour decree t|iat such and such persons shall be the pets of the time 'being, and forthwith everybody vies frith everybody else to show them all Softs ot attention and heap upon them

f favors of every kind. Now the lion o( the day is a distinguished exile like I Louis Kossuth, or an Eastern monarch ablaze with questionable jewels like the Shah of Persia, and then these and such as these give place to an interesting savage like Cetewayo or a semi-

I civilised quasi-potentate like Tawhiao : I and, lastly, the turn of the wheel brings Ito the zenith of public favor those I formerly much-despised and distant I cousins the people of the British I colonies. Time was that the blue I blood of English aristocracy regarded I everything colonial with suspicion, not Ito say contempt, that the people ol Australasia in particular were looked upon as all hailing from Botany Bay, and as of probably questionable antecedents, or at the very least as to be classed with those outer barbarians who under no circumstances could

Jbe permitted to pass the pmi- } leged portals of the acme de la I crime. But nous avons change lout ccla, j and all in a moment the colonist has } become the darling of fashion and the I spoilt child of the day. “ The ColinI deries,” as the Colonial and Indian I Exhibition has been termed and the I Royal favour bestowed upon it, have

j doubtless had something to do with this, but whatever the cause the fact remains that for weeks past the lionising of colonists has been going on in all directions with a vigour and extravagance which may well turn the heads of ■ the fortunate recipients of such marked attentions. Fetes are given in their honor, tours arranged in their behalf, banquets given, adulatory speeches made, ducal mansions thrown open all for their benefit and delectation, nothing is too good for them, they are in a word par excellence the lions of the day. We have said that all this is enough to turn the heads of these sudden pets of Society, and it will be as well for Society to remember that there are colonists and colonists, for we are afraid that the conduct of some of them under these trying circumstances has not been such as to give permanence to the prevailing craze. For example we read that at a recent demonstration in their honor at a certain nobleman’s one of the party,

carried away by the enthusiasm (or should we write the champagne) of the moment, danced a breakdown on the

dining table of his host, and that at

another a number of the guests, impatient at the delay of the summons to a repast scaled, a ladder to the

windows of the banquet-room and urged upon the astonished menials

greater expedition in their preparations. Such contretemps as these must be looked for when Society is indiscrimi-

nate in its favors, and we can only hope that they will not result in its being

presently equally indiscriminate in its condemnation. It is undoubtedly very

gratifying to see that the former unreasoning prejudice against colonists and everything colonial has altogether died out, and haa given place to an appre-

ciation of the value of the colonies and

of the good qualities of colonists

generally, but we cannot help thinking that ourEnglishfriendsare justnovv rush-

ing to extremes in the direction exactly opposite to their quondam prejudices, and that the colonies, and colonists too, will yet suffer a good deal from the consequent and necessary recoil. The whole business has indeed already its comic aspect, as witness the follow-

ing from an account of a reception of colonists at the ancestral halls ot

Bearwood, recently given by Mr Walter, M.P., of the Times. Mr Walter, junior (says the chronicler), “ received them at Woking, whence they were conveyed in various vehicles to the great house. They admired the roses in bloom; they rowed on the lake; they listened to the inspiriting strains of a brass band ; and finally lunched in a marquee, when Sir

Samuel Davenport assured his muchgratified host that the colonists regarded the Times with a veneration shared only

yy the Bible, and that his own particular colony was peculiarly proud of being

:oeval with the existence of Printing

House Square,” and then the account of all these grand doings is wound up with the following delicious paragraph : —“ An improving entertainment on musical glasses followed, and the tenantry and school children were admitted to see the colonists at tea previous to their return to London.” We are not told whether that “ improv-

ing entertainment on musical glasses” is an euphemistic way of hinting at the clinking of tumblers and of champagne magnums, but the admitting of the tenantry and school children to see the lions fed caps the whole business. There is a delicate sense of propriety in inviting the inspection while the colonists were at tea , for we cannot help the suspicion that a careful prevision had dictated that it might not have been expedient that the lions should be on view while at dinner, lest here and there one should be detected in the enormity of eating with his knife, to the scandal of the host and to the utter demoralisation of the rising generation.— Mail.

Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/AG18860821.2.28

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1321, 21 August 1886, Page 3

Word count
Tapeke kupu
950

COLONIAL LIONS. Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1321, 21 August 1886, Page 3

COLONIAL LIONS. Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1321, 21 August 1886, Page 3

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