Our Contributors.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume V, Issue 463, 31 December 1880, Page 2

Our Contributors.

BROUGHT INTO FOCUS.

(Contributed to the Akaroa Mail.)

The unintelligibility (that's a good word!) of printed official forms is proverbial, and, if the truth was known, is doubtless, one of the principal causes in this over-officialised country of our lunatic asylums being continually replenished with an ever mad'ning crowd. Still, some little degree of discernment and common sense in their deciphering is not unreasonably expected from the general public. The form of registration of a birth is, however, by no means a difficult thing to tackle Yet it was nigh to adding another inmate to Sunnyside in the person of one of the residents of the adjacent bays, and in this manner. McStinger's wife presented him with a youngster. Such things will occur in the best regulated families you know. McStinger accordingly wrote to Kissem,Deputy Kegistrar, Clerk to the Bench, etc., for a registration form whereon to fill in the necessary particulars. Kissem sent the form in due course and the happy father in the midst of an admiring family conclave, sat down to his novel but pleasing task. With arms well squared, head slightly cocked on one side, tongue protruding from the left corner of the mouth and ready to proceed to the opposite corner as thp ren moved on the paper, McSingT acquitted himself right nobly till he came to the headed " Sex." That seemed to puzzV him. He laid the pen down, placed his elbows on ths table, buried his fingers in his hair, and thought deeply—but he failed to grasp what was required of him. At length he gave it up, and in sheer desperation '•' went at it baldheaded." and filled it up with the word " Scotch " Now our parent was born in the particular town above alluded to—but this incongruity of nationality didn't worry him much. It was that word "Sex" which stuck in his gills—his definition of the term didn't satisfy him after all. So as a happy thought he wrote an explanatory letter to the Registrar enclosing the form, and alluding to that nar-

ticular point in these'terms—"ye ken the noo, if the descreeption c Scotch' is na suffeecient, yell whiles add ' Presbyterian faith, working mon/ no doubt that'll be mair expleecit."

If there's one thing more than another I like to bring in to a strong light and focus it is humbug and hypocrisy of any sort and description. Noble undertakings, great and good causes, having for th*»ir foundation most estimable purposes and objects, are very often robbed of that respect and sup port which they would otherwise meet with on all sides by the hypocrisy and humbug unfortunately—or fortunately, perhaps—detected, indulged in by those who are professedly heart and soul in the movement, whatever it may be. The cause of Good Templarism, for instance, is one which every right-thinking man and woman must in their hearts acknowledge to be pre-eminently good and useful, and to be respected for the object it seeks to attain. Yet, the conduct of many—aye (why mince matters ?), of nearly one-half, if not quite that number —of the male members of the order is so double-faced in the most essential respect—temperance—that the contempt and ridicule of the world is excited, instead of nobler sentiments. During my trip to the bays, this fact was made more patent to my understanding. Here is an example from one of them. Two ' brothers of the 1.0. G.T. go up to town ; while there, each independently consumes forbidden drinks, and each is unwittingly spotted by the other when so doing. The brother who returns first to his home is afflicted with a fearful drought from his unaccustomed potations (thank you, Tom Cringle, for the word !), and seeks the local pub., where a pint of colonial is quickly absorbed, the following remark being made by the imbiber : " Ah, I saw Brother in town, swiping, and shall report him next lodge for violating his obligation." They had not been friends, these two ; but I ask you, my 1.0. G.T. alphabetical friends, while such as this goes on, how can you hope to win the world to your cause ? Let your watchword be "HUMBU G," and read it —" Have You Many Brothers Using Gin ? " Some quarterly awakener of this kind may breed watchfulness.

It will not do, really, to examine too closely the motives which underlie certain actions on the part of our public men. This sentence most aptly fits in with regard to the Hon. John Hall, and the way he has treated Akaroa ; but I am not alluding to that disgraceful exhibition. I had in my thoughts the fact that recently, in a small town on the coast of this island, the Mayor, who is a staunch Presbyterian and a most respectable man, a carpenter by trade, occupied the chair in his official capacity at a dissentinp- tea-fight—a kind of " Little Bethel" muffin struggle, you know. It has since transpired that the local chapel belonging to this sect is about to be enlarged, and that " His Worship," in his un-official capacity, has got the contract for the necessary work. Now —can you credit it ? and is it not too bad ?—the people of that small town are poking one another in the ribs and winking slyly, and boasting they can put two and two together as well as anybody else, etc. An elder of the said " Little Bethel " community (also a carpenter) is, more suo, very indignant at this, as he considers it a departure from his natural rights, and threatens to found an original Bethel of his own (on bricks,-of course). Should he do so the sect will soon either be " Mori-bund " or " more abundant" than before. As the original <f Burgess " said in on", of his letters long ago—" 0 tempora ! 0 More{y)s !

ASBESTOS.