Our Contributors.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume V, Issue 495, 12 April 1881, Page 2

Our Contributors.

EXHIBITION LKTTKKS.

(By Gaknkt Walcii.).

Temporal} , silence—Surmises—The true cause—On the operating table—Cele- \ rated excuses—A speculative scouridiel —A horological swindle —An honest juror—The Ued Cross and its victories — The Art of advertising.

Mea culpa. Mea machna culpa ! —I may as well make a clean breast of it, tell the truth and shame—myself. You have been languishing, sweet readers, for the mental refreshment, cheering but not inebriating, to which you have lately been accustomed. You have pined for the want of your epistolary " Vigorine," that doublydistilled essence of veracity, so bracing to the system. You have felt, confess it, utterly unhinged and miserable, and not even the latest local scandal could act as a tonic in the absence of your favorite Exhibition letters. And this is all my fault. Of a verity I feel humbled and contrite in your presence, can but acknowledge my backsliding, and sue most lustily for forgiveness.

And the cause—t'le cause of it all ?— Listen !—I have not been saturating my soul with Ozonic Nepenthe at Sorrento Queenscliff, or Lome. I have not been devoting every spare minute to the perusal of the forty-three competitive dramas for the Hamiltonian £250 prize. I have not been coaching Jack Gardiner in bis forthcoming great speech on the Differential Calculus in its relations to the Protoplasmic Theory, I have not been preparing the Rev. Mr Strong's defence against the gathering thunderstorm of Presbyterian orthodoxy. I have not been doing a bit of lay preaching on my own account, " super "-ing at the lloyal, laying down wood pavement in Collins street, selling walnuts on the side-walk. I havo not been lured from the paths of journalistic rectitude by any Will-o'-the-Wisp prospectus of a new newspaper, ■ offering gigantic terms to all and sundry who choose to follow it through bog and mire to the ultimate slough of Bankruptcy. I have not been closeted with Graham Berry, dictating his futnre line of policy. I have not been with Service in the Peshawur as far as King George's Sound. I have not made a fortune in shares or a failure in an Emasculated lieform Bill. I have not joined either the Great Majority or the Moribund Ministry. I have not been in gaol for murdering the Queen's English, richly as I may huve deserved it—or in the hospital through a fracture of any of the ten commandments. What then has absorbed my time—what has prevented me from the labor I so love, my weekly chat with frionds from glacier-throned

New Zealand to the torrid shores of Carpentaria? Simply and solely this—l have sated the revengeful thirst of " mine enemy," whoever he may be ; I have laid myself calmly, gracefully, on the operatii g* table of the great kill or cure Ecole de Vivisection; I have bared my manly breast to the fleams of the assembled of critics, and, Heaven help tne, am prepared for the result. In plain language, sweet readers mine, I have published a book, and the final touches thereof have cost me both time and anxiety. Not wishing to be accused of using this column as an advertising medium. I refrain from further particulars; but there is now my Excuse ! impugn it whoso list. I think the above genuine statement h 1 more creditable than, if not so witty the alliterative excuse tendered to the public by a celebrated English writer, who, on resuming the chapters of his story after a long interval, informed his readers that his silence was attributable to " a little love, a Httle law, and a great deal of '-'—> liquor;" or to the more elaborate explanation of the French journalist, whose "excess of emolion at the decease ot a muchbeloved mother-in-law" kept him away from work and necessitated a trip to the gamingtables of Baden-Baden, " whereat,' he added, " I long sought in vain to allay my acute sorrow by alternately plunging my soul in the fiery flood of rouge and the Stygian stream of hoir." My remarks, in a recent letter, about cheap jewellery have received considerable emphasis by the bursting of the Rodanow Watch Company bubble, so thoroughly exposed by the Argus. The price-list of this supposed company, emanating from a single speculative scoundrel in America, ofEered solid silver-cased lever watches jewelled, with monogram engraved, spare mainsprings, glasses, and keys, and a written guarantee for three years, at 17s each ; 18-carat gold watches at £2 ss, and so on. So plausibly were the advertisements worded, so much stress laid on the fact that the firm " was established in 1849," and had since gained prize medals at all the great Exhibitions, and such caution was exhibited in the matter of remittances " or reference to a Boston house, , ' that many, I fear, have been gulled into sending money to America for these impalpable time-keepers. It is to be hoped that they (the dupes) and one and all of us will profit by the lesson, and that hence • forth the respectable local firms will bo patronised at their legitimate prices, and foreign rogues left to expend their cunning on the desert air. Better pay £5 for a serviceable watch, however plain and devoid of extra jewels, than remit half that amount across the rolling seas in chase of ft ghost of a ticker, a horological Mrs Arris, a watch not made with hands, fictitious, in the clouds. I wonder if (-Jeorge Collins -Levey, C.M.G., etc., etc., is agent for any American watch firms?

Another swindle, just exposed by the Argus, is the manner in which one o£ the jurors in the section " Stationery, Printingand Books " sought to upset the awards.of hie fellow-jurors by refusing at lirst to vote in their presence, and afterwards furtively adding a series of '• noughts," in order to reduce the total average of the awards. As I, personally, am quoted by the Argus as one of the victims, and as the injustice really is more glaringly apparent as regards my exhibit than in any of tho other cases, I take this opportunity of thanking the gentlemen of the jury in the .said only Mr Oliver Levey, brother of Mr George Collins Levey, C.M.G.—for their honorable conduct in declining to accept the slilyaffixed, and palpably spileful, vote of their high-minded colleague. As for Judas himself—poor, remoisefi't Judas—for lam sure ho must be sorry now he is found out —he can seek conso'ation either after the historical fashion or in the society of his noble kinsman. Oh ! Chebomine! The awaids have all been made, and there is the usual six of satisfaction and half-a-dozen of disappointment. Amongst the principal prize-takers I am glad to see the lied Cross Company, who bear off chief honors for pickles, sauces, and preserves. I do not forget my promise to give some day a description of the operations carried on by this company. I looked in a short time ago for the purpose, and j found no less than the Earl and Countess of Ellesmere and Lord Hervey^ppp^s'"* going over the works. lam told tliOT4hey were highly pleased with all they saw, and made favorable comparisons between the Ked Cross and other similar factories in the old country. It speaks well for the J practical common sense of our aristocratic visitors that they should appreciate our manufacturing, industries, and not allow j the giddy maelstrom of society to absorb them altogether. The application of the Fine Arts to that still finer Art, the Art of Advertising, is every day becoming more and more fashionable—note the admirable little pictures re Eno's Fruit Salt, drawn by Adelaide Claxton, and published in many "" of our leading papers. Note also a comical cut of " Before and After," illustrative of tho beneficial effects of Poulton's Electro- *j Chemical Baths. I thought at first that it represented an individual who had partaken freely of the Van Yean liquid mud, and the same countenance after a refreshing draught of " Mount Maccdon " spring water, which, by the way, is now being sold in Melbourne in large quantities, much to the delight of all who detest tho fluid filth that ilow9 from our^taps.