IN THE GALLERY.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3756, 30 July 1883, Page 2

IN THE GALLERY.

All tho week I havo boon thinking of that dog of whom we read "he sat at tho rich man's tabic waiting for tho crumbs." Very similar has been the fate of correspondents this week. They have sat weary hours over the heads of those to whom they look for intelligence —stirring intelligence that will suit the gentle public—but they have hungered in vain. TII3 public must be supplied ; there is a demand, and as such it must be attended to. Is it any wonder that correspondents, with lively gifts of imagination, who see through glasses which are not dark —on important subjects thoy aro groen—should give way to those imaginations, and dish up for the edification of tlie gentle public rumours which they sometimes never hoar, rumours whioh thoy sometimes know to be falso, and rumours which they sometimes know have been contradicted. The temptation, I admit, is great. But a special correspondent should have two essentials—which in reality are one—accuracy and rcliabilty. I have tried to sot them "before me and endeavored to adhere to them. Hence at times my correspondence has lacked the brilliancy of the heated imagination, hence it is that I have never been a circulator of rumours Any intelligence I have forwarded I have always had somo good substantial ground for believing in its accuracy and truth. AVell, that is getting away from the point. I cannot make bricks without— well, I won't dish up that old jam; onehalf of my readers would think it stale, the other half probably wonder at the strangeness of the materials employed. This week was to have been a week of brilliant debate, Sir George Grey and Mr Montgomery had both motions which were sure to provoke good discussions— both would bo treated as want of confidence motions, and, therefore, wires would be stirring. AYe would have had tho Major on his high horse, which he rides well; wo would have heard something of the unborn New Zealander, andwewouldhaYehadsomc whining from Mr Montgomery, but all this has been denied us. The one would not come to tho scratch, and the others agreed to postpone, so what have I to fall back upon ? Nothing, absolutely nothing. Perhaps the most amusing thing of all to an outsider who is actually an insider is the number of petitions which flood in. AVhat object they serve I know not, except to fill the wastepapcr basket. Aro members altogether blameless in this little matter. I am afraid not. I have the fancy that tho wirepullers of tho members aro responsible for very many of those effusions. That they are useless thoy must and clo know, and excepting getting the member's names in the records fulfil 110 object whatever. I agree with Colonel Trimble if members told their constituents, as he says he docs, that not one petition in ten is of any use, the time of the country would not bo taken up in this useless manner. Questions are nearly in the same category. Members, whose speaking capabilities aro not up to much, manage, by a judicious numbers of questions, to keep themselves constantly before tho notice of their districts, and at the same time fill up Hansard, as well as occasionally finding a paragraph for some Knight of the Pencil. This week I have left the debates severely alone ; it is no use my digging up dry bones, more especially as those bones never wore covered with decent fat, so in tho hope that something may be heard worth recording next week, I must now leave alone the Gallery.