A MODEL ADDRESS.

Dunstan Times, Issue 196, 27 January 1866, Page 3

A MODEL ADDRESS.

Sympathising deeply with the candidates whose necessities have forced them into soliciting the support of the various constituencies, and knowing how much the preparation of the addresses must have taxed their limited powers. Mr Punch has prepared a common form, which, with very slight modifications, may serve the turn of the majority of those ambitious gentlemen who desire to become legislators, and, as it may turn out, ministers. Knowing, as Mr Punch does, how closely the sentiments of one candidate resemble those of another, he has been a great deal surprised at the great variety of style and difference in the mode of Repression to be found in the addresses. Knowing also the financial extremities to which some of «the candidates are driven, he has wondered a little they have not clubbed together, and subscribed to a common advertisement. Here is one now which would suit some dozens :—" To the Electors of , Gentlemen, —

We, the undersigned, having no opinions whatever, and being desirous only of procuring our own profit and aggrandisement, ask you to send us into Parliament free of expense. On the various questions of the day, we may say in confidence that we do not care one pin for the Constitution, the tariff, the Upper or the Lower House. We have a single motive, namely to take care of ourselves, and you will find us at all times conscientiously advocating any policy which works to that end. As to the Laud Bill, speaking in the vernacular, the Laud Bill be blowed! We don't want any land, and we don't know anybody who does. At the samel time, if it is necessary, in order to secure our election, to eulogise Mr Grant and the Land Bill, we eulogise him and it accoi'dingly. We see nothing wrong in Mr Higinbotham's having administered a cuff to the Judges. We don't like Judges and never did, because it is exceedingly likely that sonic of us will some day come into close proximity with them. The collection of Customs' dues without the sanotion of the law we think rather a clever dodge. We have each of us an instinctive desire to evade the law, and we think it a manifest advantage to have Mr. Francis at the head of the Customs' Department, inasmuch as he comes from a part of the colonies where evasion of the law must have been tolerably familiar to a great majority of the population. As to Bramwell, we only wish he would give us the chance of confessing judgment to forty thousand pounds; wouldn't we confess 1 that's all. We shall go in for the immediate passing of a measure for payment of members; item, another measure for repealing the act which renders membei-s of Parliament ineligible to hold offices of profit under the Crown ; item, such a revision of the Constitution as shall make it obligatory on the part of the Governor to entirely change the Ministry every month, so as to give every man a chance. We wish it to be understood, that you will have to pay the entire cost of this election, as we are all hard up; and that nobody must expect us to shout at any time.—Your obedient servants, (here follow the signatures-)"—" Melbourne Punch."

The Aurora Borealis Explained.— A scientific gentleman in Illinois thus gives the origin of this celestial visitor: — '• "When the molofygistic temperature of the horizon is. such as to calorcise the impurient indentation of the hemispheric analogy, the cohesion of the borax carbistus becomes surcharged with infinitesimals, which are thereby deprived of their fissural disquisitions. This effected, a rapid change is produced in the thermabumpter of the gya-sticutis palerium, which causes a convalculor in the hexagonal antipathies of the terrestrium acquaverusli. The clouds then become a mass of deodornmized specula? of cermocular light, which can only be seen when it is visible."

Selections fob a Newspaper.—A contemporary justly remarks: —" Most people j think the selection of matter for a newspaper the easiest part of the business. How great an error! It fc by all means the most difficult. To look over hundveds of exchange papers every week, from which to select. If every person who reads a paper could have edited it, we should hear less complaints. Not unfrequently is it the case that an editor looks all over his exchange papers for something interesting and can absolutely find nothing; every paper is drier than the contribution box, and yet something is to be had. His paper must come out with something in it, and he does the best he can. To an editor who lias the least care about what he selects, the writing he has to do is the easiest part of his labor. Every subscriber takes the paper for his own benefit, and if there is nothing in it that suits him it must be stopped, it is good for nothing. Just as many subscribers as an editor may have, so many tastes he has to consult. One wants something sound. One wants anecdotes, fun, and frolic, and a next door neighbor wonders that a man of good sense will put such stuff in the paper. Something spicy comes out, and the editor is a blackguard. Next comes something argumentive, and the editor is a dull fool. And so, between them all, you see, the poor fellow is roughly handled. They never think that what does not pleasethempleases the next man ; but they insist, if the paper does not please them, that it is good for nothing."