SLIPPERY PATHS.

Evening Star, Volume VII, Issue 2080, 5 January 1870, Page 2

SLIPPERY PATHS.

( To the Editor of the Evening Star.) Sir, — I was about to make offer to you of a lengthy article I have for some time been engaged upon, in reference to the undeveloped resources of the Colonial fisheries, more especially directing the attention of our local speculators to the eihaustless mine of living wialth along our own shores, and within reach of even the small capitalist, where joint capital and co-operation form their regulating principle; but an unsparing critic, who has been subjecting some of my writings to the mos; rigorous analytical examination—critic self-constituted, and decision infallibly true and dual—condemns my style as being of the kind which ought, along with its author, to be hunted out of the province of literature without the benefit of clergy. I am convicted of nearly all the literary sins a man could be guilty of. lam told that I am suggesting the feasibility of unfeasible ideas—of resuscitating theories which have been long since “exploded” and “settled”—that my writing bears the same relation to legitimate composition as a Turkey carpet bears to a picture ! There are colors in the carpet out of which a picture might be formed, and in my writings there are ideas out of which a sensible article might be framed, but they are not put together upon the exact methodical principles my critical friend most approves, and hence I give a representation of nothing,' I suppose it is the common reward of most people who would venture in any sense to perform the delicate operation of removing the cataract off the mental visual organs of another to be turned outside in themselves for their very pains, and be dismissed summarily as an intellectual insignificance My essay, therefore, upon the accessible treasures along our shores shall, for the present, be laid upon the shelf, and it may improve by the keeping. I shall, in its stead, suggest a very different matter, and if the suggestion should not have the recommendation of making up anyone’s purse, it may be instrumental in saving somebody’s bones. I have never heard why or how “ Breakneck Hill,” so well known in Dunedin, came by that strange name—whether anyone ever dislocated his neck by coming down headlong from the top of it; or if it was merely because it appears so romantically dangerous and precipitous looking in its natural conformation. Whether or not, it matters little or it matters a great deal. Names are symbols for things, and symbols are symbols of realities which may bo of serious consequence. I have no doubt there must have been some serious reason for the very graphic name. It makes a stranger ascending the hill for the first time pause and put a question, and take special notice of the secure fencework which stands between him and danger. There is a reason for everything. There are lots of people living up there, who have the best of reasons for knowing that if ever the name of Breakneck Hill was deserved, it is not so now. But there are some other portions of the neighbourhood not yet blameworthy of reproach for accidents of any moment, but I would respectfully direct attention to their dangerous unprotected condition, calling loudly for a fence before some serious breaking of necks does take place. It seems some eminent surgeons have discovered a novel application of electricity for the restoration to life of persons whose heads have been cut off 1 by this agency and puffery, they can not only restore life but mend the whole incision. We need not however wait to try such experiments. The public road from the Waikari toll-bar down to the old grave yard opposite the Robin Hbod, ought to be fenced the whole of that distance. Any one acquainted with driving or riding over that portion in a dark night, or even in winter or in wet weather during (lay, knows the great liability there is to a precipitate departure down into the gully. The road is narrow and turns at different sharp curves, and as the traffic upon it is very considerable, it would be very considerate of the authorities were they to expend a few pounds in the erection of a three railed fence for the common safety, before the winter sets in. _ . As this is a bond fide practical subject, which neither the rules of syntax nor prosody can gainsay, and in which the reader is likely to concur as cordially as the writer, perhaps you will give it a corner in your paper,—T am, &c., , Euphrates.