AN ALLEGORICAL PICTURE.

Evening Star, Issue 3018, 21 October 1872, Page 2

AN ALLEGORICAL PICTURE.

Mr Gillies, a few nights ago, compared Mr Vogel to a gambling spendthrift, who had-wooed a beautiful neiress, and, after spending her fortune, deserted her, This was the Treasurer’s reply “ It would be recollected that he supposed an heiress (the Colony) had contracted a matrimonial alliance with a profligate person, who had gambled away her substance, and who, he led them to believe, would have to seek “fresh fields and pastures new.” This was but half the story. To make it complete, he (Mr Vogel) must go back some time, it appeared that before the heiress contracted her matrimonial alliance, the gentleman who became her husband hart the management, under the appointment of her parents and guardians, of her property. It was in consequence of the satisfaction they felt with his management that the more intimate relation was contracted. But there was another candidate for the management of the property—an W •conditioned, narrow-minded fellow. possessed of smn* ability, but vindictive as a Corsican, and with the temper of a demon. This person was always bragging about his worldly success and his inteiest in the country, and sneering at those he supposed to bo less richlv endowed. Well, it transpired that it was be who had spread the reports respecting the ill-management of the estates, and who tried to come between the husband and the he’ress and her guardians. His (the illconditioned person’s) notion of the management of estates was to keep an old stocking and a teapot, and to deposit in them all the little amounts he could scrape from the hardworked Treasury, and not to expend a s ipence on the improvement of the estates. But the husband, more far-seeing, considered that expenditure on the estates increased their value ; and accordingly he devised carefully-prepared plana for increasing the number of the occupants on the estates, for the construction of railways and other large works, and for subsidising the occupants, who themselves spent money in opening up roads on the property. These measures of improvement the ill-conditioned person cabed gambling and rioting ; and in an evil hour he persuaded a smalt majority of tbe parents and guardians that such was the character of the measures, and after a great deal of difficulty he succeeded in obtaining charge of the property. It was due to the heiress to say that she was true to her bushand from fir.-rt to last. The ill-conditioned person, on taking charge, devoted himse f to trying to find out faults in the manager whom he had succeeded. He spread about all sorts of rumors, and he seriously offended the occupants, not only by withdrawing the aid offered them towards making their roads, hut by twitting thorn with n want of independence and self reliance in accipting such aid. Twenty-eight days were sufficient to convince the parents and guardians of the mistake they had made ; and at tbe end of that time they summarily dismissed him.

Such was his assurance, however, that on the very same evening he came back to the parents and guardians full of spleen, with a long list of aspersions against the magnanimous rival whom he had temporarily displaced. But the parents and guardians had had enough of the ill conditioned person. The husband was reinstated, much to the joy of the heiress ; and the very parents and guardians who for a time had credited the libels against him, most rejoiced at his return. The story ends as these stories generally do : the good were happy, the had character received his deserts. The heiress and her husband lived happily ever after; the parents and guardians continued to repose more contidence in the man of their selection, and every year their belief in bis integrity was more and more confirmed. The ill-conditioned person continued t> try to sow mischief, but no one would listen to him , He moved about from place to jdace, everywhere detested , until at last the generous person he had endeavored to injure ivas the only one who had a kind w6rd for him . The parents and guardians are the members of this House.” Of Mr Vogel’s speech, from which the above is au extract, our correspondont writes : “As delivered, it was a perfect treat and excited loud laughter ; that part of it n which 1 e illustrated the case between himself and Mr Oillie was too good, and brought down a round of applause. The speech was quite a Bijou in its way, and raised the villainous temper of a Rolleston and a Stafford. The first named gentleman is a peculiarly disagreeable man, with very mean ways about him, vain as a peacock, and empty as a shuttlecock, and not to be compared in the same breath with a Stafford.”