Old Grumble Compares the different Candidates

Feilding Star, Volume VI, Issue 14, 12 July 1884, Page 3

Old Grumble Compares the different Candidates

• Mr Editor, I was sitting dejected ar - miserable last night, asT am not ailowc to grumble at home now, and I felt n genius rusting ...within me, when yo* paper came in. I glanced at it, and as did so a pleasure rested on my venerab - face, causing the wrinkles on it to ro 'ike ocean waves, aud my nose became a illuminated lighthouse. I had now tw candidates speeches before me, au ; thought I would compare them, so bega ■ with Douald Fraser. After reading h .policy, I decide that his intentions ai honourable, hut thoroughly useless, for li .knows no more how to put them hit execution than a sucking duck. H thinks some scheme might be provide) ' Ac., but_is.be provided with one? N< he. Then what is the earthly use < telling us what might he done if he can -show us how to do it? His next origir . ality is, gazetting impounded cattle at tli schools, that the children may be able t inform their despondent parents. Pshaw I can improve on that. Drive the beasl there. Ihe children will be able t recognise them. At the same time ; ahall be part of the teacher's duty t itdmonish the truant brutes. His way c disposing of , the education question i unique. He would have both -secuia and denominational, that is if he coul get 'the two for the same price as is nopaid for the one. Not had that. Mr (jfrumble admires the idea much, am wishes Bhe could get the storekeepers t do it. Lastly, he objects to the railway being managed by a noo-political board 1 was wondering why, when the answe earner It Would look as though we hai no confidence in the Ministers. Piddle stiilrsJ 'who cares how it looks. Donald you may be polity but you are impolite to ralhjer railways ., to cbniiriui to be bungled than offend a .Minister, bu I will let you off mildly, tor I believe yoi are-hbhestybufyou'show ybiirselc to bi but a .novice, where-' Macarthur is i master. We must have a-niafi of abilitj to represent us, which you are not. As for Arkwright, if his friends, like Bruce'-., hare his interest at heart, they will adrise him to retire, for they each have erected such a rotten platform that il they persist in standing on it they will fall through and break their political necks. I am surprised at Bruce, being a sailor, belieying that partiality is productive of harmony — how would favouritism act in the forecastle. Why Mrs Grumble knows better than that; ha* done so ever since she tried to pacify c little Grumble who was crying for aome <jam by filling its" mouth with it. It certainly silenced that one, but it immediately set the others clamouring to be served the same, nor ■would they be appeased, although 1 •offered to read to them " Harvey's Medi. tations Among the Tombs." I had at last te display my authority, which I did with the sternness of a Homan parent, while imitating the Grecian rulers by .gracefully waving that emblem of authority, the sceptre — I used my walk injj stick for the sceptre — when somehow it dropped upon Mrs Grumble's head Even then my splendidly regulated mind enabled me to proceed, calm and undisturbed as the puddle outside my door (I wish to draw the attention of the Borough Council to this beautiful simile), and I said, " Mrs Grumble, if my children do not like what is provided for them, let th*m go without." But I don't think she heard me, for by this time she had her head and ears bandaged np with a towel and was leadiag all the juvenile Grumbles in a howiiug concert- She has not forgotten it, nor allows me to, tor sho often shows me the scar, when I remark it was favoritism that caused it. There is a tail tb adorn a moral. I use it to show Arkwright and Bruee-r-weak politicians both — " that corruption wins not mere than honesty." Let them imitate the straightforward and statesmanlike policy of Macarthur, and, like him, " be ju»t and fear not," and make Old Grumble's 1 nobleness of soul and actions their guide. 'Ol© Gbumble.