Old Grumble ON THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS

Feilding Star, Volume VI, Issue 69, 20 November 1884, Page 3

Old Grumble ON THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS

*• New Zealand has accomplished the first stage of her national life-that of subjugating the rude savages and hostile tribes who dwelt upon the land-and now enters upon that era when the arts and sciences make progress -when stately buildings and substantial edifices spring up to become, as years roll on, objects of national interest in their connections with the past. When we of to-day shall hare p.issed away, and future generations view with veneration the works behind us. then Feilding will be rich in historical associations Already our Councillors are achieving such' a scientific-triumph -as will mate their names "familiar as household words" ages after the name of Euclid is forgotten. They are about to solve that problem which philosophers from time immemorial hare tried to solve in Tain—the squaring of tht? circle. The Town- Council will circle the Square; that done, and the order reversed, the impossible becomes easy. Young as the town is, even now one object is acquiring some historical interest. The Warwick Street Bridge is fast becoming " a bridge of sighs," and Tom Hood's sad and beautiful poem of that name is so singularly applicable to it that he seems to have been gifted with, prophecy. "Don't see any analogy betwixt the two ! " Don't you, Mrs Grumble ! of course not ; With you a bridge is but a bridge, and your only thoughts are whether it is strong enough to bear your weight across it; but I will show you how wonderfully the poem coincides. The words " Take Her up tenderly" are apt, very apt, ma'am, for some of the citizens are taking one another up very tenderly and very lovingly over the bridge. Then that poor •' old veteran " whose section was deluged in the last fresh ; see how, with a slight alteration, a couplet in the poem portrays his case — "Look at his garden, oozing so clammily ; sand enough there to bury a family." and the picture of desolation is completed by another slight alteration from the original, " Oh ! it w^as pitiful, nearly a city full on it was thrown." But what will make the bridge more memorable than all else will be the consumma tion of t his first line, " One more unfor tunategone to his rest," that's me. I've only reversed the sex. I see, Mrs Grumble, by your giggling that you fchtnk I haven't pluck enough to drown myself, but I'll show you I have, What will life be worth to me if, robbed of my illus trious name and not allowed to use my ancient title, I am compelled to sign my>elf as common Spinks, or Winks, or Jinks P Such, vulgarity would kill me (it- was. that very thing which prevented my old friend Ally Sloper from get tin on) and why is this prohibition of using an assumed name when writing upon public matters urged by some of those w. Lave sent to represent us in the House ; It is because they are aware of their un fitness to guide the country's affairs, and dread the censure their blundering is certain to provoke ; it is the coward stroke of the timorous, an attempt to gag the Press ; it is a blow at our liberty, tor many a man wlio writes now is so placed in worldly affairs that he does not dare to individualize himself, feeling sure that if he did he would be oppressed and perse euted. The Press is the guardian of our liberty— the check string that controls those we place in power, and the freedom of it is as necessary to us as the air we breathe. As our rights, we should guard it jealously, and any attack upon it should be resented "instantly. The true politician courts criticism. It is his monitor— the compass by which he ste^ r<; it is the plaster cast of the imagery of talent ; it suprhes life and vitality to the weight of public opinion, beneath which the schemes of the' evilminded crumble into impalpable dust. There, Airs Grum l>le, if you don't want to lose me you will take care that I am still allowed to sign myself Old Gbumble.