Our' Wellington Watchman

Feilding Star, Volume VIII, Issue 114, 2 April 1887, Page 2

Our' Wellington Watchman

Wellington, March 29. And so, Melbourne, that happy -hunting-ground of Judah, paradise of publicans, mutton-kings and muttontenders, has fallen sick with the Jubilee jaundice, and aaught can cure her but donating Queen Victoria a golden (colonial) crown thick plastered with diamonds! A cold, unsympathetic world already greets the idea with cachination strident as that which years ago derided Earl Beaoousiield's abortive golden wreath. But why this hoarse deri&i^n ? Surely inuttonopolis proffers her best— her very best. For Melbourne, appraises men not by. their genius, taste, culture, valor, or general worth, but by the size and water of their brilliants. In London, Paris, Boston they ask of a man, " What has he: done??' -What pictures painted, what books written, whut battles fought, what charities endowed; are his breeding and conduct gentle? But your 'representative' Melbournite— generally of the chosen; cares for none of these things; his touchstone is alike more splendid and severe ; when he says of a man : "• Quite the jentlemansh ! years bootif ul diinants — the very fust vater, ma tear !" then indeed he gives that man a patent of nobility —the only nobility he knows. Goxl Americans may go to Paris when they die, but your g*»o.dMelbouine-uian soars to abodes supernal where the diamonds are big as eniu eggs, the harps solid gold, 24 carat. Thus, when a Melbourne youngman succeeds in mutton, whisky, wool, shoddy, or ' shent per shent,' and would give pledges to society, he buys neither houses, uor lauds, nor wife, hut trades with good Muse or Ahimileeh for diamonds of lustrous shoe u — -rings like knuckledusters, stu.ls iike cheese plates, and lockets large as harvest moons with mountains of light glaring 1 from their' brazen midriffs. Thus chastely equipped no one dreams of enquiring whether or no the youu^j man's papa wore li s bijoutrie on wrists oraukle», or too curiously soritiuizes tin cleauli- ' nttss of hands or Hiihu so gorgeously illuminated. The jewelle y is the all suftioiont open .sesame. Thus, you see, when Melbourne, all a' grovel with loud loyalty, tenders gifts of gold and precious stones she offers the sumnmin buniun of all she desires, of all she loves, of all she worships. She sacrifices her very gods. What more would you have V " A young man named Douglas John Parsonage, who has been lately employed in the capacity of boots in the Masonic Hotel, died on Wednesday night at the gaol (Napier). He had not been right in his mind, having been suffering, it is supposed from delirium tremens, and was taken into custody and lodged in gaol. In the morning, on bis cell being opened, he/was found dead." ; Thus, an "Own Correspondent" chronicles the death of a human creature. Out of his mind ; delirium tremem suspected ; lodged in gaol ; in the morning — Dead\ That is about all. Stay ! there are a few more pertiaent •items. First, Douglas John Parsonage — to all intents a raving lunatic — early in the evening commenced to smash his head against the cell wall or dSor. Second, D. J. Parsonage was found in the morning not only dead and cold; but "on the floor, with his face, shoulders, and elbow bruised, aud blood issuing from his mouth and nostrils, and his. face quite black. Several spots of blood were on the wall about the height of the man's face. " Third, a warder who had b,een informed the man " was trying to beat ilotvn the door ivitJi liis haad" replied, " He's only drunk. Let him belt away." These items "Our Correspondent," without comment, as is his duty, simply records. What he dues not record is the unspeakable mental and physical anguish the man must have endured 'ere he attempted to beat out his fevered brains against his prison walls. Fancy this young man, for the first time in his life that * god- forsaken thing, a prisoner, wak- . j ing in the dark, racked with fever* 1 dazed with delirium, seeing horrid f things, bred of diseased imagination, '- I glaring at him from out the gloom ; loathsome reptiles writhing about him; his blighted hopes, his lost opportunities^—a grim if phantom host — niockhim ! Thiuk of him in the black shadows of night stealthily feeling around walls and door to suddenly realize that he was barred in — alone, or for compauy, spectres only ! Think of the unutterable frenzied longing for the touch of human hand, or even far. off sound of human voice — but, " He's only drunk. Let him belt away." At nine at night, a warder (not quite a ghoul this one) visits him ; even that scant contact with the outer living world soothes and quiets him, for a time. Bnt the long lonely night wears on ; the delirium returns, again

lie is haunted, again tries to escape ; tries even " batter down the door with his head." Ha ! ha ! " Let him belt away." In the morning Douglas John ParBonage was dead — Free ! Men no more may judge liiui. Let us at least hope he is now' out sorriflwhere in the sunshine of the Universe. Valel poor Parsonage, done to death by whisky and by warder. Yes, the thing that fascinates me is that warder, that stoical human hyena with his admirable bonhointnie, his delicious insoueiauce. A man, a brother, a few yards away in the hellish agonies of a nightlong death wrestle, and this cheerful cynic at the other side of the door with bis airy, " Let him belt away!" The next matter that interests me, and convinces me we are, unsuspectedly, naturally facetious people is the at the inquest — " .Death from natural causes." Any jury not composed of born humorists would surely have substituted "Murder" against those who permitted a temporary lunatic to kill himself, and take a long summer night to do it. I am old enough to have seen a great deal ,of corporal punishment, both iv navy and army. I have seen at sea a man's back sliced by a righthanded bosen's mate, and then slashed diamond- wise by a left-handed one. I have seen a burly farrier cutting lumps out of a man with the cat, while the Colonel of a crack cavalry regiment bullied the said farrier for " not laying on hard enough," and I never yet witnessed a flogging without feeling sick with shame, faint with horror and rage, but I really believe— were that Napier, warder now before me, and the champion flogger of the earth minceing Lis hide, and the power to stay that flogger's hand vested in me, and I asked.. to stay- it— l do truthfully believe I should reply to that request, and with enthusiasm — " Let HIM BELT AWAY ! ! " A rather remarkable, but unsigned circular, appeared in one of our papers this week. It is addressed : "To Christians belonging to all denominations in New Zealand." After lamenting the immoral 1 state existing amongst all classes of society at present in the colony," it entreats all Christians to meet on the 30th of March, " as a day of humiliation and earnest prayer ." The circular then proceeds to state the, causes of New Zealand's "immorality." I condense — 1. The departure from the principles of Calvin, Luther, Zwingle, Wesley, and others. 2. Messrs Ballance and Stout. 3. Want of religious instruction in State Schools. 4. Toleration of church members and officers who have been guilty of dishonest commercial transactions, " and even bankruptcies." 5. The sectarian spirit. 6. Toleration of journalists and newspaper writers who are openly hostile to the Christian religion. The circular concludes iv these words : " We deeply deplore the evil practise of some prominent church members who are hoarding up money, and let the financial affairs of their church remaia in the most wretched state." It will be seen that the concocters of this unsigned circular have sketched a tolerably robust programme. If, however, the whole thing be not an elaborate hoax, it is perhaps to be regretted that th*»y have rattled the money -box so loudly and inartistically in that hist paragraph. If the following story, which comes from Dunedin, which I cannot therefore vouch for, be true, it would appear that some of the very elect are almost as much in need of grace as the poor newspaper men. Here is the story : It was " Sacrament Sabbath" in Dunedin, and as the worshippers were proceeding in solemn file up the aisle of a well-known church in that city, M*ltebie trod heavily on M'Seratcbie's sore heel. With a fierce glare the latter hissed out : "If I wasna gangin' to the sacrament I'd gie ye a claur in the mouth."