Our Wellington Watchman

Feilding Star, Volume VIII, Issue 116, 7 April 1887, Page 2

Our Wellington Watchman

WEM.INOTON, April 6. Mr Thomas Campbell, in that rather lugubrious poem Of his, " The Pleas- . ures of . Hope, " sang : — "The world was sad, the garden was a wild ; And man, the hermit, sighed— till woman Bmil'd." '...... . „...-,. _>*-._ Had the tuneful Campbell survived to this date, and* had he resided in New Zealand* he might possibly have, added:— But now the hermit's mad, .or else is dotting ; i The woman wears his breeches, — does his voting. , ' ' . Yes, tremble ye tyrants ! New 1 Zealand woman is to have a vote— : the female woman I mean, for. r old ladies of the other sex have long en- : joyed the privilege. A bill to enfranV chise the ladies is to h& brought in by Messrs Yogel and Uallance, and we may soon hope to see, the other .Lord of Creation stalking to the polling place, her husband and crochet in one hand, and a neat >ljttle , shillalah, wherewith to bash political ahtagon- ■ is'ts', in the other. More power to her ! As for me I believe, con amore, in the perfect equality of the sexes, yet I fear the advent of our better halves upon- the political arena will be attended with some injustices. It will for instance be hard, on ugly candidates for senatorial honors. ' The youthful and impressionable she-voter will, to a dead certainty, plump for the elegant male with the best waxed moustache, and we unfortunates who have nought bui our .genius and a burning desire to* serve our country (or make it serve -us) to recommend us, will be left shivering in the cold draughts of political neglect. Those curled but autocratic darlings, thebank clerks; or those golden hobbledehoys who pass the 1 spring time of existence in playing lawn tennis and sponging upon their papas, will naturably, when women vote, go fnto the House " hands down/* while we, ; the-middle-aged, uncurled, with tropio noses, bunions, and bandy, will herank outsiders. A lady of my acquaintance already signifies her intention to vote for Mr , " because he has such lovely white hands, and his things fit him so nicely,you know ! '* Yes, the darling creatures'who havo never had a Sir Robert Stout to complete their " political education," will I fear go for. men not measures,, and the coming saviour of his country will have tor study the cut of his pantaloons rather than that of his political economy. Certainly some of our New Zealand Pitts can bear better dressing ; one or two of our most eminent statesmen wear shockingly bad and baggy o-uo-we-never-inention-eoas, and onehistorical helmet, worn (them is a legend that he sleeps in it) by a very leading politician, has braved so many buttles and bm>2Pß, that it will- bepleasant to hear it has at last been relegated to its congenial duftbiu. And if women may vote^ then also may thuy sit 5 in Parliament. Certain I am they won Id if there twaddle a great deal less than sora«* of the excellent old male spinsters already there, and if there is instituted a species of infant Bellamy's, where the babies of our lady representatives could be supplied with th«j exhilarating pap, and the soothing bootle,, whi'e their mammas (/rate, everything would go gaily. At? \ mesdames, the feminine politicians, I respectfully salute you in advance; 1 salute you as voters; I kiss your hands as Ministresses of Justice, as Colonial Treasuresses, as Premiers ; I kiss yon— — — - "No you don't ! Pretty language for a married man; sir! '* 'Tis the voice of our domestic Premier. She haa overlooked the page. Let us change the subject.

quently suggested it, viz. : to cart al Catholic Ireland and Irishmen out into the Atlautie and siuk it and them t«a thousand fathoms deep. There remains yet another course by which peace might be 'drought to Bad-eyed Lmi; but tuere it* too much common-sense in it to reconioiend it to Conservatives. I mean by giving Ireland that moderate degree of independence bhe asks. and. sooner or later will have, despite the unholy subterfuges of Tories and craven-hearted Liberals of the Hartington and Chamberlain school. Every true Englishman must blush to read of the evictions and burnings now being perpetrated in the name of law and in the interests of landlords in Ireland. This proposed new Coercion Act — hellish iuAts debased ingenuity —is another proof that " those whom God would destroy, he first makes mad." No Government ever more arduously courted catastrophe than the present Conservative Government of England. On every side the mutterings of poverty and misery, Socialists and unemployed in England; dispossessed crofters in Scotland; Irishmen driven frantic by despair, and still those brainless, beef-eating, beer-swilling Tories can think of nothing but the bad, brutal, and stupid old systems of coercion add repression, hastening thereby the inevitable coming war of classes, and imperilling that " England's Greataess," of which they perpetually mouth,. but by. which they mean only their own especial interests and privileges. I