LOAFER IN THE STREET.

Globe, Volume XX, Issue 1406, 17 August 1878, Page 3

LOAFER IN THE STREET.

[eeom the pbksb.]

The Church of England does not seem to be a very prosperous institution in Otago. The standing committee have forwarded to Bishop Neville, in England, a resolution requesting his Lordship not to ship out any more clergymen, as tho diocese cannot afford them. The " Daily Times " thinks this is a step which ererj member of the Church of England should view with shame and regret. But the regret and shame felt will be very harmless. I could carry it all myself without my heart breaking, or without being shy of walking up street. Here is a church (says the " Daily Times ") that is supposed to contain tho oreme de la creme of the community in point of social standing, education, and wealth; and yet it allows its country clergy to starve on miserable and uncertain pittances. It's a fact. But it's not confined especially to Otago. I'm not, perhaps, a high authority on ecclesiastical matters, but in every part of the world I have yet visited I've noticed the Church of England always the lust in the field, aud the richer tho members of the congregation the cheaper they like to buy their gospel. The literal rendering they take out of the text, which says that we can get it without money and without price is beautiful to observe. It has often been a myßtery to me how some reverend gentlemen contrive to make ends meet, particularly those with large families, somehow, ministers, as you may have observed, always do seem to have largo families.

This is I'm afraid in many instances a very unpaid world. It is perhaps as well for some of us that we don't get our deserts, but I think many are shorter of screw than is quite fair. Of course I need scarcely say after the 2* 6d rise you gave me last week—and the old man mentions the fact with gratitude—that I'm not speaking of myself, but of a class of people who have on several occasions treated me with' marked attention, and to whom I am indifferently well known. I allude to the police. I presume the salary the members of the force receive at .present is part of the retrenchment policy every Now Zealand Government I have ever read of always promises to pursue. In a parenthesis I may remark retrenchment is bosh in practice. Retrenchers always begin at tho wrong end of the stick. Government retrenchment means cutting £3O a year off a clerk who only gets £IBO, and sticking a friend into a billet which is quite unnecessary at a salary of £4OO. To expect a man who is supposed at any rate to have a good character, to be able bodied and smart, to enter a force whose monotony is only broken by getting your head caved in by a drunken man once in a while, for seven bob a day, and find your own uniform, shows a lot of credulity on the part of our rulers. Circumstances might occur which would induce a good man to enter tho service, but not to stay in it. Seven shillings a day!, Why I know third class idiots with good clothes on their bucks who c&n do bitter than that without doing a hand's turn. It is a matter of constant regret to me that I did not arrive in this country mny.y y<are ago. The Arcadian simplicity which then existed in many commercial transactions was, I am informed by old residents, simply beautiful. Instances aro plentiful. One strikes me as original, and would bo exactly in my line if I could only reduce it into practice now. A simple-minded old (Arty connected with knd transactions is said to have purchased a piece of land near Christchurch, and to have duly given his cheque for tho same on obtaining a conveyance. On the following day tho seller came back with the innocont's cheque, which had been given en a branch of a bank in Chriafcchureh which had lately commenced buointHij. The cheque was marked N. S. 1?'. Tho seller requested an explanation of these mysterious letters, The

innocent was deeply concerned, professing great anxiety lest tho Bank should suffer through it as, if, ho said the fact became known that they had not sufficient funds to meet, their customer's cheques on demand, it would bust up the institution. He begged the seller to keep it a dead secret until the arrival of the next, steamer from the North, which would doubtless bring the Bank a fresh supply of money. The agonies that man suffered in being burdened with so fearful a secret weve awful, but after tho arrival of the steamer the simple-minded man told him he he might again venture to present it. He did so and remained for many years under tho impression that he had saved tho Bank through keeping their impecuniosity quiet. A lady who signs herself " Maud Brown " recently wrote a most pathetic letter to the "Standard" in reference to the state of society in the Wairarapa back country. Maud says : " There are from 90 to 100 souls about hore, some lcith large families, such as nine and ten. No schools, no churches, no roads, no inspector ever comes here, no member of tho Education Board, no member of Parliament to see what the wants of the people are. The young are growing up young heathens, and the old ones are becoming heathens from the long want of Christian society. Tho only difference I can see between vs here and King Nebuchadnezar, when he had, his dwelling with the beasts of the field, is that ire don't eat grass ; and if ever the people in these out-of-the-way places are to be reformed and roused from their long dead slumber, it must be done by personal intercourse, living with men, living apostles, not dead ones, not ministers merely going their rounds like policemen, with black coats and white neckcloths. We want Christian men, whether they be smiths or shoemakers, or tailors, or grocers, or coach drivers, if they lovo to save lost souls, not hypocrites with two faces." Maud has a very pretty stylo of writing, and I quit her letter with much pleasure, the more so because we have some Christians here of the stylo she thinks would suit her district that we could spare—spare freely too—even if we had to rise them a presentation a-piece.

It is not often we are favored with anything very original in our telegrams, but I read with much interest the other day that a man named Boyd was seriously injured by his wife pouring kemsone over him, and lighting it. It's a very incomplete telegram after all. Did Boyd like it ? Did Boyd burn up freely ? What induced Mrs B. to play a little practical joke like this on her husband ? Wives will no doubt feel interested in these little items, and all the telegraphic agent tells us is that the lady lit the old man up like a lamp. Col. Brett has been rising to a breach of privilege. The breach was an article reflecting on the character of another member. An hon. member suggested he should read the article in question. I trust this course of procedure ia not likely to obtain. If every article written on hon. members, and deemed by them unpleasant, is to be read aloud for the benefit of tho House, the session is likely to be a very prolonged one. I should like to know very much by the way what does constitute a breach of privilege. For instance there is one gentleman in the House who speaks of being in " higgeranco." Would it be a breach of privilege if one were to hazard an opinion that he would be a first class man to keep ou!: of say an educational committee. Some of the reasons adduced by Dr. Wallis in support of Female Franchise are worth calling attention to. Tho doctor says that at present women are virtually pariahs—that in every position in lifo from the labor mart up to the marriage contract itself they are wronged. This is apparently a r>ither original view of the doclor's, though I quite agree with him when he s:iys that by depriving women of the franchise we deprive ourselves of half the social forces in existence. Half! [should Buys seven-eighths. "Whenever," says this champion of the fdr sex, " women have been afforded the opportunity of testing their abilities in the art of administration they have invariably shown a singular aptitude for administering and organising." Quito right, doctor, you bet they can organise; but what about the Beeresy of the ballot and the price of votes ?