UP-COUNTRY GOSSIP.

Grey River Argus, Volume XII, Issue 1321, 23 October 1872, Page 2

UP-COUNTRY GOSSIP.

[by an occasional correspondent. I Behold the child by Nature's kindly law, Pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw ; Some livelier plaything gives his youth delight,. A little louder, but as empty quite.

The rattle of the musketry that an-nounced-the fall of the Stafford Ministry sounds yet pleasantly in the ears of our up-country youths, while the forthcoming District Court is the straw that tickles usamazingly. What we really gained by the former, and what tangible. benefit will really acrue to the Grey Valley from the latter event, I really cannot say ; enough for me that it affords subject matter for half-an-hour's chat. Our re? joicing at the short lived Stafford Ministry was unqualified, but the quiet reinstatement of the "old dog" into office did not altogether create "a feeling of unalloyed satisfaction. The fact is, we want excitement, and we expected to find it in a general election . We are rough and rusty from the dry weather, and a little of the oil that candidates for our votes and interests know how to rub in would do us good, smooth our coats, and make us feel important. However, the soft-soaping is indefinitely deferred, and we must submit. A correspondent writing from Wellington says :— " A day or two subsequent to the reinstallation of the Yogel Ministry I had occasion to visit the wharf, where my attention was fixed by the strange behaviour of a little gentleman who was gazing pensively at' the moolit sea and muttering audibly. Wondering what his business was at that untimely hour, and thinking it was just possible T might prevent an act of selfdestruction, I approached in time to hear the following monologue delivered in a most tragic tone : —

What opposition ? 'Tis.a boundless sea, And office, powerTwo little pearls within the ocean's bed ; I sought them, found them, bound them to my head. In one brief hour Tney fell into the ocean depths again, And now I look and long for them in vain.

I placed my hand upon his shoulder and said, 'Stranger, whoever thou art, that lamenteth poignantly for the loss of something thou wert not able to keep, why repine. Possibly the prize hath fallen into the hands of one more worthy than thyself. Let that thought console thee, or shall one bitter drop make the cup of life unpalateable. Forbid it, Heaven! Are there no prizes left worth the striving for, because the portfolio of the Post-master-General is lost. Learn the lesson taught by Gaspar Becerra, and if the foreign wood will not shape itself unto thy will take the oaken brand from the hearth. " " That is best which lieth nearest." Go home, learn to rule well there, and the increased prosperity of your Province, combined with the thanks of the patient and long-suffering provincials will completely obliterate all trace of your present disappointment. He gazed at me for. a moment, a tear slowly trickled down his cheek, as he exclaimed — "I will; I'm resolved to take your advice." Then we adjourned to a oiic-Uorao-wlilaKojr-njill-to treat tho good resolution.

I opine that Mr Fox's career as the leader of a political party has ended. Possessing as he undoubtedly does many qualifications that command our esteem and respect to the individual, Mr Fox is deficient in that strength of will and nervous energy that is necessary to enforce our respect to the statesman. Not to put too fine a point on the matter, Mr Fox has not brass enough in him to make a good New Zealand politician. But whatever may be our late Premier's failings, no one can accuse him of being inconsistent. A thorough teetotaller, I may go further and say a rabid rechabite, he has been entirely true to his principles in resigning his office in favor of a Waterhouse.

In the matter of our District Court, already some of our influential inhabitants begin to feel the oneroiu duties of jurymen set heavy on their souls. One gentle-: man, whose intuitive faculties must be as acute as his imagination is vivid, informed me that he knew he would have a pretty rough time of it, and he sincerely wished King John had never been compelled to sign Magna Charta in Runnymead. But while the note of preparation sounds shrill among our embryo jurymen, where are our criminals ? It will be something terrible if his Honor has to be presented with a pair of white glooves upon his first visit. 1 know a few men who if their expenses were guaranteed would give his Honor a day or twos work in the bankruptcy branch of the business. But that is not exactly the thing needed. We want something that would put 12 intelligent Grey Valleyites into the box. A murderer just now would be invaluable. Bushrangers would be worth money, and burglars even might command a high figure. A few female pickpockets would be quite an acquisition to the district during the present dearth of criminality. Whether the latter class could be reckoned maZe-factors in the strictest sense of the word I hardly know. If a female commits suicide she becomes in the eye of the law a felo de se, and really we. require matter for trial and conviction' so badly that we are quite prepared to strain a point.

Whjn a knot of idlers gather in front of one of our up-country hotels, after doing the political situation and the Disr trict C.ourt, the conversation usually flags until" some eccentric individual, upon novelty bent, remarks that it is really very extraordinary weather for the time of year, which, remark invariably causes the mental hrillianpy of the crowd to conpeutraje upon the important subject, and opinions are expressed somewhat as follows :—The oldest inhabitant sagely remarks that the weather is just as dry now as it was wet seven years ago. The funny man suggests the possibility of the country having broken from its moorings and drifted into drier latitudes. : AVhile the local astronomer scratches his head and darkly hints that there is something wrong with the sun, and" prognosticates a dry hot summer ; and the local astronomer's views are endorsed by the wise men of the old country. A correspondent of the " Spectator," writing on the subject, says :— " When we consider the intense heat which has prevailed in Europe during July, and the circumstance that in America' also the heat has been excessive, inasmuch that in New York the number of deaths during the week ending 6th of July was three times greater than the

average, we are naturally led to the •conclusion that the sun himself is giving out more heat than usual." This the writer ascribes to the fact of an unusual quantity of magnetism in the chromatosphere or solar envelope, a body of heated vapour surrounding thesup,-»nd supposed by astronomers to be some 4000 or 500 C miles deep. This envelope consists in the main of glowing hydrogen, but its lower strata contains the glowing vapours of sodium magnesium and many other elements, certain Italian spectrocopists have set themselves the task of keeping a continual watch upon the solar chromatosphere, and it was while engaged in this task that Tacchini noticed the strange occurrence now to be described: — "I have observed a phenomenon," he says, " which is altogether new . in the whole series of my observations. Since the 6th of May I have found certain regions in the sun remarkable .for the presence of magnesium. Some of these extended half way round the sun. This state of things continued,. ;the extension of the magnesium regions gradually growing greater, until, at length, upon the 18th of June, I was able to recognise the presence of magnesium quite round the sun." And this science accounts for the excessive heat of last summer ••in the northern hemisphere. Heat that made Indians declare that it was rarely so hot in the East as in London, and fairly drove the Burmese ambassadors off the field at Wimbledon, vowing— for Burmese never swear — that they had never felt so hot asun ,* and from these facts our local astronomer infers that we, too, shall get it considerably warm during the coming summer. ,

The subject of the weather beiug exhausted, one of the debaters— seeing no signs of any one other offaring to shout — discovers ho has fapme wood to chop j two more pair off for a quiet game of bUlifirds. and the rest disperse each as their several ways and inclinations point, to meet again a few hour's later to discuss the selfsame subject, or others equally interesting.