RANDOM REMARKS.

King Country Chronicle, Volume III, Issue 144, 1 April 1909, Page 5

RANDOM REMARKS.

■- —♦ Mr Hogg is a courageous man. He made a mistake, howevcr.by deferring his visit to this district until the borderland of winter. For several months daring the summer the settlers arc lolled into semi-repose on road matters and can turn their thoughts to other questions. With the approach of winter, a change conies o'er the scene. The settler's brow takes on its winter frown, and assumes an aspect in keeping with the lowering skies. His speech also becomes edged with the winter frosts, and a Minister is [bailed with scant ceremony. Still, Mr Hogg may be relying upon his well recognised sympathetic attitude towards the backblocker to win for himself a welcome. Still, again, may it be so, the Minister may have a trump card up bis sleeve in the shape of increased grants and a promise of metal. A short time ago feverish energy was displayed in preparing for the visit of the Hon. R. McKensie. Now the occasion for ac tivity is altered. Let us hope the people have not exhausted their stock of hospitality. The Minister for Roads should always be welcomed in the King Country. * * *

One of the many things which I have not been able to understand is why cariosity is always attributed to women, rather than to other creatures. Everybody knows that cariosity killed the cat. If they don't know it then ! they talk a jolly lot about it. Of course I am aware that garrulity is no sign of knowledge, rather does it signify ignorance. Bat in spite of this if people had not spoken a lot aboot this eat then no one would have known what malady it died of. The exact date of its death I am unable to give; but 1 think it must have been about a month ago at a King Country Railway rtation, where a Maori left the train with a targe lump over his right lung. It was a long thin rod like swelling over which his coat was tightly buttoned. A policeman was there. He was distinctly curious and would not be satisfied withont seeing for himself the exact relation between the lump and the man. The policeman was of opinion that the swelling was the result of an internal complaint from which many people suffer in his district. I may say here that this malady is not confined only to the Maoris. But to proceed. This bobby, who became curious, forced the Maori to unhitch his coat and out tumbled two tins of salmon. The policeman was no longer curiou-f in his mind, but curious in his mien. He felt much as the man did who sat on a baby at a dance thinking it was a cushion made of a bundle of shawls—but to return to my story. I wished to say that seeing a policeman, a fraternity noted for stolidity, became curious over that lamp it is only reasonable to suppose that a cat would have been much more curious. Now do not for goodness sake say that a cat woulJ be curious on account of its love for salmon, because if you do, I shall balance the argument with the hypothesis that it was the policeman's love of the the shape of the lump that engendered bis curiosity. On bis way home it is reasonable to suppose that the Maori met a cat. The cat must have become curious, for the policeman did, and a policeman is stronger willed than a cat. The cat leapt up and tried to get a glimpse of the mysterious lump. The Maori promptly killed it. Curiosity killed the cat. To this we shall add, and made an ass of the policeman. Women may be curious, but to my way of thinking, cats and policemen beat them blind. Why, a man cannot even drill a hole in the wall of a bank without a bobby comes sticking his nose into the hash. A woman would run away. I know that if Mrs Poodlctsil gets a new hat Mrs Coffeebean wants to know where the got the money to pay lor it. This is commonly mistaken for curiosity. It is not curiosity, it is jealousy.