AN EYE FOR EVERYTHING

Mataura Ensign, Volume 6, Issue 346, 8 April 1884, Page 2

AN EYE FOR EVERYTHING

«. By Cyclop. i Some very pitiless things arc done in mercy. It is no doubt a merciful policy to withdraw the British troops hasti'y from Souakim. The mortality there would probably be very great. A single half day's march knocked up 400 men. Had any attempt been made to send an expedition to Khartoum, it would no doubt have cost thousands of Uves, and millions of treasure. But still it seems to me very pitiless indeed to abandon a brave fellow like Gordon to a miserable fate. He says he is "hoping against hope." He has often sought to throw away his life, and he appears to have hit upon the right path at last. But is it correct policy after all, this policy of mercy to the greatest number P Is he not the chosen agent of Britain -an ambasssdor, in fact ? Did not the spell '' of the presence of our men even at Souakim help to hedge him. in -witn a divinity that would hold the barbarians in awe P Is not the sudden withdrawal of pur forces equal to saying, " You can do' - asO " you like with Gordon. We don't propose to protect him " P ' Then, again, are such pases to be^efcer-jj mined by the '_ mere counting of heads P Might G ordon not be far more valuable I 1 " to a nation than a thousand others P Are ■•" we likely to , get ,a supply. of, similar v | heroes when we want them if we show , r that we abandon them in trouble" P Is it not the duty of a nation that needs heroes not to throw them away wanton-- % ly? Would not a national effort to extricate this brave man pay us in the end in a crop of heroes? Has not' the national character been- roused by the chivalrous searches, after j3ir John Frank- • lin and the like p But enough of p6or' txordoif. Perhaps while I write he is in the happy hunting grounds. The Mahdi has been 'cute enough not to accept the Sultanehip of Oocofan, or , some jotSer" name— ifck Jtfs 'C • only a name to me. . Thus J think the prophet has escaped the oblivion that the wily infideVwas preparing for him. Had game. "Perhaps he hopes yet to sit in'the- *~T seat of the grand Turk — well, as ;the lat- ;;>, teris going mad he might have a chance, if only some others would go mad, too. .<T: • ' . " ■:-■■/-".■ "f"-: Thh lato Prince Leopold, it appears, had offerod to accept the Governorship of Victoria, but the Queen had refused permission. She was wise in doing so,, for in the first place he was of so ; weakly m :>i constitution that it was not desirable to trust him so far from his august relatives ; and in the secomLptece it- was not desirable to make the colonists too familiar with royalty, lest familiarity should have the proverbial following, Common men may make mistakes, and the blame . . r - only rests on them as individuals. /But ! if: a prince of the reigning house made a mistake, it would be sure to damage the prestige of that house in the eyes of the colonisjfcs^'.. ' . '-.. ' . = ».'• -'C ''•■> <Ij': '. The experiencs of royalty in Canada was s ... not vrhrilly of a satisfactory nature. The i / wife of"Loi'd Lome, ior example, held her' ' jfirst levee in the depth of a Canadian ;win,ter ? and the order ran that no ladies ..,. : iwerje r t6 r he presented except in English ; CoiirV dresses (very low and cold), unless .jthey 'brought medical certificates to prove ■'•'■ ' Ithat such a costume would injure their, ni « ""health. The effect was to fill the common- - 'sense minds of Canada and the neighboring ' -{stages with disgust and contempt. Just' imagine some similar exhibition of 'fossil* ised! royalty in democratic Victoria ? No doß.|bt there are hundreds of wealthy vulgarities there who would go if "they nad -to crawl on all fours and bring certificates of character as well as of health. But >what would the real body of the people jbhink P I hope for the sake of our EmTpire that the enchantment which' distance lends to royalty won't b.e feroken. " -This leads me to add— as I hare taken ' ' .such an exciirsive turn ' to-day — that true loyalty has its object no.t in the reigning house but in the nation, JJoyatly — itself is bound in the nature of thingsW ' ■"'* lie lOJZI *0 tu e »ation, and even the monarch is in true political philosophy a .' sji^ject. The times have gone by when - a king "could say,, w jth any show of being . . beheyed, f'l am the State or ffFfanc| hath more need of me than lof FrWra^ * But about the Gfovernorship pf toria. There was a difficulty in getting anybody to accept that billet and the attached LIO,OOO a year. I feel hurt that I have not had an offer. If tenders had been called I think I would" have got the place. But Mr Gladstone hasn't patronr ised the press so far &a to advertise foj? application, lie has" "only Bffirefl. t!r it r tfi ever so many fellows, and then told'tß.© • ' newspapers of each offer as it was de- i > clined. The Victorians |have some rea« son to complain at being hawked about in the way they have been. " • : ' Bft we should have had still more reason Jo complain jf , op man had beenvtakpn ;'* i from tis almost before we kijetv him ; Hb is the' fourth Governor we~have had% five years, and' if we "have many mor'6 %- interregnums we may begin to think fet we can do without a Governor - - This^ continual shifting of Governors re- " ? J minds me of the Methodist way p£ working their parsonsi 'It may be Compared' to planting a fruit tree . and shifting it as often as it showed signs, of beginning to bear fruit. ' '^„^

I seas that the Inyercargill representa- ' tiro of Mcthqdisrohaß gone to fresh fields. • Settled the reporters and some others on the occasion of his last sermon by keeping as far from the topic of the limo as possible. There was no scene to chronicle, I hear, except his showing of some astronomical chart; ' -Jy would appear that , some yery. direct check indeed is being put upon the increase of population in New Zealand. 1 see before me in a single copy of a paper an account of Dr Parry .being -convicted of manslaughter ' for "carelessness m attending a lady,- and" jilsd 'an account o. a female professor of the obstetric art "being committed for a similar offence. OaftaiK M ackbnzis showed good sense in not going through his speech at Mataura. I can't see why three addresses should be' delivered in a district where the Ensign circulates a- report in every B©nse equal to the speech. T^b accumulation of burdens upon farmers just now in this district is. of a sort quite suitable to ideas of .a Turkish Governor. There' are .first the ordinary burdens of the most taxed portions of the planet. Then there are the bags, and then the extra tariff, and lastly the Waimea Plains railway rate. I forbear reflections, of : my ; own, and quote Sydney SmM 'dii! taxation in his time : — The schoolboy whips his taxed top ; the beardless youth manages his taxed horse •with a taxed bridle on a taxed road ; and the dying" Englishman, pouring his medicine which has paid seven per cent into a spoon that has paid 15 per cent, fling 3 himself back on his chintz bed, which has paid 22 per cent, and expires in the arms of an apothecary, who has paid a license of LIOO for the , privilege of putting him to death. His whole property is then taxed from two to ten per cent. Large fees are demanded for burying him in the chancel ; his virtues are handed down to posterity on taxed marble ; he is then gathered' to 'his fathers— to be taxed no more. ABOUT that moa : has it arrived, or, is it being walked' in ? I did not go open mouthed to the railway station on the first of April, the date was too suggestive, but I,. confess to peeping through the window with the blind down as the train passed. I have no doubt that Barnum could find a moa, though. He has got a white elephant that is^ a sort of a blue &t last, and it is likely to proye anything but what its name in proverbial speech would indicate. No moa at present from yours truly."