AN EYE FOR EVERYTHING

Mataura Ensign, Volume 7, Issue 420, 23 December 1884, Page 3

AN EYE FOR EVERYTHING

By Cyclop. i . i A cat lias been discovered iu France ,■ with, an eye like that of the Cyclops. It seems to the ' Graphic ' that if any ': change is to be made in cats it should be made in their voices and not their eyes. The ' Graphic ' is no doubt an excellent judge, and very properly assesses the comparative value of a cats eye and a cats' voice. The former is a valuable jewel, and the latter is not-well-worth framing. But the * Graphic ' has singularly confirmed my reading of the nom de plume 1 i ave chosen for myself. It shows clearly that usage, all I ever claimed, is on my side, and that "Cyclop" : s the generally accepted singular form — to designate an individual member of my family. Me Bracken on Saturday night gave us a modern sermon on the story of " Old Mother Hubbard " A correspondent has sent me the following jew clesprit, as Paddy Murphy' would say, relative to the same thing. Here it is : — Old Mother Hubbard. She went to her. cupboard In one of her dresses discreet But when she went out A bobby did shout, " You musn't wear that on the street 1" This of course refers to the sumptuary laws now enforced. Those who like myself, are privileged to read that amazing product of modern (un) civilization the American Society paper will have seen a cartoon representing the arrest of some young and gushing females who were • parading as' " Old Mother's Hubbard's." , "Would not the Hallejujah lasses be similarly liable? My very good friend Mr Fletcher has a weakness for eyes. I remember on one occasion a correspondent led me to make a few reflections on the different kinds of eye. The eye magisterial, the eye inquisitorial, the eye Cyclopean, and the eye connubial were then referred to, 1 think. But when Mr Fletcher refers toj me in a letter to the scholars at their examination, he makes an effort to draw me from my congenial obscurity by a : side wind. ]Now I am not going to say whether I was. present at the examination or not, but 1 may as well admit that your courtesy, Mr Editor, gave me a perusal of an advance copy of Mr Fletcher's lucubration. Since that Mr Fletcher announced his intention of being absent at[a — horribile dictu — consultation, perhaps it would not be amiss to enquire how the speculation turned out. But leaying all that out of the question was it not cruel on Mr 4 Fletcher's part to, in; one breath, declare that present arrangements were not requiring (sic) to be interfered with, and in the next to hurl, such a phrase as perseverentia omnia vincit at the heads of the unoffending pupils. I modestly accept the implied compliment in the last paragraph when I am fcold that the mere effort to gain the prize will be useful as a disciplinary exercise if nothing else. But lam sadly afraid that we pay too much credit to human nature, and especially juvenile human nature, when we assume that defeat has a salutary effect. It is not always the pupils' fault that they are absent. Parents are fully as ready to find excuses for non-attendance as their children are. I am sorely afraid I have quite lost the " hang "of the Egyptian question. Be tween the military operations of Britain -and the financial operations of the European creditors, I have got mixed up. The British Army has lately acquired such a knack of turning up in unexpected places, and^as the Mahdi appears to have as much to say by telegraph as anybody, I 1 very much ,fear I am hopelessly ' muddled. The people who concoct the telegrams ex Keuter either have a proi . found knowledge of the matter and im- >. pliedly flatter us with similar knowledge 1 or else they are in the position of many^of 1 us—that they know nothing at all about it. : There is one cheering fact, however, which I always see quoted, and that isthat " Consols are still 99f." As long as that bulwark of our national liberty ; remains I shall feel secure. The following tit-bit is not exactly new, but is evergreen. Mr Black the novelist i being on a ramble near Dunollie Castle suddenly took it into his head to have a swim- He took off all that was necessary, etc., and plunged in. As he was returning to where his clothes were, judge his horror on seeing a young lady sitting 7 down on a boulder, reading, from the ap- < pearance of the binding, one of his own i .novels. Mr Black coughed, ahem' d, etc., but all to no purpose ; the fair one still kept her eyes upon the fascinating page. After the lapse of nearly half an hour a man came up with, a gun, and, seeing Mr Black's black head bobbing up and down, exclaimed, " Hech !;a seal !" and brought his gun to his shoulder. This was too much for Mr Black's nerves, and, roaring out, " For heaven's sake don't shoot ! I'm a real man !" he tossed propriety to the winds and ran for it. The lovely young lady was round the corner like a flash of lightning. The mysteries of political economy are we ll — extremely well — understood by the '■ rival newspapers of Invercargill. One ' is sure is sure to get both sides of any question ventilated, because if either \ paper takes one side, the other goes directly opposite. They are both engaged at present with thvj novel features : raised by the mission of the Belgian Commissioner, M. De Haarven. The 'Times' sees in his project unlimited • cheap labor and the ' News ' also sees in 1 it the downfall of the working man. If ' the 'Times 'had condemned it probably I the ' News ' would have praised it, but \ as it is there is a splendid and congenial - opening for an impassioned appeal to the L " working classes." " h The \ Conserva- : tive paper knows a man who employs twe I servants at rare intervals,and the Radical • paper knows a man who, at equally rare 1 intervals, works for some other man, • And this is colonial politics. ! The season of festivity has again come] ' The festive turkey meets his inevitable I doom, and the alert goose and the nimble q duck meet their certain fate. At this season of the year, my readers anc v myself have laughed together, and hav< i.l good naturedly combined to illume th< a prosaics of existence with scintillation d bf jocosity. To one and all I wish ;* - A Meeey Cheistmas.