GOLDFIELDS CELEBRITIES.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume VI, Issue 357, 7 January 1876, Page 3

GOLDFIELDS CELEBRITIES.

TAB,. VINCENT PYKE. Mr. Pyke nywe believe, a native of Bristol. He landed in South Australia in 1851. In 1852 he went to Forestf Creek, Victoria, and opened a grocery and general store. In 1855 he was elected a member for the Victorian Assembly. The following year he received an appointment as Emigration Agent for the Colony from the Haffles Government—an office which , after cancelled by the 6'Shannessey administration, which almost immediately came into power. On his return from England he was appointed Goldfields; Warden for Sandhurst. Tired of the irksome duties of the Civil Service in 1858 he resigned, and contested a seat for Castlemaine against Ireland, O'Shannessy's Solicitor-General, ,. and was returned;, with Dr. Macadam as his colleague. In 1859 Mr. Pyke took office in the Nicholson administration, which only retained power for six months, when it was replaced by the Heales Government.

In 1862 the late member for Castlemaine came to Dunedin. A. few months after his arrival be was appointed by Major Eiehardson Goldfields Secretary and garden, resident in Dunedin. When this office was abolished the defunct Commissioner or Secretary received compensation from the Provincial Government, and was shortly afterwards, at the rupture between the two Governments, appointed Warden at Clyde by the General Government, to. enjoy For some years—as he himself humorously pat it at a later date when pressed to enter the contest for the Otago Superintendency—the quiet cultivation of cabbages. From Clyde he was transferred to Lawrence. In June, 1873 —having kept out of politics for over ten years, in accordance, we believe, with a private promise, he again forsook the Civil Service, and stood for Lawrence for a seat in the Provincial Council against Mr. H. "Bastings and Mr. J. C. Brown. In this contest he was unsuccessful. Shortly after he secured Mr. Hallenstein's seat in the House of Assembly as member for the Wakatipu. Mr. Pyke has held his seat during the last two sessions of a worn out Parliament with credit to himself and benefit to his district. ' , _. Mr. Pyke's abilities, though when put in execution highly erratic, have never been disputed. A vigorous speaker, and original thinker, endowed with a capital memory, which has been supported by a large range of literary gleaning, ancient and modern, there is not.a more damaging opponent to be met with on the hustings Ci'-iit i^c-rSo!V<*,• *.■Afl.-*i*~i»2tftTi'e"e "of slashing-impromptu the speech made by the member for Wakatipu last session on the second reading of the Deceased Wife's Sister Bill is unequalled in late numbers of 'Hansard.' As a politician Mr. Pyke's genius has been in his way. He has been credited with being too clever, while in reality his forte has been an intense diversity, leading him to forsake one line of thought or polity half worked _out to dire into another perhaps of the most diverse and opposite nature. Such men are too rare to be despised. Plenty of drudges can be found to go behind them and complete, the bare threads they have at least indicated the outlines of. Public opinion never judges genius- aright, and invariably suspects it. Public opinion does indeed take a rising man up at the first to patronise him, but soon withdraws its countenance, and give him up as a ' man of genius'—" as if," says Carlyle, " the higher did not presuppose the lower ; as if he inrho can fly, into heaven could hot also walfe'pOst if he'resolved on it! But the world is an old woman, and mistakes any 'gilt farthing for a gold coin, whereby, being often cheated, she will thenceforth trust nothing but the common copEer." It is far easier to prefer the dulird who will not outstep his critics and supporters, and who therefore can be periodically measured—who is the wiser man, for many a man's tongue shakes out his master's undoing; to say nothing, to do nothing, to know nothing is to be a great part of title to success, which is within a Very little of nothing. On the Otago Goldfields Mr. Pyke will be best known as having established, under great difficulties, the 'Southern Mercury newspaper in the mining interest. His first number was published a few days in advance of one intended to have been put out by the ' Guardian' NewspaEer Company, which it for the time anniilated. When the sale of the ' Mercury ■' to the 'Guardian' Company took place Mr. Pyke's services were transferred also, but by some later arrangement Mr. Pyke is now free from the control of the High-street directorate. The astonishing in which the ' Mercury * has fallen off in original merit, while increasing in bulk, has vividly testified during the past , three months to the withdrawal of the genius that gave it birth. It has now ceased to be in any sense of (he word a mining paper. The Dunstan has done well to secure Mr. Pyke's services. He is returned pledged to support Mr. Macandrew in his Separation policy, and to oppose the Centralism of the General Government. His services will be of the greatest use in assisting to guard Central Otago from the land shark despoiler when the high political parties now in deadly conflict accept the inevitable compromise of the future. Julius.