IDIOSYNCRASIES.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume VII, Issue 366, 10 March 1876, Page 3

IDIOSYNCRASIES.

But even/ desperate Uookhead drtres to write ; Why not ?~ 'Art of Poetry.' The New Zealand mind has dwe'fc so much upon earthquakes lately, ai d the perception of them has, by practice, become so acute, that not the smallest among them can ever hope to escape notice for the future. In Oamaru, particularly, they arc becoming so monotonous that I feel quite sure the town has been subject to them all along, but that the nervous systems of the inhabitants have not hitherto been trained to detect them. A few days ago, while breakfasting with several other people, I gently but skilfully brought the toe of my boot in ■ contact with the table, underneath. The result was, as I anticipated, that an immediate shock of earthquake was felt. One individual, pulling out his watch, accurately noted the time; another was prevented from taking observations by the misfortune of the tea-kettle falling over him ; while the third declared that the direction of the wave was from east to west. I can answer for it that this was not true, the shock being as nearly vertical as T, under the circumstances, could possibly make it. It was considered odd that an earthquake should bo confined within the radius of a few yards, but as our knowledge of the phenomena is very limited, no one was in a position to say it was impossible.

"I dogmatise," said Dr. Johnson," and in the conflict of opinions and of sentiment I find delight." Dr. Johnson, however, was a philosopher ; and the difference between him and ordinary mortals is that, whereas we are all prone enough to dogmatise, but few of us fine any delight in being contradicted. " You drink your beer and eat your food at Government expense," snid a member of the Victorian Legislature to the Government following. " It's an unmitigated lie," retorted one of the accused. Here we have a dogmatic assertion and a flat contradiction ; but we look in vain for any symptoms of delight —except, indeed, it be among the spectators in the gallery. Curiously enough, the author of the vulgar accusation was quite recently Minister of Education, and is now distinguished above ordinary men by his intimacy with the " Dodge" of Venice. Perhaps, after all, Mr. Higginbotham was not far wrong when he protested that, out of any fifty men selected at haphazard by the bellman, nine could be got who would discharge the functions of a Government as well as any which had yet existed in Victoria.

CotrNTBY correspondents of Dunedin papers do not, as a rule, supply matter of much interest to tbe general readers, but it must be confessed that the Upper Taieri correspondent of the ' Southern, Mercury ' is a brilliant exception. When that individual has nothing at all.to communicate, which is generally the case with him, he can do it in a style of ornate grandiloquence such as I have never seen surpassed. There is a delicate play of fancy too about his communications which convinces me that the space allotted to them is the " Wit and Humor " portion of the journal, although the astute editor docs not put that heading above them. But in the 'Mercury' of-last week the Upper Taieri correspondent comes out in an entirely new character:—"l am not prepared," says he "to state upon what terms the Government intend renewing the leases of Crown lands when the present term expires." Of course not; Upper Taieri knows better than to betray his lion, colleagues in that fashion. Whathe and Sir Julius Vogel, and the other lesser lights of the Cabinet are going to do with the Crown lands, he is not going to divulge ; it would be premature. It strikes me as a pity that we did not know some time ago we had a Minister of the Crown under our very noses, .as it were. Our recent deputation need not have gone past the Upper Taieri.

I'm quite at a loss to understand how it is that the proposed income tax in Victoria is generally unpopular. If the tax were intended to have a general application there would be no cause for wonder ; but, as it leaves untouched incomes of £SOO and under, it does seem strange that tlie democratic Victorian should let slip such a good opportunity for annihilating that natural enemy of mankind —the rich, man. Perhaps they are wearied of the task of bursting up the large estates,, and require rest after their labors : or, perhaps (but this is more unlikely) they are troubled for the first time in their lives with an abstract sense of justice. It may possibly hare occurred to some of them that, as rich people have so poor a prospect outside this world of ours (the chances against them being represented by the difference between a camel and the eye of a needle) it would be only fair to let them have some slight degree of comfort and security while they are in the flesh. I take it for granted lhat a rich man must be a social evil, there are so many respectable authorities who say so or seem to think so, which is much the same thing. It certainly does require skill, industry, and frugality to become rich; and these qualities, per se, are no doubt good ; but somehow the results of them are bad, very bad.

Evebyone remembers what a narrow squeak the Hon. W. H. Reynolds had for it at Port Chalmers, and how confidently it was predicted that at last he was going to adorn that privacy, not to say obscurity, i to which he had been a stranger for some -itwenty years ; or, at anyratc, that ho was for the future destined only to take a leading part in eloquent and powerful debates upon nothing in the Upper House. Well, all these predictions have either been proved to be false, or are likely to be so; for the Hon. C4entlcman not only won his election, but seems to be actually safe for the Speakership. This Idtter I look upon as an extreme injustice to Mr. Reynolds. It places him in the position of Mr 1 . Tite Barnacles, and makes him subject to the assaults of people " who want to know, you know " —a kind of assault against which, unfortunately, he is' peculiarly unfitted to defend himself. Every man, according lo Artemns Ward, has got his " fort." That ot Cyrus Field was to "lay a sub-machine tcllcgraf under the boundin bilk-re oflhcoshun, and then hevitßust." I hope it wen'tlurn out the " fort " of Mr. Reynolds to deliver rulings which will do the t'flnvJ - ' Pabthian.