UNDER THE MICROSCOPE.

Manawatu Times, Volume III, Issue 29, 12 February 1879, Page 2

UNDER THE MICROSCOPE.

" A chiel's amang ye takin' notes. An' faith he'll pren't 'em."

So poor John Thomas Smith, the Whittington of Victoria, has gone over tothVma-' joritj! For th* last thirty -years h'is name, has been a household word^ Australia, and his white hat and choker and. tight-fitting f todk coat is photographed upon the memory of every colonial.-^ Ble wed with woalth,and surfeited with muniejpil honori;'h.i^;n|9att r . 'still yearned to rise out of the <»mtntfn'rack': of Smiths, and "as Rothschild would hart* given thousands to be the winner of "the j blue riband of the Derb^, so John Th'omaV pined for the honor of knighthood. During one of his many terms of oflLre a chance arose, and hi3 Worship the Mayor wajynot alow to embrace it. At the termination oftne Crimean War, aoting upon his siigge3tion, the Melbourne City Council determined to despatch a special envoy home to lay an address of congratulation upon the declaration of peace at the foot of Her Majesty, and who so eligible for the, delicate mission as the aristocratic Smith, who deafly hoped aa a resompense from Royalty to j ■have the coveted handle to his name bestowed. The address wa3 duly presented, but the ungrateful Sovereign did not take the cue, and the incident is thus referred to by the immortal Tommy Nutts; the paet : " And then with the air of Adonii "Ho knelt at Her Majesty's throne, But injteid of -saying 'Rise, Sir John Thomas,' " r ; Said she— '.Will you ever.go home?* " Determined not to be baulked in his design of doing something which would hand his name'downto posterity, if he did not return to hi? -native land laden with knightly honors, he had in his train a lowly but most useful animal hitherto unknown in the Antipodes, the descendants of which thereafter bore the name of their distinguished importer, John' Thomas. When the news of his decease' will reach the miner in his tent, what a host of memories will it, conjure; up of twenty years ago, when gold was plenty and drinking heavy, and the stereotyped judgment of the justice was, " Fined forty and take him away." Although John graduated as the landlord of a tap-room and singing house--and a not very respectable i one at that either— it is fair to say! that ! I when he cut, the pub. he became eminently respectable, and the purse filled by,somewhat questionable means, was freely open to the cr^ of want or the cauie of charity. vHo; is. gone now, and though baulked in. his early ambition, still Fortune showerai her fafors upon Him with no niggard hand; for :er6 he died,. beside sitting in Melbourne's mayoral chair- seven times, he became a member of Parliament; and a Minuter of the Crown. - j