THE WEEK.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume IX, Issue 110, 9 May 1874, Page 2

THE WEEK.

The legislative season has once more commenced, and for a few weeks proof will be given nightly of the excessively bad acoustic properties of the Provincial Hall, and then a few weeks more and the wires will be engaged night and day in disseminating throughout the colony the sayings of our members in Parliament assembled. A wonderful country is this for Government, If our interests are not looked after as they should be it certainly is not owing to a paucity of legislatures or legislators. In our own province a very cheerful state of things does not exist, and we are still living on that very thin diet which is afforded by hope. Certainly, it is all we have had to feed on for some time so that we have bad ample opportunity of forming an opinion upon the amount of nutriment it supplies, but a long course of it has become monotonous, and we begin to sigh for some stronger food. However, I hope — there it is again — that after the next session of the Assembly the hope so long deferred will be realised, and that we shall have tbe means placed at our disposal to execute the public works that are necessary to pur salvation.

We talk a good deal about the depression that exists in Nelson, and whine about our poverty, and yet there are some grounds for believing that, after all, matters are not so bad as they are made to appear. A company comes here and gives a series of entertainments that are essentially popular, and night after night the Hail in which it performs is crowded, which means that a considerable number of pounds have been transferred from the pockets of the poverty- Btricken Nelsonians to the till of the doorkeeper. I suppose they can all afford it or they wouldn't go. And then, again, there must be a good many of us who are saving money, in email sums to bo sure, but making altogether a very respectable aggregate, for in the Postoffice Savings Bank alone there was lying to the credit of depositors on the 31st of March last no less than £23,583. There is another institution of a similar character in the town, and it is but fair fo suppose that an equal amount, probably a great deal more, is lying there too, so that we may safely say that £50,000 will not bo an over estimate of the little savings of Nelson people at the present woment. Strange people we are; we crowd to entertainments for which we have to pay, we feed well, and clothe well, and on the whole look moderately jolly j we put by a lot of money for a rainy day, and all the time we grumble and growl, and talk about bard times, until we sometimes bring ourselves to believe that we are the most miserable community on the face of the earth. Are we bo* or is it only fancy ? Pon ***" Iss*^ > 2 aet i na e 8 get very puzzled . ***£«»» * i.& n en( * tnin k about it. \ «* e & feting called by two of • V, r $& . o^BentaJives to be such a fa > o^-rtv&jday night? I, as a mere 100kv..-on,^.-**periencecl that dreary sense of discomfort which is occasioned by feeling yourself one of a very few in a big room that was built to bold a good many, so what must have been the sensations of the conveners of the meeting who had bidden their constituents to a political feast and found that one after another sent excuses for not attending? 1 suppose it was fully understood that the question of responsible government was to form a prominent feature in the evening's programme, and if so it is clear that the subject is one on which public opinion is not very Btrong, for out of the number invited, about eight per cent only attended; out of those present but one-half cared to declare themselves either on one Bide or the other, and of those who did hold up their hands thirteen twenty-fifths only were believers in the change which some appear to desire to see brought about. I must be pardoned for going into vulgar fractions, as it is by tbeir friendly assistance alone that I can adequately describe the state of popular opinion on this question.

I think I have on previous occasions called attention to the peculiar post mortem habits of pheasants in this colony, but, if I am not mistaken, I have observed them again this year, and therefore feel justified in once more remarking upon them. I should like to consult Mr Frank Buckland, the eminent naturalist, on the matter, and I have therefore prepared a statement of a case on which his opinion might be asked. It is this: — In Auckland there is one breed of pheasants, in Nelson another. The open season commences in the former province on the Ist of May, and no doubt from that day till the close of the season a large number fall victims to the dog and gun. Shortly after the Ist of May, dead pheasants, which no one would dare to show in Nelson prior to that date, begin to appear in our steets, but, strange to say, the plumage is, in many instances, indicative of that paricuticular breed which was imported by our Acclimatization Society, and of which such large numbers of birds are to be seen on pur hills. Now it is utterly impossible that the dead birds we see can have been shot here, because our season does not commence until the Ist of July, and we are such a law loving people that I am sure no one would think of raising, a gun even if the fineßt long- tailed one that ever was seen were to get up under bis very

nose. How, then, is this remarkable change in outward appearance to be accounted for? I think the question should be referred either to the Field or the Australasian. The answer might convey to us some new and startliog tact in Natural History.

I like occasionally to comment upon wh«*t occurs in. other provinces as well as in our own, so that I fee! half tempted to say something about the late fire in Auckland, but really I cannot nfford to devote one whole paragraph per week to the same subject. It becomes very monotonous, as no doubt everyone who sees the Auckland papers must have thought before now. There it is stantiy before you in the same type and almost the same words :— " Another Destructive Fire in Queen-Street — £10,000 Worth of Property Destroyed — Lamentable Want of Water," and then follows a long and dismal list of the burned buildings. The papers are, I see, beginning to discuss the question of providing a good supply of water, and lam not surprised at it. lam not personally acquainted with Auckland, but have been told that tbe houses usually destroyed on these occasions are not of the best kind but are very second rate. If this be true, it really is most providential that fires, since they must occur, always happen in the least valuable blocks of buildings.