THE WEEK.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XI, Issue 41, 12 February 1876, Page 2

THE WEEK.

>; The chief event of interest that has occ.urredjfduring the past; week is tbe retort tjfcthe colony,, of him who left, our shoi-es sixteen montlis ago as Mr, and has made his reappearance as Sir Julius, Yogel. His name is one which will always figure prominently in the history of New Zealand as having been one of ; its;-fleading . statesmen. No matter how the public works and immigration policy has been administered by bim and his colleagues, there remains the fact that by him was it conceived and put intb shape,, and dt: is beyond question that it has brought about a vast change in the condition of the colony.. Therefore to Sir Julius is due i the credit of having initiated a scheme the fruition of which must at some future date have an important • bearing upon tbe permanent welfare" of the country, but in the paeans that are sung in bis praise, in the addresses of i welcome presented to him on his return, and, in bis reply thereto-rr-at all; events, nt Wellington —is there not an exaggeration and a disposition to deal in superlatives tbat are calculated td mar rather than to enhance their intended effect? I read yesterday morning that the free supply of beer . that was to have flowed at the street corners of Wellington had been stopped, and for the credit of the: Wellington people I was not sorry for it. But when I perused the speech made by Sir Julius, I began to regret the absence of the beer, for I thought to myself—lf such things proceed from the man in a dry and thirsty state, what might we expect in the shape of talking from those. of the crowd who in the pursuance of their gratulatory . duties had been called upon to pass many corners where the beer was flowing ? Sir Julius, we are told, having done something in the Blondin line by walking along the wharf " amid a prolonged blaze of fireworks," spoke at some length, and concluded by saying : —" The eyes of many countries are on you, and it rests with tbe people of. New Zealand to tread the luminous path to the proud destiny in store for them. My own humble efforts, will, ,1 hope, be merged in the glories of the colony with which they are identified." This may be poetry, but it is horribly at variance with the prosaic hard- \ working life of the colonist who comes out here io make a living, and perhaps to acquire. a; small property on which his sons may settle down after him. " Glories "doesn't seem to me to be the right word to use in connection with this colony of ours. Possibly it and the " luminous path " were suggested by the " prolonged blaze of the fireworks," but they don't read well at a distance, and, out of sight of the pyrotechnical accompaniment, they savour of " high falutin." But perhaps Sir Julius has, after mature consideration, thought it expedient to take his key from the tone adopted by his slavish adorers, who have of late been writing of him in ,the most fulsome manner in some of the public prints. I find that in one way or another I am frequently neglecting my duties. Last week I had to plead guilty to not having felt a " thrill " of satisfaction on learning that Sir Julius }Yogel had arrived in Australia, and now I. have to admit that my mind has not been " agitated by a painful uncertainty" regarding his movements during the .last few months, such as the paper which thrilled last week told us on Thursday has recently affected the public mind. This sort of thing, I felt, would not do any longer, so I said to myself, " Look here, F, wben '. every other individual in the great colony to which you belong is in pain and uncertainty about Sir J. V. it won't do for you to remain in your ordinary health and spirits. You must go iv for a painful fit of the blues if you wish to be considered respectable by the organ through which his praises are trumpeted three times a week in Nelson, until the blower almost blows himself out of breath. Just see now if you can't do the melancholy for a while." So I tried on Thursday morning. I had some difficulty in making a commencement, but I thought the best way to succeed would be to fix my thoughts upon certain subjects of a depressing character, so I wrote on a slip of paper, from the contents of which I never allowed my eyes or mind to wander, the words Nekon Grand Trunk Railway (as it is.) San Francisco Mail Service (as it \ was, is now, and seems likely ever to be.) In about an hour my reflections had produced tbe desired effect, and by the time the Arawata was in harbor I was in such a frame of mind as would have done credit even to the susceptible writer who alternately thrills with satisfaction, and becomes agitated «by painful uncertainty whenever his thoughts run upon his idol. Having reached this respectable stage of moodiness,, melancholy, and misery, I walked down' to tbe wharf, but when I learned that Sir Julius actually had arrived, was in that very steamer which was lying at the wharf, was really eating a hearty breakfast in the saloon, the transition from deep despondency to intense joy was almost more , than I could bear,

andfit was quite as much as 1 could do to stammer out, " Hae he got the gout ?" DaVkness ffed away, and all around me was luminous ahd glorious when the welcome reply " No" fell upou my ear. Then did I feel that I might conscientiously become cheerful once more, aod that gay usually good spirits might with all decency resume their customary flow, and, now that I am myself agrim, I may perhaps be permitted to express the hope that we are not going to have any more of this nonsense about, Sir Julius Yogel. He has quite ■ enough to undergo from his opponents; it is too bad of bis supporters to hold him up to ridicule. " The fellow that, laid out this line ought to be scragged." I don't know exactly what *' scragging " is, but from tbe tone in which the words were uttered, Tarn sure that the speaker — a travelling companion of mine by the railway from the Waimea tbe other day—meant something very dreadful. Aod when I relate the provocation, I think it will be allowed that the unfriendly wish w&b not altogether uncalled'for. As I said, we were coming in "f rom the Waimea. There were on that occasion but very fevr passengers, but ait Stoke there were waiting for ns < seven trucks laden with timber, in all .some 14*000 feet. Two of these were hitched on to our train, and we started with a good head of steam, made play along the flat so as to get good way on, and then made a da6h at the bill by Mr. Stafford's. Twenty miles an hour on tbe level was soon reduced to ten ; by the time we got to the bridge over the line near Mr. Stafford's house, it had oome down to about seven ; on crossing the Waimea-road, four must haVe been the outside ; and from tbence to the summit we proceeded at the rate of aboot three* miles per hour, the engine having all it could do to drag tba train up even at tbat pace. No wonder that my companion, who had never travelled along the line before, was a little haßty in his exclamation. For my own part, lam quite prepared to endorse his sentiment, that somebody ought to be " scragged." F.