THE WEEK.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XI, Issue 100, 15 April 1876, Page 2

THE WEEK.

I have more than once found myself wishing that Grood Friday would occasionally occur on a Saturday, but it won't, not even in leap year. My reason for so desiring is that it might sometimes happen that the seven preceding days had been unproductive of anything of a startling or even of an interesting character, and consequently it would be a great relief to me to find

that that particular Saturday being a>; generally recognised holiday, I was not f called upon to supply my weekly notes h on that day. But as yesterday was| ■ Good Friday, and this is a working day^J I see no way to get out of the difficulty in which I find myself at present. I often think that those who are engaged upon a daily paper must hail the advent of Christmas Day and Good Friday with special pleasure, seeing that, barring Sundays, there are only two days in the year on which they can look upon themselves as being altogether and entirely free from the trammels of office. Their work may or may not be hard, still there is the unceasing tie from the Ist of January to the 31st of December. To get away for three or four days, or for a week, and to feel that during that time they were not: bound to supply leading articles,. " locals," or police reports, would be to them a rare treat, such as few besides themselves could thoroughly appreciate, but no, there is the perpetually revolving grindstone, on which their noses must be kept, and therefore for them do Christmas Day and Good Friday present unusual attractions as being real bona fide holidays on which they are for twice in the year their own masters. Over one class of workers only does the daily newspaper man possess an advantage, that is, the milkers of cows who have to be at their post every day, not even excepting Sundays. Perhaps it is a comfort to him to know that there are others who are worse off than himself, but, after all, the comfort is but a sorry one. It must be a fine thing to be a Minister, and especially a Native Minister. One does not like to think that very shortly after he has shuffled oft this mortal coil he will in all probability be forgotten by all, even by those whom he regarded as his most intimate friends. Still, such is too often the case, painful as it may be to contemplate. But if you should happen to be above the ordinary run of mankind, and to have attained the high position of a member of the Colonial Executive, you stand a chance of escaping this sinking into oblivion, and of ensuring your being remembered after death by means - that are simple, easy, pleasing, and gratifying in the highest degree. Such a happy fate is in store for Sir Donald M-Lean, K.C.M.G., as I will show, by reproducing a paragraph that appeaired in a recent issue of a Napier newspaper. It runs as follows: — " A great novelty in the shape or. meerschaum pipes, having on the bowls carved likenesses of Sir Donald M'Lean, arrived yesterday to the order of Mr Abrahams, of Hastings-street. They have been manufactured at Vienna, the likeness being copied from a very accurate photograph of the Native Minister. The profile as represented on the pipe, is very good, but the full face is not quite so striking a likeness. The pipes are very beautifully got up, and the material is of the. - very best description. Any one desirous of purchasing for himself, or making a present to a friend, of a handsome and useful pipe will do well to visit Mr Abraham's establishment." Talk about testimonials! Think about having your portrait painted at the expense of a Municipal Corporation, to be hung up in their debating chamber ! What are these compared with the immortality that has been conferred upon Sir Donald M'Lean, K.C.M.G., by Mr Abrahams of Hastings-street, who has speculated to the extent of having this popular Minister's likeness carved in Vienna upon a multitude of meerschaum pipes? When my time comes for passiug away from this world, I feel sure that it would afford me unspeakable comfort to reflect that the essential oil as extracted from the soothing weed in a hundred pipes was slowly but surely imparting to my image the light brown hue of a half-caste, and that my cheeks and lips were being watched with pleasure aud delight by many a smoker as the halfcaste gradually developed in the fulLblown nigger. Or if I had a down on a fellow, what a real pleasure it would be to me to know that even after I was . placed below the sod, I could still contrive to worry and annoy him by obstinately refusing to blacken artistically.. ; I can imagine his wrath as he rubbed away angrily with a silk handkerchief at my nose, as represented by an exceptionally hard piece of meerschaum* exclaiming all the while " Confound the thing, it will persist in looking yellow instead of coloring delicately and gradually." On the whole I think it must be a great advantage to be a Minister, and to have one's features carved on "a beautifully got up pipe, the material of which is of the very best description;" A fine language is the English. It is capable of conveying the same meaning in such an endless variety of words. I always admired my native language on this account, but I don't remember ever having been struck with this particular peculiarity so forcibly as when abtending a court case the other day arising out of an assault. Said ; a witness, when describing one of the principal scenes in the act : — " I tapped him on the ear, and he happened to fall." "In other words," said the matter-of-fact counsel for the other side, "you knocked him down !" " Well, it might possibly bear that construction," was the reply. Unfortunately for the tapper it so happened that the Court considered the words used by the witness and those substituted for them by the counsel did bear the same construction, but they don't sound the same at all, do they? I was reading an Australian paper the other day when I came across the following, evidently written by a man whose rest had been disturbed on the previous evening: — "Night is rather •frequently made hideous here by the

|sanjrie\hoW,]ibg.;iiiatcliea. One came ,offpatel3 r .|,, [When everything was quiet, |andjbalmy\ sleep' had closed tired eyelids, an evil" and! accursed, cur set up a ; lpng r>melancholy wail-; several others joined in lugubrious chorus ; email dogs gave out sharp, shrill, vicious barks ; and large ones, which were loafing about the verandahs, growled out bass bass accompaniments. The din caused awakened sleepers to indulge in forcible and familiar quotations, or vainly to strive to deaden the babel of sounds by burrowing under their bedclothess." Sorry am I to say that I have more than once experienced the same trouble in this quiet town of Nelson, but I never knew how to express my grievance properly until I read what the Australian paper had to say on the same, subject, I\

{For continuation of Newt see fourth page.~)