THE WEEK.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XI, Issue 139, 3 June 1876, Page 2

THE WEEK.

Sir George Grey has his chance now. For a long time past he has been profuse in his charges against the Government of maladministration, and connivance at — well, I won't say fraud, but something very like it. Once or twice he has come near proving them, but never quite, so the impression has gone abroad, that he didn'.t very clearly know what he was about. But now he has a splendid opportunity. He has made a distinct accusation, and the Governor has consented to afford him every facility for substantiating, it. If he is in the right the. colony will have reason to be thankful to him for his pertinacity in hunting out everything that has even the semblance of wrong doing, and if the Ministry should be seriously implicated in the transaction there can be little doubt that they will get their marching orders. If it should so turn out that he is only blowing and spluttering through certain eggs that he has discovered in a mare's nestj all I • can say is — Poor Sir George ! Two more weeks and Parliament will have commenced' a session that is to last until — well, I am not in a speculative mood just now, and so I don't care to fix a date for its termination, but I shouldn't be surprised if the roses were in full bloom by the time we are called upon by our representatives to listen to their post-sessional utterances. And what will they have to tell us? That they have passed such a Bill to provide for local sell-government in the place' of Provincial institutions as will give universal satisfaction? I hope so, but, at present, lam not quite sure about it. "Do you think the Government will i stand?" was a question rather abruptly

put to me the other day, and I confess that JT was' a little at & loss for an answer. lam not sure about Auckland and Otago pulling together, but if they do, Sir Julius will have all his work to \ do" to resist the strain^n the rope that vvill be manufactured to pull him out. of office. I see there are local " monster sweeps " to be got up on a race to be run in Canterbury six months hence. It seems to me that there is just as widej a field, for speculation on the Premier's Cup to be contested in Wellington this winter. However, it will, perhaps,„b.e better to wait before risking our pounds until the Governor's opening speech and the Financial Statement have given us the " straight tip." I saw one or two gladsome faces about town the other day when the rumor was first made; public that the Qjueen's assent to the l Abolition Bill wan to 1 b.e withhelcl. Ifeould name mdrp than . one w!ho would have dearly liked the ' \ rumor to prove true, and consequently wore ready at once to accept it as such. Tljiey thought it\ought to be, and therefore considered that it must be, and their hopes went' up like the mercury iin a thermometer removed in the longest day in the year from the 'shade to the sun. But then came the) telegram in-,. forming us of Lord Carnarvon's despatch, and the thermometer went back at once to the shady^iiid,e,iOJ^ t .houße. •. Very wisely the Home have refused ftp interfere' itf matters affecting none ]but ourselves^ and so Lord Carnarvon writes to the Marquis of Normanby telling him that he is not going to mix himself up in the matter, but is quite prepared to look quietly on and see the combatants fight it out among themselves. And so one Jmore anti-abolition hope has faded away. I am very glad to see that steps have been taken to stop the indiscriminate '. destruction of game all the year round by the appointment of a number of rangers who/ by their steady persistence in refusing to shoot hares, pheasants, or quail without being duly authorised to do. so, have qualified themselves for ■ the position ofi preservers i of the game which has been imported here at some „ considerable cost; ;•' I: looked; carefully through the list of the new appointees, with the view of setting a black -cross against the name of any one who was at all likely to infringe the provisions of the " Protection of Animals Act," and was just congratulating "myself on" my failure to discover among them any one of poaching propensities when I heard a rude fellow who was ■ sitting by me and reading the paragraph announcing the appointments exclaim: — " My ; word I there are some of them chaps ought never to quarrel, because, if they did, they'd be able to tell some pretty stories about each other." But I don't know what he meant. When I was a little boy — Oh dear! it's a great many years ago now— there was one lesson that was most carefully instilled into me, and I have never forgotten, it. I was told many a time and oft that I was never to ask' for anything, no matter how much I might desire it, as to do so would be unmannerly and . wrong. This rule I have carefully observed through life, especially in the matter of pheasants. However much I enjoy them, however many I may. have heard of as having fallen before my sportsman friends' guns, however few have found their way to iny table, I have never asked for one, I have not even thought of doing so. Once or twice it has reached my ears that a rumor was abroad to the effect that I did not care for them, and this, I have felt it my duty, in justice to myself and those of my friends who might be pre- ! vented, by it from affording themselves tne pleasure of sending me a brace, to. contradict. This I did last Saturdays and <the result has been, that on Monday I, received a lovely brace of birds, accompanied by the following note: — . "Dear IT. — I'm so sorry I had been misled by, a silly report that you rather disliked pheasants. Had it not been for, this I would have taken care that you were well supplied ; as it is I send ; you the only brace I have left, and trust that you will enjoy them .—Tours, i&c. " I can't say how gratified I was by the receipt of the birds or how' much I admired and appreciated the stern sense of self-denial which 'prompted the donor in sending me his last brace, which, no doubt, he had reserved for his own enjoyment. "!Wbat a noble example he sets to his fellow sportsmen," I thought. "I wonder how many of them will follow it." This was on Monday. Since then my ideas of the unselfishness of human nature have undergone some slight modification, as, during the many days that have elapsed between then and now, no more birds have graced my table. In addition, to the above I have to acknowledge with grateful thanks the receipt of six beautiful "quail" from a thoughtful friend, whose modesty prevented his giving me any further clue to his name than that contained in the. letters *' W.M." , Regarded . from a purely culinary point of view, I don't think much of these "quail," but as ornithological curiosities I confess I never met their equal. I should be glad to compare them with any specimens of the real Californian quail that " W.M." might be pleased to forward to me. P.