THE WEEK.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIII, Issue 266, 16 November 1878, Page 2

THE WEEK.

la there £o #e p, « walk over " for] the Nelson MaWrafty Plate of — soys, added to a sweepstake of 000? .If I put the, question, tliat has of late caused me considerable anxiety, in sporting parlance, I mttst ue excused upon the ground that -just at this time of the year jioi'ae racing appears to be the leading iopic of the day, and newspaper readers are expected to peruse with intense interest the report of the latest event on tht ' turf, whether it be the Canterbury 'Clip of 500 3ovs or the AshbtMon Handicap of 75. But to drop horses and to return to the mayor. ! Arc Vre going to hand the office over, to: the first man who asks for it, .and feel . thankf ul that we can get anybody tojake It? )Mr so from the present tfpp^ranee of affairs, and iuy feats fcra somewhat aggravated by a conversation that I chanced to hear at a street corner the other evening, and which I do not think I shall be guilty of a breach of confidence in making public. Presents three or four ratepayers. Says Browtn " took here Jones, it f will never do to let the highest office in the Municipality go & begging. A few of us have been thinYiog.the matter over and have ijohi'e to the conclusion that you are the tuaa who should hold ifc. We will Rive you our warmest support, and workfor you like niggers if you will only consent to stand. Come now, what. do you say?" Joues replies .(and It is evident from what he says that he is a pretty shrewd calculator and doesn't say Yes or No without thinking.) " I really aiii | very much obliged to you, but I tear, as the result of having thought the matter over, that I must refuse your request. I have gone in for all the pros and cows, and find the balauce sheet stands something like this: —The election expenses, though, perhaps, not heavy, will amount to something; the time I should have to devote to the duties of the office in the event of my being elected would be considerable; and the anxiety atld worry will be. Very great; On the bthef hand what am I to expect in return? Salary; nil; honor and glory, infinitesimal; patronage, not worth Speaking about; thanks, iione; abuse, in the event of my making a mistake as all men will occasionally do, plentiful. Gentlemen, I thauk you yery much for your kindly expression of confidence, Jbiit on the whole I think I would rather not.'' If Jones takes a correct view of the matter, it strikes mo there's a screw loose somewhere, and that the ratepayers will have to show in some unmistakeable manner that they attach more importance to the office, and are pre- i pared to make it a more diguified one than at present if they expect to be well served. It is always gratifying to me to observe signs of progress in New Zealand, and therefore it is with much pleasure that I have noticed during the last week one symptom of our going ahead very fast in the matter of the speedy dissemination of news. Fast steamers running at regular intervals from port to port, and telegraph wires along which a. constant stream of electricity is flowing, conveying in its course items of information which are greedily perused by those for whose benefit they are transmitted, eeem to me to have increased rather than to have appeased the thirst for knowledge which is becoming so marked a characteristic of this colony. In support of this theory I would quote a telegram that was forwarded from Wellington a day or two ago. It was as follows:— "Coke is becoming so scarce in Wellington that the tramway engines will shortly be compelled to use coal." Now, a few years ago we should have been perfectly content to wait for some days before receiving so thrilling and exciting a piece of news, and indeed, if it so happened that it never reached us at all not a complaint would have been heard. But now, in these days of hurryskurry, the words that convey to distant parts the dire straits to which a carrying company in Wellington is reduced must needs be flashed along the wires at the rate of a thousand miles a second. The same message also intimated that somebody or other in Wellington wouldn't be able to make any more biscuits if he didn't get some coke soon, but this was evidently intended just to fill up the telegram, and so I don't attach so much importance to it. When I see these signs of go-aheadnessl feel inclined to- chuck my hat in the air, and shout. " Advance New Zealand," and to sing the new National Anthem. Another proof of the rapid progress we are making is to be found in the fact that there are a great number of individuals in our community who have such a lot of money that they really don't know what to do with it, and apparently don't care what becomes of it. This is no haphazard statement, made carelessly and without sufficient grounds, but I am prepared to give my authority, which is the latest report published by the Postal Department, from which I learn that to the Dead Letter Office there were consigned during the year 1877 the following articles: -86 money orders for a total of £342 5s 7d; [88 bank drafts, representing £3,550 16s 2d; 55 cheques for an aggregate of £1,049 4s 8d; four promissory notes, by which the signatory parties had rendered themselves liable for £414 3s sd; bank notes, by which, if lost, the Banks would benefit to the tune of £78; £5 in gold, and 3s 9d in silver and copper, making a grand total of £5442 0s 9d, with regard to the ultimate destination of which the sendors or sendees appeared to have but little care. Besides these there are to be found in the same office two letters without any addresses containing enclosures valued at £100 18s 3d, a parcel of gold dust, a silver watch, and a toothpick' of the same metal, a gold chain, seven gold rings, and two pairs of gold earrings. Who's afraid of the future of New Zealand when we have wealth to this amount that we can afford to pitch into the—Dead Letter Office. There is a philanthropist living up Auckland way to whom I don't mind giving a cheap advertisement. He or she (for the sex of the advertiser is kept a secret) notifies through the medium of a local paper that by him or her there is wanted— "To adopt an Orphan Boy between eight and ten years of age, by deed of surrender. He would be kindly treated, well educated, and brought up eveutually to the mercantile profession Apply &c" If the advertiser is not too particular about the adopted one being an orphan I think I could meet his or her views by shipping from Nelson to Auckland a few scores of boys between eight and ten, or even a little older, from whom he or she mieht make his or her selection, and even if he or she decided to adopt the lot I don't think it would give rise to much mourning amongst the proprietors of fruit gardens and hen roosts in the town that would thus be de prived of their presence. It has just occurred to me that the foregoing paragraph may get me into trouble 1 know there are a number of good old souls who after they have given their Freddvs their 'lommys , and their Bobbys their Saturday night's tub and tucked them up comfortably in their little beds, will sit down quietly, take up the Mail, and say to themselves "Now let's see what <F.' has to say to-night." And when they read the suggestion that they should take advantage of an Aucklanders desire to adopt a child, they will throw the paper down in a rage and exclaim, Oh the hard hearted wretch! To suppose that I'd aend ray little Tommy away upon any consideration, or that if I did there 7TT\ 7 Wlsh niost solemnly to assure you that at the time of writing I never intended to refer in the most distant manner to those three or four rosy-cheeked little

T»cy% 0^ yours who, when uiider, the maternal eye^ are so nice, and so proper, and so .well behayed, and who look as though buttejr .would not melt in dear Innocent little mouths. , ,It was your neighbors' children I Wfts tnlbfciug of, and. haven't, you often and often said to your husband that youiwished some of them would clear out, so that the morals of your own little models of propriety should not be contaminated toy associating with t^hepi? Cuhous, the difference in the .meaning of, and the effect produced by,aword,according to whether it is used in the singular or plural number.; As an illustration take the nduu .substantive "..copper&a sittlbls enough word neflajtttyk I AAs Standing, say, in Trafalgarijtreei, with half a dozen others. If I point to a man on the other side and say, "He has some coppers in his pocket," they treat my remark with contemptuous silence, and think perhaps that my brain Is a little affected. But I don't do this. I say, " Look at that men over there; he has sotiie copper.*' They at once^beeottje .deebly iHtereSted atid itiake me point biit distinctly which man tmeah;so that there can be no mistake: J'ive minutes ejfifcse., I j^n still standing in the saota place, but alone, pne after the 'other hiy companions h&ve iiurhealy. left me, and one after the Other I watch them, gradually closing upon the man of .copper from up the street,, and down the, street; and across the street, all b,eing auxioug to be the first to take him by, % hand, , see^s, c^pjper; . arid find qlit all aboufc wnerß it came iroin, and so on. It was not always so in Nelson. Nothing less valuable than gold moved us At one time, but we have passed through the golden age and entered upon that of copper* lam not sure that the change may not prove a beneficial one. F.