Entre Nous

Free Lance, Volume I, Issue 17, 27 October 1900, Page 10

Entre Nous

IT is amusing to read how, when the Kilbirnie men got to Island Bay, to discuss the Melrose financial proposals, the local people passed a resolution straight off of the utmost confidence in the same, determined to sit for an hour to hear anybody who had anything to say, and then refused to let him say it unless he said it in the shape of " Sally in Our Alley " or " The Absent-minded Beggar, or "Father, Dear Father, Come 'Ome." There is about this kind of tiling a mixture of Napoleonic decision and genial good temper, which may be regarded as proving the genius of the Anglo-Saxon for selfgovernment. But if it becomes at all common, the Anglo-Saxon is likely to give proofs of his capacity for governing other people. Melrose is obviously a difficult place for municipal government. Two bays— lsland Bay and Kilbirnie— practically isolated ; a mountain top (Brooklyn and Vogeltown) ; a, promontory (Eoseneath), picturesque, but as far off as afleecy cloud on a summer's day; a popular centre (Mitchelltown), running into the hills on its own account, away from everything and everybody else, and dra«<nn<r Taitville with it. Add a variety of outside roads like the Queen's Drive, the road that is to be something on the beach Happy Valleywards, the Happy Valley road, and the road of Ohiro. Break the whole into various levels, apparently actively hostile to each other, and you have the Borough of Melrose. A striking testimony to the genius of our lawmakers delimiting conditions for other people to live under. However, as the thin« is sure, there must be harmony somehow, as the Island Bay meeting very properly and practically demonstrated. TLven the old ruined " Fair Melrose ]' had one aspect in which it could be viewed "aright." This Melrose ought to have many. * V * "What we like particularly about the Melroseans is their determination to drain •without waiting for a quarter million loan. Like the sensible man who, when there is no Pear's superfine, finds indispensable virtue in the common bar variety. "When the quarter million arrives, the drains of today may or may not be useful. That is a question of material used and time lapsed. One wise man, writing to a local paper, makes it a question of levels, and talks about the more or less pumping to be done to the main Wellington sewer level when the time comes. Dear sir, the levels will, bar earthquakes, be exactly the same five centurieß hence as they are now. • * * These little municipal difficulties are nowadays beginning to be taken at their proper value. When the microscopic ward system carried everything before it the world rushed tor subdivision, and if the movement had not subsided for want of force every street in every town would Lave become a separate municipality with a Lord Mayor, aldermen, paraphernalia and humbug. But the " greater " movement set in, and we got Greater London, Greater New York, and our neighbours began to talk of Greater Melbourne and Greater Sydney, and in this land of ours we have faint cries for Greater Christchurch, and Greater Auckland, and there was once a cry almost inaudible and not very distinct, but still a cry, for Greater Wellington. There you have the proper answer to the local irreconcilabilities. Nature has declared that some things must be irreconcilable, except by central authorities ; they are, levels for drainage and water supply, tram systems serving large areas, gas and electric installations illuminating extended spaces. These are the great lines of municipal compromise. If people would only reflect that, as with other main lines, the intervening spaces are filled with reticulations, each involving some sort of compromise, municipal life would be easier. * • • Wouldn't our Political Leaguers like to run the elections " alle same Melican man." For the Presidential campaign now in full swing in the United States, and the election for which comes off next month, no less than 8000 orators are paid by the day by both McKinley and Bryans parties. There were from ten to fifteen thousand applicants for stumping posts, not counting all the phonographs in the market. Lovely woman goes on the silver and gold stump, and all is talk throughout the land.

It sounds like heresy to say anything in praise of our native timbers, or, for that matter, in favour of anything, except men and women, grown or made in New Zealand. But truth is stranger than all the fiction we get from the superior persons who are always bleating for the betterment of the foreigner. At a recent meeting of the Thames Harbour Board there was a discussion on timbers, which was remarkable enough for at least a passing note. During the proceedings one of the members, of considerable experience in the timber trade, stated that he had proved that one horse working on a tramway could draw as big a load on rimu heart rails as two horses working on the same line during the time kauri rails were used. The explanation was, he said,- that the rimu gave "a hard, glossy surface which kauri did not, the consequence being that the friction was much less in one case than in the other. Other members of the Board a.gr§ed that tbeheart of New Zealand rnnu was quite as durable as Australian iron bark, for which a stiff price has now to be paid by importers.

Frequent complaint is made in the City concerning the filthy banknotes which are allowed to circulate. The Lance would advise all complainants to poke a lead pencil or other sort of bodkin through their notes. The bank never recirculates a torn note, and of course business people will soon pass on to the banks such perforated documents. • w # A small paper published so many times per week in the back parts of Otago makes features of news articles on " The War in China " and " The Paris Exhibition," from " A Special Contributor " and " Our Own Correspondent." There is no need to go to Yankeeland for enterprise. # » # Milton (Otago) hopes to be made famous by an invention of one of its residents, who has a patent (a very close secret at present), which, he says, will revolutionise the cycle trade the world over. The Lance is dubious of the greatness or pleasantness of the revolution, when it finds that solid tires will be substituted for the puncturable but easyriding pneumatic. It is not generally known that a musical bootmaker, a familiar figure on Lambton-quay, has patented a non-puncturable pneumatic tire. Leather takes the place of rubber for the casing, and the specimen seen by the writer was a beautiful piece of work, and neater than a football casing.

"What bosh] Here's a prohibition order taken out against a man in the S.M. Court, and the newspaper publishes everything but his name ! " It was the very proper exclamation of a disgusted reader in our hearing the other day. Let it be remembered that the law ordains the issue of prohibition orders for a good purpose; viz., to help the dipsomaniac to conquer himself by keeping him off liquor ; and that it takes the precaution of ordaining at the same time that all liquor sellers not respecting that prohibition order shall be punished. To publish the fact that the order has been made, and to withhold the name of the map most concerned is unjust to the victim of alcohol, for it deprives him of the help which he would be the better for. It is, at the same time, unfair to the liquor sellers, who are thus permitted to fall blindly into an offence, the consequences of which must eventually lead to loss of license and of livelihood. The Licensing Act wants one thing to bring it nearer to perfection — a clause fining every newspaper mauling a prohibition order.

The Licensing Bill is denounced by publicans and teetotal sinners alike in terms which admit of no compromise. It therefore suits the majority. * * * Bravo, Mr Inspector Lee ! You have made an excellent Shakespearian selection for the English subject in the scholarship examinations. For fire and stateliness of language, lofty patriotic sentiment, and moral grandeur, Henry Y. stands among the highest captains of the great Shake spearian series. Shakespeare, moreover, can never be disassociated from scholarships. Virgil never is, and Virgil has the disadvantage of being conveyed in a dead language. • • » John Bright it was who used to declare that the British classics are quite sufficient to furnish the completest culture, and he was himself a remarkable example of a man becoming a master of English without a long and laborious failure to become a master of Latin and Greek. The fact is recognised in the University syllabus, and it ought not to be without its effect on the primary system. The Bible is excluded, in spite of its noble language and imagery, and in spite of the wisdom and beauty of its pages, for reasons which cannot be gainsaid by the true Secularist. Why not follow the Greek example and make the National Bard the guide of the young nation ?

If anybody will be . good enough to suppress the fish story he will both achieve the impossible and remove nine-tenths of its terrors from the fishing season which is now upon us. If such a one there be let him take encouragement from a little " fire story " told by the chief of the Kansas Fire Brigade which won the champion cup at the Paris Exhibition the pther day. This is how he told it: — "We the English-speaking competitors were sitting in a cafe telling of experiences we had had. The commander of the New Zealand contingent, we noticed, had nothing to say. He just sat and listened. After a great deal of persuasion, however, we got him to talk. He said the most exciting incident he could remember took place at an hotel fire in his town. The hotel was twenty stories high. The nineteenth story was burning when a man appeared at the top of the building. Some of the crowd shouted ' jump,' and others ' don't jump.' The man waved his hand to the people down below and disappeared. In a minute or two he appeared again wrapped in rubber life-preservers, rubber cushions and water bottles. He was a a traveller for a rubber firm. The man jumped. When he struck the pavement he bounced up again higher than the hotel, and he went on bouncing for a week. Eventually they had to get a sharp-shooter to shoot him to prevent him from starving to death." After that every man swore internally that he would never tell another fire story, and kept his oath for the rest of the evening. » • • Where in Maoriland is there a twentystorey hotel ? By way of answer let us suppose that the narrator of the above story went through a preliminary not unknown in the fo'c'sle of old, " Say, Bill, was you ever in New Zealand ?" " No." " Nor you, Jack ? " •• No." " Nor, etc.," until nobody having been in Maoriland the raconteur with a quiet conscience located his story in New Zealand. * • • A correspondent referring to the few personal particulars the Lance published last week of Captain Hamilton's record, writes :—": — " You say (a cousin) Colonel Sir Bobert Douglas " commands " the 11th Hussars. It should read " commanded." This officer, who became a LieutenantGeneral, saw a good deal of service with this regiment. As you seem to like anecdotes, I give a few particulars. Lord Cardigan, when Colonel of the 11th, had some unpleasantness at the mess-table with one of the officers, a Captain Baker. This resulted in a duel fought in Belgium, in which Captain Baker was shot. Captain Douglas was Lord Cardigan's second. Lord Cardigan, although a strict disciplinarian, was liberal to his regiment. He, on one occasion, to enable the regiment to be mounted on a better class of horse, contributed £10,000 from his private means as an addition to the purchase money. Lieutenant-General Sir B. Douglas was also well-known as a horseman. When a Captain he rode a crosscountry match against that famous allround sportsman and deer-stalker, Horatio Boss, and would have won it if Boss had not ridden him down at the last fence. This, as the terms were to get there in any way they could, landed Boss the winner. • * • Boss had been a Lieutenant in the 13th Hussars, in which regiment Captain Hamilton has or had two nephews, captains. Later, Sir B. Douglas commanded the 11th Hussars under Lord Cardigan in the still well-remembered Balaclava charge. To show that the military service of this family was fairly active, the father of Lieutenant-General Sir B. Douglas just named, was General Sir Neil Douglas, whose service began prior to the Waterloo era, when he commanded the 79th Cameron Highlanders. Sir Neil's other son, Lieutenant-General Sir John Douglas, succeeded him in command of the 79th. A cousin, John Douglas, was either a Major or Lieutenant-Colonel of the 99th, and there was Sir Douglas Forsythe, and these were all military titles received for active service in the Peninsula wars, Waterloo, Crimea, Indian Mutiny, etc. They were the sons of Captain Hamilton's father's sisters, and when the party were assembled at afternoon tea there were four Ladies Douglas present. Captain Hamilton's mother's family were also military. Her four brothers were in the service. The eldest a captain in the 21st Boyal Scots, the second a captain in the 37th Foot, the third a lieutenant in H.M. Boyal Navy, and the fourth a lieutenant in the Household Cavalry, the famous Blues. Their father was a colonel who received a sword of honour from the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland for distinguished services, and his father and grandfather were both colonels. Therefore it will be readily seen that this historical family have contributed jointly their fair share in maintaining the honour and glory of the British Empire.