ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE.

Oamaru Mail, Volume IV, Issue 1095, 22 October 1879, Page 2

ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE.

THE SEVEN KINGS OF LILLIPUT. TO THE EDITOR OF THE OAMAKU MAIL. " Yes, yes, my dear Mac, you are wise, you are good, you are clever, you are handsome, you are bvave, you are rich—but so is Jones over the border." —Thackerat. Sib, —Yes, there is a revolution in Lilliput. Quiet little Hampden lias suddenly burst out into a municipality to the great wrath of sundry wise men who dwell about her. Is there a spell in the very name of Hampden that must evermore bring about a fight for independence I And, then, why should Macacres the farmer, or Fitzmerino the breeder refuse to let Sfcell the butcher, or Oatmeal the baker, or Sandy of the jaok-plane manage his own affairs I What is the nature of that invisible wand that is to turn their gilt coach back into a pumpkin, their men into mice and lizards. In the very first hour of office the peaceable Mayor and his men were assailed with a ram's-horn blast round the walla of their devoted little Jericho. Ten lawyer's letters were distributed among them with charming impartiality, every one being like Falstaifs love-letters—a duplioate of the rest. This discreet epistle opens with a doubt—on the part of the Hampden Road Board —of the authenticity of a certain proclamation, It then in the fulness of its authority makes a counter proclamation, and winds up with a warning to the civic body. Why does that august company the H.R.B. insist that nobody shall play prince but themselves 1 Perhaps they think that the present seven kings of Lilliput are enough. The flesh, too, is weak and bones a monoply, and it is good to have the custody of the three thousand fair acres of Hampden Common. Will the H.R.B. be as wise as that courageous Tartar —the best man of her race—Queen Elizabeth, who knew how to yield gracefully when her subjects grew restive, or will they visit the next meeting of the mayor and council with a flourish of trumpets. may look on, and wonder, and livugh. I am, &q.j Timpkins. Moeraki, Oot. 18, 1879. TO THE EDITOR OP THE OAMAIIU MAIL. Sir, —I don't care a " hang" for the for the subject-matter of your bilious contemporary's leader of to-day about colonial banking, but if he has a case against colonial banks, why in the name of heaven cau't he drop Billingsgate and take ta ordinary English 1 He rather : tends to damage, he can't possibly help, his case by "long strings or strong adjectives ov inflated adjectival phrases. I quote a few of his nice expressions. " Autocratic cook.-," privately trading in dripping and other perquisites," " cross tyranny," " insolent neglect of duty," rank dishonesty," to call such an institution by the grand old English name (this is positively touching) of a banking house is unmitigated blasphemy." With your contemporary a Colonial Bank is but a " den," its bearing " supercilious," while it generally beguiles its spare time by tossing its customers " like squeezed oranges, into the street gutters." What utter bosh all this is ! Yours trul} 7 , Polly.