THE WOPSES NEST.

Patea Mail, Volume V, Issue 489, 7 January 1880, Page 2

THE WOPSES NEST.

I srri'OSK that Chaos would b>? described in modem language as a “ quite 100 awful mix-up,” and certainly in that sense we Jiiul “ Chaos come agai.n” preily olten. 1 have just bean looking at one oh the angauui Directories, and I find uuder the head of “I'atea,” that we have all been classified under what seems, if not a mixed-up, a very eccentric system. Thus, the Banks are “Official.” so aie the harmonic and Debating Societies, the fShippmg Co, and the Jockey Chib, but the poor Volunteers come under “ Trad.es,” so do the School Committee, the Caledonian Society, and the Cemetery Trustees. Fancy the trade of a Cemetery Trustee ! it is passing strange. In the District School at Napier, a prize was actually given in the girl's division for “ seating trowsers.” Seating (.row I Great Jove, have we come to this , that the name of such an awful garment can he spoken by a female month ? Why, if this sort of thing is to go on, if the dainty-dirty euphuisms wherewith our tongue has been tainted by Yankee false taste, should be abolished, we may actually come down to common sense in language, as in act, at, last, although it would be a strange speech in our mouths for a long time. flow <o glide through the Dark Portal most easily has perplexed the minds of many who did not fear the result, hut only the pang and rending asunder ot flesh and spirit. Some have preferred a rifle-bullet, to “ flash theiv souls out with the guns.” Some of our Gaulish cousins like the charcoal fumes as means of exit, and some epicures say that opening a vein after you are immersed in a warm bath is the most luxurious sort of soothing syrup. The way to do it, however, never troubled me till I saw that at Carterton a week or two ago, a man cut his throat with a bayonet ! Now, that was ingenious, it’s the last thing I should have thought of, and however mad that great genius (which is akin to madness) may make me, I hope I shall not cut my throat with a bayonet, or drown myself in a sarwl-hilh All those who went to hoar the Harmonic Society’s concert of “Trial by Jury,” . vlere well pleased not only pleased with the efforts of the singers to entertain, but with the light and sparkling music. lam glad to hear that more of this style of anisic vVill be given in future. I know that we of the audience are musical barbarians, Goths who must he educated up to liking heavy classical music, but “do your spiriting gently” and by degrees, remembering that “ too much (musical) work makes (musical) Jack a dull hoy.” All the Volunteers are delighted at being sent so many Sniders by the Government. Each Company is to have twenty-five, and as there are seventy men in each Company, the distribution, so as not to cause any jealousy or heart-burning, will be a delightful task. Government are getting too generous, that’s a fact ; going to give out 25 rifles—all at once ! Ain’t it lavish ? Mrs Hardings Britten, can’t you get one of your familiar spirits, Modo' or Malm, or the Witch of Eudor, or somebody, to tell us where all those rifles, that wore coming from England and from the Southern Volunteers, have got to V

New Year’s Day sports here ami at Hawera were a credit to all who took part or attended, not only for the excellent programme provided, but for the absence of any scenes on the ground which might offend the most delicate taste. Anyone who can remember similar gatherings twenty years ago, can give a certificate of the moral progress made by the civilized world in that time, but we have not arrived at that extreme point in (he path of sobriety, &c. t which some of onr neighhons have done. At a town farther south, a big picnic and sports were held under the auspices of the Young Men’s Christian Association, and the advertisement notifies that milk and warm water will he provided on the ground.” Innocent little lambkins ! after they have satisfied the earnin' man with frolicking in the delights of “ kiss in the ring ” and “ french tigg,” they comfort (die parched throat of virnie with warm milk and water —dear creatures, so young, and pure and fair, “fresh with the youth of the world, and recalling Rebecca and Isaac.”

I never had as much sympathy with the Empress Eugenie as I should have bad for another woman who iiad lost her only son, because I know that her bigotry ami folly urged on the commencement of the FraneoPrussian war, with little thought or qualm on her part for the thousands of other mothers whose son’s faces were to bo under the hoofs of the horses ; but I give her credit for a word she has just said. It appears (hat Captain Carey will persist in writing constantly to the papers exonerating himself by throwing discredit on the dead Prince, and the cx-Em press remarked “ Why doseii’t he leave my poor dead hoy alone, he left him alone once.” A straight liit, my pious Captain, yon have “protested too much,” and the weapon in the womanly hand lias found the weak spot in your armour.

The Taranaki people have fired (ho great blast at the sugar loaves for their harbor, and the result seems very doubtful as to the good achieved. They did not get the right stuff for blasting with; they should have got some of the Mountain Hoad boys. I beard enough done in two hours (while the train was delayed two hours waiting for Major Atkinson) to have lifted the biggest mountain in the province.