Patea County Mail. PUBLISHED Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. TUESDAY, JULY 6, 1880. OUR MAIDEN AUNT.

Patea Mail, Volume VI, Issue 542, 6 July 1880, Page 2

Patea County Mail. PUBLISHED Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. TUESDAY, JULY 6, 1880. OUR MAIDEN AUNT.

Visitors!© this West Coast are surprised and captivated with the signs of substantial prosperity, as compared with other districts in the colony. They find that the commercial depression has been less severe in the Patea County than elsewhere, and they observe that the revival is more evident here than in those less favored districts with which they compare the West Coast. They are puzzled to account for the general ignorance which prevails outside as to the character and prospects of this Coast. Some of these kindly visitors predict that when the true merits of the West Coast become known throughout the colony, there will be a great rush of new settlers up this way. Let them come, and welcome ! We can then explain to them that, although nature has dealt bountifully with this district, her gifts are as nothing compared with the greater favors conferred on us by Taranaki. We shall have to explain to the new-comers that part of their payment for the land must go to Taranaki, If they ask why, we shall say, with conclusive logic, that the money must go to Taranaki because it is the pleasure of Taranaki to have it. If the newcomers get into a bouncing temper, and ask what is Taranaki to them, we shall meekly answer that Taranaki is the maiden aunt of the West Coast family; and that if they join the family, they must also take the family’s maiden aunt to their bosom. Blessings never come singly, except in the case of your maiden aunt. She is a single blessing, as the new-comers will find.

She is a clear kind elderly party, is Miss Taranaki. She has taken charge of our land revenue, and promised us sugar-sticks if we are good. She has mixed our politics, and reproved ns for speaking before we were spoken to. She has taken the money for our Railway, and spent it at the Taranaki end for the convenience of maiden aunts, She manages our Waste Lands, and lays out the money for things suitable to elderly Taranaki ladies. She takes n coddling interest in the affairs 01 Hawora and Normanby, where her in" Alienee is very Taranaki. She is anxious* in fact, to take those twin school-boys to her arms and embrace them in the Taranaki style, which may be described as a loving process of squeezing the life out of them. Miss Taranaki is making a Railway to Normanby and Hawera, for conveying their produce to Taranaki; and she is aggravating her kindness by also making a deep-sea harbour (specially for Normanby and Hawera, dear creatures !) at their expense. That is Miss Taranaki’s winning way. She has been equally solicitous for the welfare of Carlyle, and has prevented young Carlyle from wasting his pocket money in playing ducks and drakes with pennies in this harbour, because Carlyle pennies are wanted to play with on the seashore at New Plymouth. Miss Taranaki has taken local politics out of our bauds for fear wo should hurt ourselves in playing with edged tools. Miss Taranaki is getting apprehensive lest her growing boys hereabout should grow wayward and self-willed. She hears ns crying out for things which she knows, with the instinct of a maiden aunt, will be likeky to upset our stomachs. She is afraid wc shall be getting at the jam, or putting our hands into the sugar, although she has told us many times that rich things which look nice will only make us sick. Our maiden aunt knows what is not good for us, and keeps the rich things to herself. She has just caught Master Hawera and little naughty Normanby trying to put their fingers in the treacle, and she has rapped their knuckles—more in maidenly pity than in anger. They who do not know her as we do cannot be expected to love her as we do. Wc are saving up our pocket-money. to present Aunt Taranaki with a new poke bonnet.