SATURDAY GOSSIP.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2921, 5 August 1882, Page 2

SATURDAY GOSSIP.

: When members travel homo (as they will shortly, I suppose) every man will bear about within him, a conviction that he has realjy served his country. This is an illustration of delusional insanity I should say. For a good many of us have been trying to find what the deuce they have been doing except talk. The Ministry, Sir George Grey, and the Members for Gladstone and Waimate, have worked hard, it .must bo conceded. But there, the list is almost complete.

I wonder the mace (if there is one) did’nt stand on end with horror, like Mr Speaker's hair, when Tom Bracken broke out into melody. Fancy a Member of Parliament volunteering-a song! He bad better go home and charm the Irish obstructionists into submission. Who knows but that music might do what no other influence could, make the Hon, Irish Grievance, lie down with the lamb, Gladstone.

I never quite understood what “ pious horror ” was until I yesterday read in the “ Table s ” an interesting sketch of missionary travels in Fiji, by a Homan Catholic clergyman. He found, he says, that no priest had visited one Giicular spot for years. The old men profited By the instruction then given and died in the true faith,|but of the children bo has a woeful aecount to give. “The -children, says he, “ fell into the bands of the Wesleyans!” Oh! the horror with which the good man makes this exclamation 1 “Fell among the Wesleyans!” Talk about the odium thwlogicum after that.

When sonjie of the good people, who with excellent taste and feeling assembled on The platform the other day in the hope -of seeing the levauter return, got back to their homes again, I wonder how they felt. , They may have been a little sore at having been “sold,” but I fancy the predominant feeding must have been one of shame at themselves. It is quite astonishing, the amount of morbid feeling there is in the men (and women) of this nineteenth century. There is’nt an Englishman, I care not what he is—he may be a local preacher, a Quaker, as solemn as you please—but in his heart of hearts would like to see a prize fight if be could behold it, himself unseen. Sights horrible, distressful, sorrowful, have a strange fascination.

The frequent occurrence of embezzlement by men holding positions of, trust, causes a wide-spread distrust in “ commercial circles”; and the matter is, in truth, becoming very serious. A preventive occurs to me. If this sort of thing grows, as it threatens to grow, let us have women in these positions. Paterfamilias, stop your daughter’s academic career and turn her into tho pastures of commerce, where she will gain more for herself* and do more good to others. If 1 wanted a cashier, which, thank God, jl don ’t, I should seek me out a reputable lady, who, perhaps, had kept a shop, and into* her keeping I should commit my monetary affairs (Oh! no, my dear boy, you need not sneer ; I should be quite proof against blandishments; they are on mo as water on the back of a duck). Seriously, my theory is thia, that while the physical and mental coni dilution of a man, in general, is more robust than woman’s in the domain of nrorals, women as a rule are stronger; invsiriably so, where their emotional organisation is not concerned. In their relation with tho opposite ees,

you can’t be sure of them perhaps. But in matters concerning business, I will back a woman who has had any business training to buy and sell most men, and, outside matters of the heart, women have a conscience. I commend this suggestion to the Chamber of Commerce, and I leave it to their sense of justice to recognise genius by a douceur. For such a brilliant idea as this bears the mint-stamp, the hall-mark of genius.

The most amusing phase of the liquor question is the consumption of a beverage known by the reassuring name of zoedone—a temperance champagne. Two or three dead marines of this mild “ phiz " make a convivial display and look like the real thing, and the poor fellows try bard to believe it jolly. Surely this sort of thing is a mistake, and, to my mind, one of the least hopeful signs of the temperance movement; this tickling of the palate with beverages that ore just on the border line, shows a latent craving. Either let us take our good whisky like men ; or, also like men, take our tea or coffee at regular intervals and refrain from drinking anything between whiles, A few days in the interior of Australia would teaoh some of these thirsting gentry how much thirsty is increased by the practice of drinking. Puck.