Random Notes

Southern Cross, Volume 1, Issue 17, 22 July 1893, Page 9

Random Notes

The ■wonderful versatility of the human mind, is nowhere'more clearly demonstrated than in the correspondence columns of our dailies. Here day after clay pours forth ad infinitum opinions of all sorts, upon every subject under heaven. Were the muchtried patriarch of primeval times once more to return and “ breathe the upper air,” I greatly fear that he would be strongly impelled “ to curse the newspaper correspondent and die.” Co-operation, Orangeism, Direct Veto, ei hoc yenus omne, appear with rather monotonous regularity each morn along with our matutinal coffee, and each eve with our crepuscular tea; Have pity, ye. knights of the quill, upon poor, jaded readers of our daily broadsheets. When, however, our friends of the correspondence column are constrained to lecture those who indulge in amusements, mild and very possibly harmless, at a semi-private entertainment, surely it is time for us to cry out, in defiance, of Macbeth, that doughty . warrior, “ Hold, enough!” and request our scribbling friends, if they cannot supply us with new wine agreeable to the taste, at least to give us the privilege of turning off the tap when the beverage proves so sour and stale. The ancient Greeks had a very laudable custom: When a legislator appeared before the citizens to propose a new law, he came with a x’opc encircling his neck.' The custom is worthy of revival ! and might with good effect be employed in the case of those newspaper scribblers whose lucubrations prove “ caviare to the general.” Female education, with its deficiencies and superfluities, is receiving at present a great amount of public attention. We have spared no expense to render “ Our Girls un fit for household duties and to equip them for more exalted positions. We have piled on the ’Onomies and the ’Ologics and have gone the “whole hog” in the direction of providing physical, as well as intellectual culture. What wonder if our High School lass, like the Irish girl, should not know the cat ■? And what, is the result of this elaborate and expensive educational system P A writer with something of the bush-poet, about him thus pourtrays the fashionably educated young woman of the present day : “ She could swing a six-pound dumb-bell. She could fence, she could box; She could row upon the river, She could clamber ’mong the rocks, She could do some heavy bowling, And play tennis all day long ; Exit she couldn’t help her mother, ’Cause she wasn’t very strong.”

Ere long we shall have female doctors and lawyers! Female franchise'w"!;!pave the way for lady-legislators.' With Fancy’s eye I can behold the venerable talking-house of Wellington refitted and made mouse-proof by our female representatives; can behold the rich embroidery and the walls decorated with designs representing the “latest fashions.” In imagination I can hear an animated debate on the all-absorbing “Crinoline Bill” as well as the advocacy of closing a 1 places of business save the establishments of the drapers, and the photographers. But someone will ask—“ Where will the men be?” They will, be at home, of course, wheeling the perambulator and attending to the multifarious duties of the household. “ What is man but a broomstick?” sighed Swift. We can imagine how the satirical dean would have smiled had Gulliver reported his adventures in a land where female franchise was in vogue, and where women “ ruled the roost.” I notice that the private secretaries of our Ministers are studying navigation, and I would not be surprised to hear that our recently - appointed lady - telephonists are earnestly and zealously engaged in acquiring a knowledge of matters marine sufficient to enable them to contest a vacant captaincy and give the members of our Liberal Government a cruise to the West Coast Sounds in the O.s. Hincmoa. Not a hundred miles from my elevated station, and therefore well within, range of my observant eye, there occurred lately a 1 1; idle incident, which I feel sure would serve that doughty champion of Prohibition, the Eev. Isitt, as a very suitable theme on which to pour forth a copious stream of his varied and choice vocabulary. “ We cannot regulate the traffic,” says our Eev. friend, and “ the vn-liased lights of the licensing bench do not,” he thinks, “ beam so brightly upon its doings as the oil consumed should warrant. 'the light given, however, sufficed to reveal the leetle incident above referred to. Election to the licensing bench is an honour, at least so thought one who but lately reached that elevation, and the securing of this coveted social distinction he determined to celebrate in the good’old style, by giving a drink “ all round ” to his drouthy and jubilant cronies. Time, the slippery fellow, played him false, and the closing hour had fifteen minutes struck;’when the hoped-for haven came in view, and the closed door uttered its voiceless verdict, “ Too late.” Not to be deprived of the wished-for congratulations, our newly-appointed administrator of the law, with his Fidi Achates, sought, and gained admission by those portals from which no thirsty traveller is turned away—the private door. Soon after, to my listening ears, there were borne through the balmy air of night those congratulatory strains so often raised when the cup that cheers and does inebriate circles round the festive board. I do not for a moment ask my readers to infer that the flowing bowl was in evidence, as the newly-fledged civic functionary would certainly see. that the law was not violated in his august presence. Vox.