Random Notes

Southern Cross, Volume 1, Issue 34, 18 November 1893, Page 9

Random Notes

Who and where is the Jonah we seem to have been nursing like a wiper in «our bussums ? Some such delinquent there is somewhere hereabouts I am sure, else why those two drenching holidays ? Why does not the Rev. Isitt or the weather clerk who has the operating of the weather taps aloft, arrange for a more Seasonable time to let loose a deluge than the very day for which we plan a pleasant little picnic for our wives, our sisters, our cousins and our aunts ? My own coign of vantage is not sufficiently elevated to enable me to take a share in the management of our fresh water supply, else would I gladly perform my portion of labour of having fine days dated in the almanac to suit holiday making lieges. But who is the Jonah ? That is “ a question to be asked,” as Falstaif puts it. I have been racking my head to think who the objectionable jmsson can be. It can’t be the Mayor—he granted the holiday, and for days past his face has beamed on us all like a harvest moon. He has not the look of a Jonah ! Neither the present Colonial Treasurer nor the ex-M mister of Lands can have adopted this means of spiting the electors, whether we think of the newlyenfranchised Dames or of the lately deposed Lords of Creation as being thus visited with disappointment and despair when they hoped for one “ whiff of the briny.” For the one, his seat is sure, though the other may deem his somewhat shaky. Both, however, have too great a love for us all to dash our holiday hopes in this fashion. Can it be ? but, no ! Tell it not in Gath, that candidate prefers to give us a cold douche in the way of a Img-winded oration rather than to drench our holiday apparel and condemn us to flattening our noses on the window pane by way of holiday amusement!

Though a little late in the day, you will, most worthy lieutenant, permit me to extend my own and my readers’ heartiest thanks and congratulations. It was “ a prood prood day” for Invercargill to welcome home her victorious sons from their hard-won, but bloodless victory, on Tuesday last ! More power to your lungs, and brighter laurels for your brows, ye true and tried ones ! High stands your record, and each victory but paves the way to nobler spoil yet to be won ! Vox most heartily felicitates Bandmaster Siddall and his company of right good fellows on the work they did and the glory they gained on the far-famed plains of Canterbury in the now historic band contest of 1893.

Who has not heard of the recent delightfill little gambling puzzles inaugurated a t Home —the missing word contests ? This mania, for a mania has it become, finds expression in many ways, but who would expect to find the puzzle in a sedate university examination paper P Since Her Majesty’s ’spectre (as the little boy put it) set me free from his annual inquisitorial investigation, I have, as seldom as I could, submitted to the trying ordeal, to which, as a juvenile, I with reluctance and in fear and trembling, exposed myself. Such being the case I must politely decline to supply the missing word in the little conundrum submitted this last week to candidates for the N.Z. University degrees at the “ exams ” coming on in our midst :

“ Fill up the blank in the following exelam aticm of Swift’s ; “ If the world had a dozen I would burn my Gulliver’s Travels !” I have read, and read with pleasure, the Mad Dean’s enchanting satire. Political it is, and thus an eminent politician past, present, and to come, must have been in his mind’s eye rvhen that exclamation rose to his lips. Who was it that he pictured to himself as -worth one-twelfth part of his inimitable narrative ? Could he have had our lilliputian politicians rising before him in the haze of the dim and distant future ? Who can say but possibly in his dreams he pictured our Stout or our Seddon, like Ajax, defying the lightning, or as Archimedes looking for a fulcrum on which to rest his lever with which to move the world ? Nay, possibly he looked nearer our own spot of earth and beheld the busy Buxton, with a brick in one hand and a ready quill in the other, setting himself to regenerate a wicked world. These are but a few of the names that suggest themselves to me as quite suitable and certainly quite appropriate to fill the blank our satiric examiner has so generously placed at our disposal. Can you, kind reader, suggest a name more suitable than those I indicate ?

“ Still, still they come !” is the cry. Yet another Richmond in the field! Yerily, they spring up as mushrooms in the night—to be cut clown, I fear, on the 29th as the grass that perisheth ! Five stout and sturdy candidates seek the suffrages of the citizens. Could we not enlarge the Mayoral chair to accommodate the lot, and realise in our midst the pleasant state inaugurated by the two kings of Brentford, of happy memory ? This suggestion I give as a valuable one—my readers may make sure that it is original. Let it come within the range of possibility and we shall be able to provide a new Artemus Ward with “ a happy family ” surpassing all other combinations of talent of that kind ever exhibited in circus, menagerie, or travelling show of any kind.

The political atmosphere is waxing decidedly sultry. The big guns have gone off with a bang during the last few days; and though the explosions occurred among the tussocks and the rabbits in the rural regions, the re-

ports were loud enough to reach my listening ears. A gun of smaller calibre is going off on Friday much nearer my own locale. Vox, of course, will be in evidence with the question —Will the candidate support an amendment to Standing Orders of the House in the lines of debating society rules, limiting all speakers to ten minute speeches, and sense at that? I do not know how many of my readers are recipients of the pink-er.veloped piles of wishy-washy stuff denominated Hansard, but in the interests of our good name with posterity (when the unborn millions arrive!) we ought to, straightway, elect the man who would support any proposal which should prevent the future students of our times (then happily the distant past) from thinking that our rulers belonged to genus homo insipiens —Anglice, Fools. To x.