(By Zamiel in the " Auckland Star.")

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 360, 17 April 1889, Page 6

(By Zamiel in the " Auckland Star.")

The Defence Minister has not added to his popularity in Auckland by his policy, or rather want of policy, with regard to the attendance of the volunteers at the reception of the Governor. Mr Fergus was well acquainted with the facts. He was aware a strong feeling prevailed in Auckland that there should be a full muster of the volunteers on the occasion of tho landing 1 . He must have read that his executive officer in Auckland (Colonel Shepherd) had curtly refused to comply with the wishes of the Mayor in this respect, and it is taken for granted that the Honourable Fergus concured in his refusal. This may be in accordance with the usages of volunteer officialdom, and it may be a good joke for the Honourable Fergus, whoso Southern bympathies are very pronounced. But it will not do for the people of Auckland, who are fully alne to the responsibility cast upon lliem of making the reception a fitting one in every way. Mayor Devore is not the man to be "sat" upon when he feels himself to be in the right, and I am sure he will come out triumphant, in this contest. The Atkinson Covernmentis none too popular in Auckland at the present time, and the adoption of an attitude calculated to thwart the wishes of the people in this matter will simply tend to bring them into worse odour than they were before. k * It is not often that I ascend to discuss 1 el igioiH topics in these somewhat secular columns, po let the infrequency of the theme be my apology for the present diversion. The fact of the matter is that I paid a visit to the Tabernacle on Sunday night last to hear Charles Spurgeon, son of the renowned Spurgeon, preach. Thero was an immense audience, and w hat caught my fancy most was the neat way in which the Reverend Charles cornered the sinners. He wanted to find out how many unsaved souls there were in the crowd, and so he started them oft' singing " Sun of My Soul." Well, saints and sinners alike tackled the hymn, and the firsD verse was sung by. I suppose, every man, woman, and child in the couple of thousands assembled. Then the reverend gentleman pulled them up with a short, sharp turn and the hint, "]Slow, my fiiends, before you sing the next verse, look at it, and God forgive you if you put a lie into your mouths." I forget the words of the verse, but they amounted to an avowal of comple'e convoision, and after the people had had a good look at it Mr Spurgeon invited all those who could sing the lines to do so. It was no doubt a bit awkward ior a good many, for the volume of sound made by tho singing of the first verse and the second was as the music of a big drum compared to the rat-tat of a kettle drum, but the revprend gentleman feaid he was thankful that there weresomany Chtistians present. He said several hundreds had sung thac verse, and that it was the duty ot those hundreds to go straight away and conve t tho whole city of Auckland. The conversion lias not been brought about yet. 7- *• * "These be our masters" might well be said of some of our school teachers. Here is a copy of some correspondence which passed betwoen the father of a lad attending a country school, and the teacher. It appears that the father, like many others, thought that his olive branch had Loo much learning forcod upon him. He accordingly wrote to the teacher as follows : " I think it a farce to give a child parsing when he scarcely understands the meaning of a verb. It does the child no good and persecutes the parents." Of course education, tends towards gentlemanly conduct, so it is only fair that the courteous reply of the teacher should be published also. It is as follows : "Sir, — In answer to your note of yesterday I beg to say that you should wait till you are asked to teach your son before you complain of being petsecuted in so doing. 1 would have you to understand that I am not here to give your children brains. If Alfred has no more brains than his father it will be impossible to teach him anything for anyjne. Judging from your note, your ideas ot English grammar and composition are even fainter than those of Alfred. If you are fool enough to allow yourself to be persecuted by a child, then I pity you. In I future, make your complaints in writiug to the Committee, failing which I shall take ino notice of them. Yours faithfully, # ■*■ ■)■■•* # 4? This rather annoyed the father, and he thought to sit upon the teacher, so he forwarded the letter to the Board of Education. Here, however, he had little better luck, for the letter was referred back again to the School Committee, who apparently supported the action of the teacher. Then it was that the father took the matter up himsJf and went and interviewed that teacher. Words resulted in blows, and they had a set to. Then the schoolmaster took tho matter to Court, and as the father was in the wrong of course he was let m for costs, having to pay about £10 and pocket the insult evidenced by the letter.. ¥ * " Attracted by the enticing "ad." — "Admission free, collection at close" — a friend of Zamiel's attended the lecture given the other evening in the Pitt-street Church by the Rev. Ward on his " Reminiscences of the Taratiaki War." On that particular evening t,ho said friend happened to be in a most bloodthirsty, ciu-sory, uncluistian frame of mind at some mishap of the day, and he purposely went to the Wesleyan " praying-mill " (the first occasion he had visited a Bethel of any sort from St. Paul's to the " Sal." barracks since he landed in Auckland), with a sort of gz'im satisfaction in the expectation of listening to bloodcurdling tales of horror, cannibalism, " raw heids and bluidy banes,'' and such like nice things. He was, however, doomed to disappointment, for t'.o lecture was extremely bright a id full of good stories told in an inimitable manner, some of the yarns being even of a nature such as one seldom hears spun in a pagoda of the tribe of John Wesley. Speaking of tho eai'ly days of the ISlew Plymouth settlement, the reverend lecturer described tho primitive manner of landing settlers from boats and families in "the good old times," and his mouth fairly watered as he described — amidst the hysterical gigglings ot the female portion oi" his audience — the rapturous loving way tho fair burdens clung to his manly neck and twined their arms and — well, nether limbs — round his stalwart form, as he carried them from the boats in safety to the beach through the surf. He was a young and giddy carnal-minded stripling then, and invariably selected the youngest and prettiest damsels to carry ashore. If, however, a charmer .who was fat, fair and over 40 threw herself into hi 3 unwilling arms, he never by any means landed her without first half-drowning her by losing his balance —accidentally of course — just as a nice convenient wave came rushiDg up behind

them. In fact, he would, in those his unregenerate day's, have drowned his poor old grandmother without compunction in a caoo like that. A great deal of the "old Adam" evidently still lingers in the clerical bosom of the reverend lecturer, and he apparently has not wholly repented of his past misdeeds. The middle-aged and slightly more ancient females in the building could nofc but have reflected bhatif they had happened bo have the misfortune tobecarried ashore in bbewicked young man's arms, they would inevitably have landed in an uncomfortable state very much resembling 1 hat of a wet hen. The younger lathes looked slyly and roguishly — as only good young Wesleyan Sunday- j fcchool girls ean — at the duennas and their own attendant cavaliers, conscious that "such a nice man" as the Rev. Ward; would never in his "dog-drays" have ducked them if only their clasp were sufficiently close and tender. **\ # * Mr Ward related, amongst other stories, how, when attending one Sunday divine service, conducted by his "pater," in the early days in Taranaki, in a small ranpo whare, grandiloquently termed a church, a sudden gust of wind blew the whole ft.de of tho frail edifice down on top ot the assembled worshippers, who were at the time, a'proptiafcely enough, engaged in taking in an eloquent address on the subject " The wind bloweth where it listeth." He was only a boy at the time — and a " doonright bad 'un " at that — but ho was, he said, shocked at ths unceremonious and unseemly haste with which those eu'nesL Christians " vamoosed the ranch," without even wailing for the collection. \ * «■ Another anecdoto of Mr Ward's should bear repetition just at this time, when Aucklanders aie leeling so mild and peaceful alter the well-meant lectures of Mr Jones, of the International Peace Society. During the Taranaki war, he said, when settlers in the outlying districts were being cut off by the inburgent Maoris, he witnessed a little bceiie in New Plymouth which attracted quite a crowd of onlookers. A member of the Society of Friends or of the Peace Society— it one existed then — one of those queer people who hold it a damnable sin to bhed any blood, even in self-defence, was holding forth, Bible in hami, on the horrors of wai. He wound up at last by saying that even it he s-aw his wife and children murdered before his eyes and he standing by with a loaded ride in his hands, he would nob shed a drop of the murderer's blood to save them. This statement aroused the intense indignation of a stuidy old North Countiy farmer standing near, who yelled out to the man of peace, " Did ye say that ye wuddn't stir a haund to save your bairns?" "I did." "Ye did?" "Yes. sir.' Then, bringing dowii a stout stick with a rebounding thwack ! on the orator's .shoulders,* the stout old yeoman shouted, " Then if I wuz there and saw ye, I'd give ye such a kurupin'as would lay ye up for the rost of vetdays. " That was about the last public oration that man of mildness delivered in New Plymouth, at any late till the conclusion of the "little trouble" with the M aoris. The marriage market seems depressed like everything else. Walking along the streets on a recent Sunday afternoon, Zamiel felt quite impre=fcecl with this fact as he s>aw how glutted the streets were. Crowds of fine girls passed by, gob up in most killing styles, but alas ! unaccompanied by young men. True, there were groups* of youths about, but they gazed upon tho parsing fair ones with a listless eye which seemed to say, " It's nob good enough," and then quietly filled their pipes and walked off by themselves. Again in the evening Zainiel was wandering past the Tab?rnacle just as the congregation was dispersing. Here, again, fair maids in waiting could be seen walking slowly away fiom the sacred building in twos, threes and fives, but excepting in a few isolated cases the sterner bex were conspicuous by their absence. Surety here we have an answer to the burning question, '• Is marriage a failure ?" Evidently the young men begin to think it is, and ate content to go along alone through life, being well aware that they are thus more independent. Thi* iaise3 the question as to whether the fault lies wholly with the men. True, in many instances it is pure selfishness that keeps men single, but still there are many who are frightened from mattimony by the high notions of the fair ones, who all seem to ihink that life is not worth living unless they marry in a position that will enable them to * keep servants. How often do we hear some young girl say that it is not worth matrying under £4 or £5 per week, and consequently the young men of humbler means feel constrained to fight shy of the fair ones who are not content to begin low like their mothers and work up the ladder shoulder to shoulder with those they love. <r * « i( # ■* i ¥■ ¥- The other day Bishop Cowie called a meeting ot persons interested in helping the blind. "The attendance was so small that at first it was doubtful whether it was worth while to go on. However, a start was made, and Zamiel can only hope the efforts of the benovelent men and women who attended that meeting will be successful. One or twr> person * who could nob be present senb subscriptions which were highly satisfactory. One good - natured gentleman made a suggestion in writing which thrilled Zamiel's ?oul with horror. It was that the ladies should get up a sewing bee. Now ladies, pray don't. The promoters of the movement are charibable people, and for goodness sake keep clear from that most uncharitable thing — a sewing bee. Apart from the manner in which characters are discussed, slanders repeated, and reputations blasted at sewing circles and such like, there is still the more unpleasant feature that the proceeds of such meetings are often sold at low rates to the detriment of legitimate trade. Generally the raw material is given by generous wholesaledealers, and consoquen tly i the manufactured articles arc sold cheaper than legitimate traders can afford. The result is that by this system widows and others who earn a few shillings by plain sewing or fancy work find that they are undersold by benevolent ladies. Reginald Young (who has been very attentive during the evening): "I wonder, Miss Mabel, if you would consider me impertinent should I aek you *he old, old question ?" Miss Mabel (greatly agitated) : " Oh, Reginald — this is so sudden — I—lI — I — yes, I will listen to you, Reginald " Reginald : " Well, then, have you read 'East Lynne ' " Bobby (agedjioe). — Ma, are all little boys made of dust ? Mother. — Yes, dear. Bobby. — Was I? M n'HER. — Certainly, pet. Bobby — Then how does my birthday come in July?' There ainb no dust in • July. |