THISTLEDOWN.

Te Aroha News, Volume XI, Issue 1713, 9 February 1895, Page 2

THISTLEDOWN.

“A man may jest and tell the truth.” —Horace.

I little thought that my remarks on Dr Laishley’s criticism of justices’ justice would have been confirmed ere they appeared in print. Thebrute, I beg thebrutes’ pardon for they cherish their young, the yahoo, who tortured his two-year-old child at the Thames, was let off by the Warden with a month in Shortland gaol. He whipped, bled, and blistered the unfortunate infant who was in bed for three weeks, and he threatened to cut his wife’s throat if she didn't say the baby fell in the fire; and he gets one month free lodging. He did his best to kill his child’s body and his wife’s soul, and gets four weeks’ free tucker from a grateful paid magistrate, while the wife will have to work to keep herself and the baby. The least gratitude the unpaid justices can show Mr Kenny for whitewashing them, is to subscribe for that baby’s support. And yet, if I were in the exercise of a just vengeance to slay him, who barbarously murdered last week’s bantling of my brain, I should certainly be hanged instead of getting a statue in Jack O’Brien’s hall as a warning to all careless compositors and proofreaders. So much for the equality of justice. * ■» % #

The Mayor of Auckland has been getting it hot from the Sabbatarians of Auckland, for attending the sports in honour of the German Emperor’s birthday, Sunday week last. The fairer portion of the, critics are satisfied to allow the Germans their liberty of conscience, while condemning Mr Holland as representing a Sabbath-observing community. As usual the more thorough party, while starting on wrong premisses, are the more logical. The latter have neither principle, premiss, nor fact to go on. People in Auckland do not observe the Sabbath, ergo, the Mayor does not misrepresent his community, and the unanimous voice of Christians for sixteen centuries with one probable exception, and that but temporary, was against it. John Knox and Calvin played bowls on Sunday, Luther told his flock straight that if anyone made it a point of faith not to work or play on Sunday he ordered them to do it, Cyril and Jerome wrote to the same effect, and St Paul is most decisive on the point ‘He that observeth the day observeth it to the Lord, and he that observeth not the day observeth it not . to the Lord. Only let every one be fully persuaded in his own mind; who art thou who judgest another’s servant ? By his own master he standeth or falleth.’ And that master, even God, will yet ask an account of those who in the language of the same Paul when rebuking St Peter, the only champion,and that for but the moment, of Sabbatarianism, lay a load on the back of disciples greater than they can bear while ignoring the honest doubts of men craving for a genuine Christianity. The conversion of the Christian Lord’s Day into the Jewish Sabbath, dates simply from the Puritan struggle for freedom of conscience against James the learned Fool’s Book of Sports, and was largely of the nature of what is now conveniently called Fenianism, that is opposition to Government. ’ o o o ©

1 If .I have no other reason to be grateful £ Mr Cadman, the fact of his meeting sup'**Ting me withcopyfoira an anth-ia - ,is more than .ordinary thankfulness. "His %jg£Teception need not be taken by Gofirnent too seriously. Most was due to (Cadman’s personal popularity and peril services to the district, the balance is >ely owing to distrust of any politicians ; competent to relieve the present Min■y with any relief to us. The only lessors to Mr Seddon, who would comid any support, are Sir R. Stout and t. Russell. Few, beyon i prohibitionists. ' .recovered the distrust of the first tdered by his coalition with Vogel, and vw fancy he may be as full of fads as "03, that incarnation of Macaulay’s at schoolboy, who is, I fancy, the ' the present Cabinet. I should ph surprised either if the Unions, .'gate he now is, eventually played .whale to him, and with no more >y stomach-filling results than in se, for though they never, would am—wind is a poor substitute for utton. The support of the present ent is due far more to a moderate with; than any whole-souled enasm for, their programme. As regards ,ain Russell, his return to power would .volve that of Mr Mitchelson, a bigger fraud politically than his Melbourne Cup favorite, Whakawai; ever wap .equinely. Opponents of Atkinson in this province were bedeafened with cries of traitor, for Auckland’s Edwin'was the grand Panjandrum who would do her justice at last. We all looked to the Millennium for the North, but he reversed the story of Balaam and intending to blesS he cursed us, probably beca” «ulike Balaam, he had~nb ass' to stop him. He went to great physical labor for a Minister of the Crown, in our behalf, swarmed up a tree, Heaven knows how many feet high, but it was something less than St. Paul’s piled on St. Peter’s and Strasburg and Salisbury spires added thereto. He was like Mo3es on Pisgah, he saw the Promised Land, railroad I mean, and unlike that meek man, he damned it. Moses’ sin debarred him from proceeding further, Edwin’s virtures. Eden still believes in him ; he can still woo her in the language of the poet,

«Turn Eden, Eden, ever dear, Thy Edwin turn to see.’ And he had better stick to her for she is the only Paradise he is ever likely to earn by his political services. Every Aucklander since his prayed he barked his shins on that tree, and Waiorongomai, in particular, would have laughed with fiendish glee if he had broken his neck. He had a chance which may never occur again of making this latter an earlier and perhaps richer Waihi, and promptly sat on her as he has done on everything outside his own business since he started, and our only consolation is a faint hope, rather than belief, that he burned his own fingers in the bonfire he made of Waiorungomai’s prospects. ■» # *

To return to Mr Cadman, he is popular, not only by reason of his services to his constituency, for wherever he has promised us anything he , his redeemed Ins pledge or gone one (setter; he is also liked because he is no orator of the unborn millions: women’s tears and white handkerchief business, like the windbag who is content to represent Newton at home, b t a plain blunt man who speaks what he thinks the truth, in language which has a meaning to the present fathers of the unborn The unfortunate man, too, has been so hunted through the electorate that he has had no time to sleep, ea f- or P e^ for “ even more necessary functions from the throne who, like Solomon s leech, are alwavs frying to him ‘ give, give, and yet he SSTthorougl coartayaHl ttamgt I have only a few lines more and I shall ( „ Jy ,ay at p«.»t "dlettleLnt'. | - ti “ s ' ot Na,i ™ l

Lands; and restoration of salaries, reduced below a fair amount, in times of pressure accounted for a large amount of the increase in Government expenditure; though the gross amount of debt was more, the charge per head of population was less, and that the purchase of private lands near markets was more profitable to the country than that of Native lands away to glory from the consumer. I hope next week to deal with his stand as a champion of the Sermon on the Mount against Political Economy, as well as creamery business, on which latter subject I have something interesting, if not instructive, to say. • - lapyx.