THISTLEDOWN.

Te Aroha News, Volume XII, Issue 1762, 24 August 1895, Page 2

THISTLEDOWN.

“ A man may jest and tell the truth.” —Horace. I heard mooted th« other day what appears to me a hig lily useful, not to say necessary work, that in a road from the Gordon Special Settlement to'' Waliaroa. The only practical outlet 4Prom the Gordon at present is by Te Aroha, and in wet weather this is hardly practicable, nor does it promise to bo anything but a summer' road for years to come. A road to Waharoa would give access to the railway at the comparatively short distance of five and a-half miles. It woold, however, entail a bridge across the Waihou river, the total estimated cost of road and bridge being seven hundred and fifty pounds. This is, no doubt, a large sum, but on the principle that many hands make light work the cost would fall but lightly on the many interested parties if all would contribute their fair proportion. I understand the Gordon settlers are prepared to contribute one hundred from their thirds, and if these are to be available the work must he done in the next few years The County is, I hear, prepared to give fifty, but might well give pound for pound. The Matamata and Waitoa Eoad Boards are also interested and the latter at least is a wealthy body. The Auckland’ Agricultural Association would b# served by this route and might, well subsidise it, and the Government would only be acting prudently in helping on an extra feeder to the railway. There would he a further claim on them if it be true that they have purchased Matamata for subdivision as the road would cut a corner of that estate.

‘ Do as you expect to be done,’ appears to he the version of the old Commandment as revised by the intellect of the Nineteenth Century when bulls and bears and horse confers rule the moral tone. It is, therefore, refreshing to find that the old version is good enough for the new and enterprising township of Pahiatua. A citizen of that rising locality attended in Court in obedience to a civil summons. The case was about to be dismissed as the plaintiff had not the necessary five shilling Court fee, the defendant promptly offered to lend it to him. It would be interesting to know who won and what it was all about, but perhaps further particulars might damp our admiration of the defendant’s conduct by showing that though so ‘ childlike and bland ’ he was so after Peh Sin’s pattern, who, you may remember, had ‘ his sleeves stocked with aces and knaves with intent to deceive.’ * . « * *

Some months ago a petition was published purporting to have been sent ,by the single men out of work in Auckland to the l Government protesting against the preferj ence give to married men on co-operative works. Really it looked more like the hoax of somefestic joarnalist short of sensational copy. Quite a new lightiwas thrown on tho refusal of men to marry, and credit was claimed for these generally despised bachelors for the highest motives. On the principle that a man i 3 a public benefactor who makes two blades of grass grow where but one was before, married men were regarded as benefactors of the species, and pre-eminently safe citizens as having given pledges to the State. The single men'contended, however, that if 00. thev were too often unredeemed pledges as the Charitable Aid Boards could testify. 'They claimed that they forewent the bliss of wedded life not from any oelfioh tnslavemfent to the joys of bachelorhood, but from the high and prudential motive of wishing to spare the overburdened ratepayers. Be that as it may, the marriage rate performs two barometrical functions. It gauges prosperity and civilisation. I heard in St. Nicholas, the parish church of Great Yarmouth, the banns of one hundred and twenty-four couple on November Sunday. Fish were plentiful that year, no less than thirteen million two hundred thousand fish being landed on the wharf in one day. The next year herring and marriages were alike -fewer; Again in what we in-.our conceit call highly civilised times the marriage rate declines not altogether owing, to the higher standard of living, though that no doubt is an important factor in the result, but largely through the more complex conditions of life. In the hunting, fishing, or even agricultural state, a wife is a boon and a blessing to man. When men are crammed in cities and dependent on trades themselves dependent on every tick of the telegraph, he is a wise man who carries his house under his hat.

If the marriage rate be a double barometer so is the birth-rate. It ia also a automatic civilisation register, as well as a food indicator. Ia the early Roman days a matron’s tombstone bore the proud inscription ‘ Chaste, loyal, modest, woolspinning, fertile in ascending order. In later ages men with three lawful children were exempted from taxation, and reckoned the right colour for office with very little advantage to population. A similar law has lately been passed in France. Again when Rome was fertile she was vegetarian; we read in Caesar and Levy of a famine in the camp because corn was scarce though beef was in abundance, and we all know the superiority of the Irish- potato to the English sirloin as a factor in feciendity, while the teeming millions 1 of India and China attest the virtues of rice.

The bitter jest of Swift about Irish bishops is well-known. , Government always appointed excellent men but on Homeslow Heath they were stopped by highwaymen who masqueraded in Ireland in their clothes. Such men generally know nothing of the Bible but the parable of the Jalents, and that they read and took as their motto in its bare literal sense. Croker tells Ayaru of one of these worthies highly characteristic of the highway flavour which always cling to them. Old Doctor Stopford, Bishop of Bloyne, stopped once at Mr Phillips’, a clergyman in his diocese, and among other good things they had for dinner a magnificent fish. When the Bishop was leaving he said, ‘My dear Phillips, you have been extremely kind to me and there is but one thing more by which you can add to my obligations, that is, to drown yourself in the river which produces such excellent fish that I may give your living to my son Joe.’ The Bishop probably thought a parson might improve the flavour of a salmon, as Roman epicures fed their carp on slaves or as Marryat’s wine merchant added to the bouquet of his vintage by successively fortifying his casks with a negro, a Jew, and a Pasha. Mr Phillips was equal tb'tfes occasion. * I thank your Lordship** replied he, but I would not even hulrt the last joint of my most useless fingo? to save your Lordship, your Lordship’s son Joe, and all your lordship’s most honourable family from the gallows.’ ■ lafyx.