GENERAL NEWS

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 251, 29 November 1909, Page 4

GENERAL NEWS

This .is the Billingsgate which the member for Masterton in a recent public speech used to sum up liis colleagues ol yesterday:—"Dr. i'mdiay is the hawit, ready to seize and pluck friend or foe, whether the pigeon or sparrow, Then Mr. Carroll represents the drowsy mongrel! The only symptom of life about, it is that it wags itd tail! .\,r. .aiiiai is the white rat with red eyes, whic\ lie gets looking for principles he lias lost. As for Mr. Fowlds, 'he belongs lo tno select and mild description, and re presents the pigeon, losing his lreetraile and single-tax feathers very rapidly. Mr. E. McKenzie represents l that bud you call the owl, that sees better at night than during the day. Mr. flmnlo represents the poor little cock-sparrow chuckling (hopefully and wondering what next will happen. The Honorable Thomas Mackenzie represents the cat, purring because lie has got his belly full!" Talking to the New Zealand Times' correspoudent in London about the >utlragettes (with whom she expressed strong sympathy) Lady Stout said: "lie fore 1 came to England I was under Hie impression that I would find the men of this great country the most chivalrous in the world, but it is a sad overestimation. They speak to women nut as equals, but, hard as it is for us -New Zealanders to understand, as beings in ia lower grade than themselves altogether. Of course, to a certain extent it 'lias so far been the fault of tin* women themselves. English women are creatures of tradition in olden (lavs tliey obliged and waited on men as their lords, and, though times and circumstances have altered most things i the influence remains. And thai 'bad old time' is still in their blood. Sisters, wives, mothers, make doormats of themselves for their men-folk . ami. worse than that, they seem to like being trodden on! That sort of thing wouldn't do for New Zealand at all, ami our men wouldn't liko the position any more than we should. Together men and women made the colony what it is. and the honor that was indeed due lo those warm-hearted, plucky women who not so many years ago, as 'history is reckoned, went out hand in hand with their ■husbands, is always given their memory by loyal New Zealanders."