The Temuka Leader THURSDAY, MARCH 5, 1885. THE WAYS OF THE WORLD.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1311, 5 March 1885, Page 2

The Temuka Leader THURSDAY, MARCH 5, 1885. THE WAYS OF THE WORLD.

The Salvation Army reached the climax of eccentricity a few nights ago in Temuka, They broke out in a fresh place altogether, and the originality of the idea was only equalled by the ridiculousness of their conduct. Two of them tied tin-cans in front of them, and rushed madly through the street, hammering the tin-cans most industriously, while another pair of soldiers in their red uniforms followed at a respectful distance. Ido not know the meaning of this performance. 1 can find no Scriptural authority for it. A small boy told me they were chasing the Devil out of town, but perhaps he was taking a rise out of me, Ido not know what was meant by the proceeding, and I will not undertake to explain.

If I were sure that their object was to scare the Devil away, 1 should have given them a helping hand. The D. is credited with being the father of lies, end to have a hand in all our little bits of backbiting, slander, and lying. If it is a part of his duty to inspire all the lies that are told I do not envy him his billet for he must be kept pretty busy. For instance, it his been reported that I had left I'omuka, and had gone to fight on the Mahdi’is side of the Soudan

“shindy.” I have not stirred from Temuka and I do rot mean to. I know the Mahdi is fighting for his country ; I know that he is trying to drive away the greatest scoundrels that ever cursed the earth with their presence; I know that his country men and country women have been robbed and plundered, murdered in cold blood, and hunted like wild beasts by their Egyptian conquerors, ani sold by them as slaves ; X know that the rapacity of the Egyptians is unparalelled in modern times but England is fighting against the Mahdi, and of course ray sympathies must be against him. I trust no one will henceforth say 1 have gone to fight for the Mahdi.

Perhaps I may as well say a few words concerning the Soudan. It was conquered many years ago (1819) by the Egyptians, who spread themselves over it and commenced to prey upon the wretched inhabitants like hungry vultures. They exacted enoiraous taxes from them. The Khedive at one time offered £IO,OOO a year to General Gordon, as Governor of the Soudan but Gordon refused to take more, than £2,000 because her knew, be said, “it would be raisect' by cruel extortion from the poor Soudanese.” They have hunted them down ns we hunt hares or rabbits, caught them and made slaves of them. In one of his communications, Gordon says, “ I will break the neck of slave raids, even if it costs me ray life,” and again he says “ Slavehunting must be put down.” But when poor Gordon caught these slave-hunters and sentenced them to be sent down to Egypt for punishment the Khedive winked at it, and treated these prisoners with a leniency that encouraged slavery. As an instance of what I mean, I need only refer to the case of Zebehr, about whom there has been some talk lately. Zebehr was the greatest slave trader of the Soudan. Dr Schweinfurth says that in 1869 Ismail, fearing the power of Zebehr, despatched a Pasha and gome troops to watch him. Zebehr collected an army of slave traders, and killed every mother’s-son of the troops, including the Pasha, and he was made a Pasha of for his pains. I was not there, I admit, but Dr Schweinfurth was. Zebehr then came down to Egypt, bringing with him £IOO,OOO to bribe the pashas there, with the view of getting himself appointed Governor-General, of Darfour, but he was locked up and he has been kept there since. He receives £IOO per month from the Egyptian Government to keep him, I would not mind being such a prisoner as he is. Because General Gordon tried to put down this slavery, when Ismail was deposed and the present Khedive raised to the throne, he had to give up his position as Governor-General of the Soudan, It is against the brutal tyranny of the Egyptian Pashas, that the Mahdi has rebelled, and why England should mix herself up in it is what I cannot understand, To do the “ Grand Old Man” justice be would have nothing to do with it if he could help it. Speaking in the House of Commons on the 12th Feb. 1884, Mr Gladstone said that Gordon went to the Soudan, not to conquer it but to give back to the people the ancestral powers of which they bad been deprived during the period that the Egyptians occupied it. It was because Mr Gladstone expected that General Gordon would be able to settle matters without bloodshed that he delayed sending troops there so long.

This brings me to an amusing remark I heard made a few days ago. An old veteran, who has seen some service, talking of the colonial volunteers for the Soudan, said they would be a failure. “ Colonials,” he said, “ are the biggest eaters m the world. They can polish off more food than the men of any other country, and when they go to the Soudan they will not get enough to eat and they will be unfit for hard work. They will be a failure, you’ll see if they don’t.” There may be something in this, but I doubt it. I think that colonials are so well used to roughing it that they will be able to give a good account of themselves.

I noticed that a paragraph went the rounds of the papers not long since to the effect that a reward of £50,000 wos offered “ for the head of the Prince of Wales, dead or alive.” His body seims to be a matter of no consequence, so long as the head was secured “ dead or alive.” Since then a cablegram informed us that the Prince of Wales was going to visit Ireland shortly. I wonder if he is going to try to secure the reward ? Perhaps the reward was offered just to give him the hint that he had never yet been seen in that part of his prospective dominions, and he has seen through it. At any rate it is rather remarkable that he should go just when there is a price put upon his head,

This brings mo to a very good Irish scrap of news which I have just purloined: A gentleman connected with the Dublin baling interest, has, rightly or wrongly, got into trouble, but he has temporarily got out of it again. Mr Charles Mathers, late Secretary to the Bakers’ Society, was arrested at Cork while taking passage to America, on a charge of embezzlement, and was lodged in (he local Bridewell, pending the arrival of a constable from Dublin. His gaoler having business in the cell went into the apartment, and Mathers adroitly walked out, and turned the key in the lock. He proceeded to the Bridewell-keeper’s wife, and telling her that her husband had a fit he managed to get her into the cell also, and the coast being then clear ho decamped.

A Yorkshire butcher, who spent a week on his honeymoon tour, exhibited a very business-like view of the happy event on his return home. The first thing he did to put his wife into the scales and weigh her. He then look out his account book, and divided the expenses of marriage and wedding tour by the weight of his wife. “Eh I lass 1” said he, “ thou cost me fourteen pence ha’penny a pound ; thou’st the dearest piece a meat that iver Ibought.” Cori O’Lanus.