The Temuka Leader TUESDAY, OCTOBER 5 1886. THE WAYS OF THE WORLD.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1565, 5 October 1886, Page 2

The Temuka Leader TUESDAY, OCTOBER 5 1886. THE WAYS OF THE WORLD.

Tho office of this paper has been beseiged by persons inquiring as to what had become of me. Bo as to satisfy the carious, and to allay the feara of my friend* I shall make a clean breast of it. I have been to the borderland of Jordan, and the fray it happened was this : I read in the Timaru Herald that a ghost might be seen nightly in the Ternuka Park, and as I am extremely desirous of getting a glimpse into the country beyond the walls of mortality, I resolved to wait upon this nocturnal visitor to get as much as I could out of him or her. I waited there until I caught my death of cold, but no ghost came, and no one ever h»w one there except the peripatetic quid nunc of the Herald. It was after a tremendous carouse that Tarn O'Shanter saw ghosts, and in fact it is held by scientific men that the denizens of spiritland are never visible to any except those whose imaginations have been enlivened by ardent spirits. I wonder was it any such influence Hut exposed the presence of the ghost to the visual organs of the Herald's quidnunc.

Thß cold produced by my ghost watching bus left behind a feeling of langour, accompanied by a dislike to exertion. The symptoms begin early on Monday morning and continue till late on Saturday night. Dr Campbell tins prescribed some elbow grease, which has had the effect of enabling ma to jot down these few notes, and he tells me if I persevere in its uae I shall be right in the course of a few montha. I think I have good ground for an action against the Herald, but I shall only say at present that the panny-a-llner ought to have selected something to pad hia paper with other than what was calculated to frighten people.

An amusing incident connected with railway travelling has just reached my ears. On tho way out from Timarn the other day, a gentleman commenced smoking in one of the carriages, and was reminded by a fellow traveller that it was not a smoking carriage. The smoker disregarded the hint thrown out to him, and continued to puff *way, with the result that he was again told it was not a smoking carriage. The smoker pretended not to hear, and the anti-smoker imparted the gam* information to him for the third time, but he still treated the matter with silent emitempt, and appeared to expend all his vigor and energy in intensifying the fumed atmosphere of the carriage. Opposite him sat a robust woman, of Patagoniao proportions, and through the dense fog that partially hid her from view might be seen clouds gathering in .the region of the eyebrows. A shrewd observer conld easily have noticed that a miniature volcano was hnrning within, and that an explosion was imminent. Finding the smoker taking no notice of the third warning , she rose up, and, spitting on her hands, said. " Put that pipe oat or I'll pat you out." The astonished smoker looked up. He surveyed her Amazonian figure from bead to foot, and like one that felt that discretion was the better part of valor, said « Qb J if yon put it that way, ef course I will/' He went out on , the platform »ad finished faja sojoke, J

lhe manager of this paper has shown mo an advertisement forwarded to him rrnm London by Messrs Jensen and Co. It is to lhe effect that men requiring wires will be supplied with them on sending their address to the advertisers. I did not think there.was any exception to the general role of the manager to receive all advertisements gladly, but at this he draw the line. He refused to allow his paper to be the medium of bringing English beauties into competition with colonial girls, and wou'd not insert the advertisement, and thus has placed the single portion of the colonial fair sex under an obligation to him. Obviously our English cousins are still in a state of blissful ignorance of the condition of society in this far off dependency of the British Empire. They must know by this time, through the medium of the Indian and Colonial Exhibition, that we grow abundance of wool and grain and frozen meat, and euch things, but it is evident, judging from the action taken by Jensen and Co., that they are laboring under the impression tbat connubial bliss is unknown to us. Bless their hearts, we have abundance of girls, and what is more, England cannot produce their equals, either as regards ornamentality or utility. Only let Englishmen say that in addition to wool, grain and mutton, they want wives, and we shall soon let them see how unstinted are our resources. There is no difficulty in getting a wifa in this colony, but so numerous and excellent is the selection to pick from, that the trouble consists in making a choice.

Apropos of the above, I? may say I often ask myself, What will become of the rising generation f When I I hear the question asked, " What v*ill we do with oar boys," and someone answers pertly, " Marry them to our girls, of course," it sets me thinking at to what will become' of them all. And here I get into a fog } a cloud comes over my mental vision, and rids me of the capacity to unravel the mystery. Here we are at present spending pretty close on a couple of millions a year on public works, and in bringing more immigrants into the country, yet th* unemployed cry is loud and loiig from Auckland to the Bluff. When we cease to spend vast sums of pnblic nr.oney, ax we must do shortly, and all those employed in making railways now, together with the large number of boys growing up, who will be men then, come into eompetition with the 'general v run of t laborers, what will happen ? I do not know, but I strongly suspect that monopolists art plaiting twigs that wiii stripe their own backs yet.

I believe I am out of sorts to-night. On the tail end of the above paragraph the Tinjaru poisoning case rußbee in on my musings in all its revolting borrors. The pictures in that book published on the subject haunts me, they are so ghastly. If I knew nothing of the case and were shown the pictures, I should select Inspector Broham as the aithor of all the mifchief and Mrs Hall as bis friend. The Inspector looks villainous enough for anything. The proprietors of the block will doubtless be able to sell it easily, because it will serve the purpose tor Ned Kelly, Burgess, Sullivan, or any of that ilk. Bless us, it is extraordinary that everything connected with that case must bear a revolting aspect, even to the exhumation of the late Captain Gain as recorded in the Tiroaru Herald. I have read somewhere that some men look like some animal or another, and the man who does, possesses that animal's characteristics. I have also read that the bee revels in flowers and the beetle in filth. I should like to know Who described the exhumation scene for the Herald so as to see whether be bears any resemblance to the beetle in his countenance. He certainly seems to bav« some of the beetle instinct in him, judging from the manner fin which he gloated over publishing the most disgusting details of a very unsavory business.

After baring written the above I adjourned for refreshments, by way of protest, and feel better now. The refreshments reminded me that it is a moot question as to whether the Licensingl Act is in force in Temnka at present. That judicial luminary—Mr Baddeley—decided recently in Geraldine that he had no right to deal with a case brought before him, the said case being an alleged breath of the Licensing Act, and of course no sane man would donbt bim. Very well. Three of the Committee are like Don Pedro, " null and void," ths remaining two are incapable of doing anything, owiug to their numerical strength being insufficient to form a quorum. Taking Mr Baddeley'* dictum together with the nullity of the Com mittee I am of opinion that the Licensing Act is extinct in Temnka.

They are enterprisiog people up New Plymouth way as compared with the people in this district. There was a horse parade held there recently and three hundred persons assembled to see one horee, I should say the weak points of that poor animal suffered a few : fix hundred eyes scratinising one poor dumb animal, Tu Temuka we had B«Ten horses on parade, §nd about as many farmers to look at them. What a contr*at. Coin O'Lanus.