The Temuka Leader TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 1887. THE WAYS OF THE WORLD.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1550, 8 February 1887, Page 2

The Temuka Leader TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 1887. THE WAYS OF THE WORLD.

Thrashing does not pay. X always thought so. I knew a man that thrashed another man, and got tinea months for it. Thrashing did not pay him. For thrashing hm hoiso (mother man has been fined £lO. Thrashing still an unprofitable business. Convinced as lam by these and other experiences that thrashing does not pay, 1 was fully prepared for the woeful tale told by the thrashing machine proprietors. They are in a sorry plight, thrashing does not pay them, but extreme as is: their position, there was a manly ring about their utterances that made me freeze on to them with a feeling, akin to respect. They all said it would not do to bring down the wages of the working men, anti for that I extend fp them my heartiest sympathy, and would recommend working men to work with a will for them. The great difficulty in the way is the conflict between the dark ages of the portable and the progressive times of the traction engine. Threshing is an old industry. The Bible tells us that we *• must not muzz'etheox that treadeth out the corn.” Thrashing was done then by oxen trampling .the corn... The flail came j next, and just 100 years ago the first threshing mill was invented. The portable engine is a more recent product, and the traction engine is science’s present triumph. The portable and the traction are at loggerheads. The latter-wants to annihilate the foiimr, and they are cutting down each other’s price till they cannot pay. Both are getting tired of‘it now, and there is on their part a disposition to shake hands. They are thinking of forming a society io thrash according to stated rules and regulations. Fancy what an awe-inspiring association the “ South Canterbury Thrashing Society,” Mr Caleb Bateman president, must become ! The name is enough to send a shiver through anyone. They will, I believe, get the County Council to pass a by-law prohibiting uon-sociely engines from crossing over the bridges. The name of the society is enough to frighten them into passing it. 1 do not. mind telling privately that I have an intsrest in a thrashing plant, but I like it to be kept secret. When this movement was set on foot.' ray partner consulted me as to what he should .do, and I gave him advice as follows;- “ Don't have anything to do with it. The farmers will have a down on this movement, and by-and-by you cun go round and say you discountenanced such a thing altogether. This will make you very popular with the farmers, and you will get as much thrashing as you can do.” I ILtter myself that that was a clever dodge of mine. My mute says people are calling him a sneak, but that’s nothing if it pays. Tins is a perfect secret, now, and it must not go any further. His journey over the plains of Canterbury appears to have put the Rev. Mr Dowie in a better temper. It was only in the southern province he went wrong. He is a Scotchman, and in the south it was a case of Greek meet Greek. He has now recovered his equanimity, and he is a most plraaant party. In a recent sermon, an repotted by the Christchurch Telegraph, ho referred to a beggar who appealed to the Apostles for money, and reproduced the dialogue which took place as follows :-One of the Apostles asks, “ I say Peter, have you got any money.” Peter, after rummaging in his pockets, said “I haven't a denarius.” This is a nice popular way to interpret (ho Scriptures. Ths Sydney Bulletin has pronounced Mr Dowie “ a crank,” and my own opinion is that the preacher who goes on like this cannot be all there. Ha illustrated Biblical -tests in colloquial language such as given above ; imitated how tlie lame man spoken of in Scripture walked, and to show how the lame man felt after having been healed, Mr Dowie jumped up two feet off the stage, fie must be 11 a rum’un.”

I have boon thinking nf starting in (he healing business myself. It is a fine respectable business, and a good paying one, and if I cannot heal I can tell my paiionts “It is not my fault but your own ; you have no faith ; you are as heathen as the publican, and I cannot heal you. Clear!” On this point Mr Dowie said he had an argument with an editor. The editor commented on the fact that Mr Dowie would only heal those who were sived, and said that Christ never asked ihose whom he healed whether they were saved or not, and that he healed them in ignorance of that fact. The Kov. Mr Dowie remarked that that was “a lively <dilor.” Fancy Christ healing in ignorance of the state of mind of his patient! Were not all things in heaven and earth known to him ?

The VVorld, March 10th, 188(3, had the following “ A younger brother to the new Lord Mejvillg has had a soojowhat

strange career. Many doubtless' will remember Walter Dundas, buta'few years ago reported one of the handsomest and winsomest men in London, and although six.feel high one of the beet gentleman riders in the country. He commenced Ins soldiering in the 60th Rifles,'but came, U) financial grief and sold out. He then enlisted in the 17th'Lancers. . So smart a cavalryman was he that in ah incredibly short time Colonel Drury Lowe recommended him for a commission, this time in the stli Dragoon Guards, of which regiment he was for a time Adjutant. He afterwords exchanged to the 11th Hussars, but the pace, here, became too hot for him, and bo succumbed to the force of circumstances. He then emir grated to New Zealand, where be w.as for some time sporting editor of a piper in Christchurch, but his habits became too irregular for that vocation, and when last I heard ot him he had slowly died of consumption and——the other thing.” This cannot be altogether correct. [The gentleman to whom this refers is well known to us all as Captain Dundas. He was in Temuka a couple of days ago, and did not look much like a dead man. He still suffers from consumption, but it is the consumption of beef and mutton. He is going home to England shortly, and means to make it pretty hot for The World, It is rather rough on a man to be’ thus cut off, especially when he has reached to within one step of the peerage. Lord Melville is 60 years of age, and unmarried, and his brother, Captain Dundas, is his heir. If Lord Mekille should die Captain Dundas would be his successor.

. So after all medical science is no science at all; it is only a'speculative sort of arrangement—a conundrum, a game of guess—and ha who guesses best is the best doctor. .1 am driven to this conclusion by some of the expert evidence given at the murder trial in Dunedin. Some of the doctors said antimony would hasten the death of Captain Gain ; others | said it would do him more good than ,| harm in the condition he was in, Some I said his symptoms were those of antimoniai poisoning ; others those of uremic poisoning, dhd so on, t'he doctors differed, and the prisoner was convicted. It is unfortunate that the doctors let the cat out of the - bag in -his way, Here I ! am sick unto death, and I have no faith in Mr Dowie, neither can I have much faith- in doctors- when:, their knowledge amounts,only, to guess, work; . I have to fall back on ihe horse doctor, George Levens. ; He is a first-rote f hand at guessing out charades, conundrums, audsuch puzzles, and as he knows something of horse 1 medicines he may/i possible do. Gome along George; I’ll give you the ■job, of refittingme,’!'." "O’Lanus.