THE SWEET BY-AND-BYE.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2132, 2 December 1890, Page 3

THE SWEET BY-AND-BYE.

The fluent and irrepressible Henry George seldom comes to grief, but he was wrecked once by the contumely of a coarse, unappreciative audience. It was in San Francisco, on the famous 4th of July, and the apostle was firing off a great baritone oration which covered every subject. He told the crowd how their fathers bad howled when a tax was put on their lawful prog, and how they had been trailed thirteen miles on their ear while resisting the encroachments of the British tyrant. He epoke wildly about the time when the Americans were licked at Bunker’s Hill, and how they had put up a monument to celebrate the event, and how Washington bad got bis hair and ears full of mud while retreating through six different States; and then the audience began to scream with impatience, for the orator had gone on for two hours, and was less than halfway through his manuscript. Then he deftly skipped a hundred and twenty pages and fired off his peroration. “ A thousand years hence who will fight for liberty? A thousand years hence who will write for liberty ? A thousand years hence who will speak for liberty ? ” He made an impressive pause there, and a sad, slow, weary voice replied from the gallery : “ I believe you will, Henry George! ” And amid a fearful shriek of derision the orator clutched his hat and put his manuscript on his head by mistake, and escaped down the back stairs, —Sydney Bulletin.