What Everybody Says.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2063, 14 August 1875, Page 2

What Everybody Says.

" In multitude of counsellors there is safety." — OliD PKO.VBRB,

When the Parliament is in session what our sap?ant legislators have to say on the various questions which come before them necessarily influences everybody else in what they have to say; and as all the talk by the former for nearly a month has turned more or less upon the axis of Abolition, everybody has taken the cue and discoursed on the same topic. All over the- country this has been the case, and as the most diverse opinions have been expressed those who have no opinion at all on the matter are in a perfect maze of doubt. Indeed this is the case with maay sensible people who had—or fancied they had at one time—very decided opinions on the Abolition question. Some'eminent legislators gay the measure is one for the emancipation of colonists from the bondage of Provincialism. They conjure up vivid pictures of the rapid prosperity and general contentment which are to follow the passing of the measure, and appeal to the self-in-terest of the people by references to the liberal subsidies which they will receive under the new regime. On the other hand, opponents of the measure talk glibly of the invasion of the people's rights and liberties which the bill contemplates, and prophesy a state of things something worse than Egyptian bondage to follow. Which is right ? The people are just-as divided in opinion as the legislators,, and from amongst the mass of contradictory opinion it is difficult to eliminate a satisfactory conclusion. So everybody, is content to let members fight the question out fairly, and if the party holding views antagonistic to abolition are defeated, then there will be a rare opportunity for them to show their patriotism, by uniting to avert the fearful evils which they say wjll follow the adoption of the measure ; or if they cannot avert the evils altogether, so to mitigate them by their wise administration as to preserve to the people some portion of the rights and liberties which, in the opinion of said opponents, the measure threatens to deprive them of.. This they will do if they are sincere in their professions; but if it is only place and power they want, the people will soon find them out.

1 hat terrible bill to legalise marriage with a deceased wife's sister has been read a third time and passed" (toborrow the phraseology of Parliament) and the question arises what > will the virtuous Pyke do under the circumstance ? His emphatic protest, couched in such nice, well chosen language, has not availed. Members have approved the measure, and it now only awaits the finishing stroke of the complex system of law making, and possibly a small consideration in the way of Her Majesty's assent, to Decome law, when everybody in the position tit having a deceased wife's sister can take that much abused person to his heart and home, if so disposed. But the moral Pyte wouldn't do such a thing, and no doubt the result pf this decision of the Paliament will be to lower all those who voted for the bill in the estimation of the modern Diogenes. The growls from/his tub will, for the future, be more dismal, and he will for ever' bewail the perverse morals of his co-legislators, whose obliquity of vision has.permitted them to

pass a measure of such a horribly degenerative character. In the face of Mr Pyke'a denunciation of the principle, surely no one will be found bold ' enough to exercise the powev which the law will give, even if it be permitted to grace the Statute Book.

Some of the members of Parliament are evidently bent on making a little notoriety foi* themselves by persistently introducing ■p."".va.te measures. Perhaps they are irritating certain eccentric members of ilie House of Commons, who year after year rise to propose the same stupid motion, or to introduce a bill on some pet principle. There is a probability/ however, that this difference will arise ; that whereas the members of the House of Commons who have distinguished themselves in tbis wise for some years are gentlemen whose seats are pretty secure, in our own Parliament their imitators have no security of tenure, and it is quite possible that in the next Parliament their accustomed seats will be occupied by men with fewer peculiarities but with a more practical turn of mind. When the next general election, shall have taken place, the place which now knows some members will-know them no more for ever. They have marked o-'.t a course for themselves which will not find favor in the eyes of the people. Everybody bas been complaining—and not without cause—of the continued wet of the past week, and it may have been with a view to allay the apprehensions some people might have been supposed to entertain as to the probability of a second deluge, that a paragraph appeared in another 1 paper having reference to the side isles of St. George's Church; islands, we believe, being proverbial—at least in the SDng which everybody has heard-r----for their tightness and imperviousness to wet.; ■■■■'. ' ..":■.