What Everybody Says.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2627, 9 June 1877, Page 3

What Everybody Says.

" In multitude of counsellors there is safety." —Oil) Proverb

About the cabinet busiuess and the dark seance, everybody says there is nothing in it. But there is something in it. Everybody has a theory—in fact some people have a dozen. One time it is a confederate who unties and ties the rope ; then some people say that the person tying the knots is in collusion, and so you go on, until.you get lost in conjecture, and scarcely two people are agreed as to the way the business is done. It does seem strange to everybody bow the Davenports can have' travelled on the rope-tying business for over twenty years, as it is alleged they have done. Practice makes perfect, so it is said, and if people who have studied all kinds of knots for years cannot become adepts in tying and untying, they must be very dull, especially when other people can be found who can get out of pretty sound knotting up in a minute and a quarter. The idea'of " spiritual" aid seems to have exploded, and it might well have exploded years ago if the Davenports had ever submitted to such tying as Mr Fay had on Monday night. There were no spirits to dance attendance on the occupant of the cabinet on that night: the manifestations were wanting. The. dark seance everybody says is a clever illusion. If the manipulator were not tied at all he would be considered quick in his manipulations, and that he mystifies some people is certain. If the different feats were done in broad daylight or Tinder the glare of the footlights perhaps people's eyes would be opened; but there will always be persons ready and willing to see the manifestations, as they witnessthe feats of a clever juggler, without caring to pry into the matter so far as to find out how it is done. Everybody doesn't want to be disillusionised, though they may say there's nothing in it.

.-Everybody is fairly perplexed about mining terms, and especially those that have been so freely used in connection with the Moanatairi. First there comes a " h6rse," then a " clay band," and now a "slide." All these are glibly used by persons who know about as much of what they mean as everybody does of Stanley's whereabouts in Central Africa; while some people think the " horse w and the " slide ■" are as mythical as certain persons have intimated Stanley's doings are. Perhaps they are right, but the probabilities are in favor of both being facts, and facts are stubborn things. The " horse " and the " slide " are evidently believed in, and some people are weak enough to believe that Stanley's interesting letters are really written from Central Africa; while as regards actual experience many people know as much of one as the other.

Everybody appreciates to the fullest extent the rare tact and professional etiquette .which must have actuated Dr Payne in making an application for the position of Hospital Surgeon. No one imagines that lie cares a penny for the salary attaching to the office, but he only wanted to give a bit of good advice to those ignorant committee men, whose experience of hospital management is limited. It would be incorrect to say the doctor borrowed his ideas on the system of hospital management from the Advertiser, and it would be rank heresy to insinuate that he inspired the Tizer's leading article, but there was such a surprising similarity in the two productions —the leader and the doctor's letter—that nobody is certain yet who conceived the idea. Perhaps it is a mere coincidence.

Brutus says that all Romans are liars. But Brutus was a Boman, and if Brutus was a Homan all Romans are not liars, therefore Brutus was a liar, &c. Everybody will remember the old logical quirk. It may be applied locally. Mr Mitchell says that all mine managers are fools, and he speaks from 25 years' experience, during which probably he was some time or other a mine manager; therefore Mr Mitchell must be a . fool. But Mr Mitchell is not a fool; therefore all mine managers are not fools. Everybody-can follow out the proposition as far as they like, and reproduce it in as many phases as they like; but whatever they may arrive at, it net be that Mr Mitchell is a fool. He is simply a clever gentleman who moves in a sphere much top narrow for his superabundant brain power; and if his massive intellect sometimes leads him into wagging that unruly member the tongue too fast, it must not be counted against him. His honeßty is like Brutus's—unquestioned and unquestionable.

" W Let other oath, Than honesty to honesty engaged, That this shall be, or we will fall for it;? "

It required a certain amount of moral courage, at any rate, to chance the fortunes of war when being carried to the polling booth shoulders high to record a vote, but it was nothing to wearing a coat with the maker's ticket on it—conspicuously placed on the back—during the busiest time of the evening at the corner; but.he did it without blushing, and the same man will do anybody's business at—well, for particulars vide advertisement.

Every paper one sees now-a-days has a supplement once a week or oftener, and as these are not always printed where they are published, but are ground off by the thousand from some machine, which is like Mr Mantilini's, the " same demnition old grind," it happens occasionally that the papers using these supplements give under sensational headings a piece of news in the supplement that they have previously published as ordinary filling up stuff", an 4 yet the supplement printers consider they are doing a favor by supE lying these sheets at, in many instances,, alf the price of the paper in which they are published. But the newspaper trade flourishes, and each little sheet announces the latest novel "written expressly for the ■—— -—--." This was .suggested by

by seeing the other day an article in the supplement and the ordinary columns of the paper.