ABOUND AND ABOUT.

Thames Star, Volume XVII, Issue 5180, 24 August 1885, Page 2

ABOUND AND ABOUT.

(Feom ottb Auckland CoBBEapoNDENr.)

Auckland, Saturday. The Nouveille Revue speaks thusly abour. that radical (oh, embodiment of vice), Sir Chas. Dilke': "Being an advocate of cremation, he bad his young wife cremated because he would not give her over to decomposition (I wonder what else cremation is). Another woman made him glow with a gentle flame." I wonder whether this is " writ sarkastik." The latter lady, it seems, was already married, but such slight impediments were soon overcome. " She breaks the ties which encbain her, and shares the life she has conquered," Radical, this, with a vengeance. I remember one of Conway's Doems, the refrain of which ran—

" Some measure love by gold, " By endless timo, by sounelleaa sea.

•' But I —l love you well enough

" To leave you lore, if needs must be." Probably Mrs Dilke No. 2 quoted this to her liege lord No. 1.

Not to know anything about Karangahake is not to know anything at all, at this present time in Auckland. To dis cover " silver threads among the gold" at one time was supposed to be a sad event, but when the silver runs a thousand ounces and the gold but a few carats (no allusion to sweet auburn) sentiment is at a discount. The general opinion among people here is that there is •* money in it." If they had only awoke to this fact years ago, and helped to get it out, probably both they and "the hill" would have been the better by this. lam glad to see that there is an agitation in re the Paeroa Karangahake road. I speak very feelingly- on the subject, having in " days that have ceased to be " dropped words upon that road from the top of a pack which I devoutly trust none of the local clergy picked up. As one old digger observed, " The road is very good, when you get down to it." He also spoke feelingly, having " been down to it" several times handicapped by John Jameson.

The dramatic kaleidoscope has had another turn. We are now at both honses quite too transcendentally supernatural— Sorcery at the Opera House, Spiritualism at the Theatre. At the one the leading sprites are Mrs Kilgour, Miss Stephenson, Mr Taylor and Mr Percy Dv« faur; at the latter, I am sorry to state that, being residents in other state or states, I am unable to give their names. By means of Mrs Baldwin, they informed Dr Walker that "Hugh

Hamilton was killed by a man of light complexion, who struck him on the head with a hook." They also gave a deal of information on various private affairs, and, inter alia, informed one political enquirer that Major Atkinson would be the next Premier. The last statement vouchsafed by these enlightened cberubims was that Professor Baldwin would materialise £150 during his stay in Auckland. Prophecy pays better in this cultured age than it did in Isaiah's time.

While we have "Spirit" during the week and " Mind" on Sunday, we have also had " Matter" in its grossest form nt the Lome street Hall, in the form of a boxing contest for the proud title of champion of New Zealand. With what pride must the victor have metaphorically crowed and flapped his wings when the moment arrived when he might feel that he could hit every man in the colony harder on the nose than any man in the colony could hit him. The " noble art of self-defence" seems to me a misnomer. It should be " the noble art of offending everybody else." The vanquished one not only had the mortification of defeat, and the painfully sudden extraction of several teeth, but having sold his horse and cart to " raise the wind," he now mournfully pads the hoof, and exclaims, as pathetically as he may from behind a swollen lip, " This also is vanity."