AROUND AND ABOUT.

Thames Star, Volume XVII, Issue 5198, 14 September 1885, Page 2

AROUND AND ABOUT.

(Fhom oub Auckland CoBBBSPONDBNr.) Auckland, Saturday. Itwasjastaitheold lady laid. Didn't she know all along what them there Rooshians meant to do, and there was that there Salisbury at Home a'talking and a'talking, and a'telling the folk as how them Boothians was ail right, and there was the a'telling of 'em every blessed day that she know'd what they was up to. Although she is sixteen thousand miles away didn't she say in that leader of her's as how they would'nt give up that Zulfikar Pass for nothing. "We then pointed out the egregious mistake England would make if she allowed herself to be milled," is the genteel phrase the dear old body uses to show her readers that she had a special Asmodeus continually hovering between St. Petersburg and Wyndham street; and now she adds, with a triumphant shake of her curls, its just as she Mid, for them blessed barbarian! hate been and gone and took Chaman*i>Baidh, and now there's bound to be a fight.

It certainly is remarkable that extremes are continually meeting. Peaceful Par* sons take the chaplaincy of bloodthirsty volunteer corps ; gentle mothers hold up David, the slayer of Goliath, to their babies, as they lie on the rug on Sunday afternoon, as being a young man worth " living up to "; nervous schoolmasters, who would give any young idea a thousand lines if they caught him boxing, idealise all fighting men from Alexander the Great to General Gordon; and here we have the calm and philosophic Herald man willing, like Mark Twain, to shed the last drop of his brother's blood in the defence of his country. When the Bussian fleet comes up alongside, the fancy price that shall be put upon that Herald man's head shall far, far exceed its intrinsic value.

Tbe "unearned increment" is, I be* Here, the title given by John Stuart Mill to that wealth which has been amassed, not by the exertion of its possessor, but by the combined labor of others. If that is so, then there is a goodly number of men beside capitalists ; landowners whose increment is unearned by themselves. Suchcelebritesas G.A.S., Gerald Massey and Co., who hare caught sufficient of the breeze of popular favor as will safioe to raise the wind, have a good deal beside themselves to thank for their successes. I have read of a bardling who, distracted at the refusal of his poems by the Eatans* will Gazette, sent in one of Byron's choicest pieces, and signed bis own name to it, as a last resource, Ue was some* what surprised at seeing his name figuring, in the next issue of that organ, over an "Answer to Correspondents" scathingly recommending him to "drop poetry and take to pig-farming," or words to that effect. Did the " Prince of Journalists " write, or the erudite lecturer speak ten times as well as they do and not bear the names of Sala and Massey, ten chances to one that their sweetness would be wasted on the desert air.

Speaking of Massey, he is generally regarded as a disappointment—as a lecturer at least. The elans gathered last Sunday to hear him discourse on Burns—poet and heretic, and as the lecturer is supposed to be both himself, good things were expected. Even the most devoted hero*worshipper was, -however, disappointed. An Englishman's mouth must undergo a second genesis, before he can turn out even a deoent imitation of the accent of the heather. Mr Massey's quotations were as the garb of old Gaul on Cockney legs—it didn't fit, and the elans objected to be put off with a London fog disguised as a Scotch mist.

Mr Sala was much more of a sucess; cbatty, naturally humourous, he was soon en rapport with his audience. He uses no notes, and choosing not his language! chooses well, Yet even be is no doubt materially benefitted by the halo of romance that surrounds his name and nose. With twice his ability, and half his good fortune, they might both blush un« seen, and waste their sweetness as above.

At the Opera House the old order changeth. The Messrs Hugo, to "meet the times," hare reduced the prices of admission more than fifty per cent. The pit at sixpence speaks for itself—very loudly. The stalls at the rate of fourpence per hour are inhabited chiefly by the horny-handed. 1 say inhabited for it seemed to me that many of them came to lite and die there. One gentleman had laid in a stock of eatables in his hat; others, fearful of their seats, had supplied themselves with medical comfort! in bottles; while others slept in the sleep of Hennessy and Martel. Orer the dreu circle was plainly written Ichabod. Where last I beheld a lady of title, sat an eminent greengrocer; Bill and 'Liza sat around sneering at the stalls, while the triumph of democracy was demonstrated in the private boxes, in one of which tat three high-spirited grocers boys, whose unanimously curled lips evidently denoted the fact that they considered that at last they had attained their right and proper sphere. " : '