AROUND AND ABOUT.

Thames Star, Volume XVII, Issue 5205, 22 September 1885, Page 2

AROUND AND ABOUT.

(Fbom our Auckland Cobbbspohdskt.) Auckland, Saturday. If all of Baldwin, Maasey and Go/a revelations are to be relied on, there i> * possibility of the existence of such a publication as the " Hades Herald or Sheol Weekly News." Should it exist, could we of this earthly planet peer with bar psychic vision from out this muddy yes* ture of decay upon the issne dated the week ending Baturdiy, September 19, 1885, what information might we not gain about ourselves " as others see us." How eagerly would a mundane reprint be brought up, if the Psychological Society could only be induced to add materially to its funds by calling such a republioation from the vasty deep.

Fancy—articles, leaden, and editorials, by CbarlesDickens and Macanlay, sonneti by Shakespeare, stanzas by Byron, boa mots by Voltaire, snent the recent broadening of phylacteries in Auckland and elsewhere (always supposing that their muses could so stoop). How 1 Auguste Comte would theorise aboat the advancement of his pet Humanity. With what writhing letters to the editor would the Early Fathers rrcant the, doctrine of Universal Depravity, and with what ap« propriate zest would the old Latin Bishop's Ghost finish up his "Sunday Beading" by a repetition of his hoary old pun. JSon Anglised angeli, inthe presence of the Auckland Social Parity Society.

We are certainly realising "The ap« proach of the Angels." In one column of the paper read how we are all to take a pledge to be pure and spotless—in another we see recorded how a virtuous public opinion is driving all the "unfortunates" from house to house," virtually forbidding them to exist, and inciting them to such open rebellion as will cause their arrest and imprisonment. P#or wretches — whose parents . are want abet hunger—how many of those whti would improve you off the face of the earth have known what it is to eat;in* tear«sbddened crust whoae price is sin ? How mapy social puritans are there who would kiss the Magdalene and call her "sister" in all its meanings, except on a patronising " slumming " expedition or in a sensational newspaper par. The social Nirvana is yet a long way up the path.

"Things"— to use a comprehensive term, in popular phraseology—" is bad;'* undeniably bad. Like an old lady of whom I was once told—we hare been living on faith and hope a good long time. and shall shortly have to fall back on charity. The fourths of the nonth have been taken like hardies by the basinesa houses of Auckland. Some few of tb« weaker have fallen by the way, and I hear talk of several good names (which are not even equal to small riches) whom the next | hurdle will finish. The question is, of course, What makes "things" badP That question answered, we shall knoff what to alter, remove, or destroy, in order to render them comparatively good. Theold small-farmer emigration question is now redivious. A country's yeomanry it a country's pride. Imported capital is the product of labor in other lands. What ifl wanted in our colony is wealth produced j'n the colony. Small farmers (men who are an embodiment of Mr Rees' Trinity —Land, Labor, and Capital) are the men who shall, Atlas like, bear up and sup* port New Zealand. It certainly is a step in the right direction to invite them. The nest step is to get them to borne, and thia is the hardest. Oppressed at Homehaving experience of swindling colonial agents — hearing distant echoes of failing special settlements, in which the settlers are soon settled—what wonder that they would rather " bear the ilia they have, than fly toothers that they know not of." Get them by all means, but—get them. „. ,

i The St. Matthew's Missioners have not come before they were required. There is a sad need of the parson being abroad if tho following be tree. Here it is at I had it; A certain little suburban maiden has a contract with papa to supply the " texts " n given by the priest erery Sunday, on returning from church, in exchange for a " saxpence." Many cariosities of literature has' that damozel bronght home in the quite of holy writ, which unsuspecting and untheological papa has duly paid for. A Sunday or two ago, however, sho brought home oao which must have made tears stand in thY eyes of the shade of Isaac Disraeli. The rev; father gave out the words, "Surely goodness and mercy have followed me all the days of my life.' My cop runneth over." Cissy repeated the text over and over, and after church rushed home to paps, and gaspingly delivered herself of these words, with expectant palm outstretched, " Goodness, gracious, me, my cup's tipped over." Pa paid again. ■■•.■•.