THE "OBSERVER" CARTOONS.

Observer, Volume 3, Issue 66, 17 December 1881, Page 216

THE "OBSERVER" CARTOONS.

No. 1. — Mr. Thomas Mobrix

To-day we present our readers with the first of a series of special cartoons, in a style of art new to journalism in this Colony. The great majority of the subjects will be local, the introductory one being Mr Thomas Morrin, senior partner in the enterprising firm of that name. The Morrins came originally from Montreal, Canada, where the father of the subject of our cartoon was known as a man of strict probity and successful commercial enterprise. William, the eldest son, came out thirty years ago to Sydney with a small capital, and afterwards removed to Auckland. His brothers, Thomas and Samuel Morrin, followed him from Canada in 1861. Their capital, like that of many other successful colonists, lay mainly in their own pluck, industry, and thrift. Thomas Morrin, with whom we are principally concerned, is a man gifted with extraordinary business shrewdness and foresight. He is a born speculator — he possesses an Aladdin's lamp — whatever he touches turns into money. In the troubled days of the Thames, when weaker, more sanguine, and less cool-headed men went down in the general crash, he came out, not only unscathed, but on the whole a gainer. He had the skill to exchange his speculative mining interests for investments in real property. As a breeder of pedigree stock, agriculturalist, importer of the most modern farming machinery and implements, wholesale ironmonger, and developer of the coal and other mineral resources of the provincial district of Auckland, he has been an enterprising and a successful leader. For politics he has shown no taste or capacity, and lias persistently resisted all temptations to travel outside the bent; of his faculties ; but as chairman of the Auckland Chamber of Commerce he found a congenial sphere. Straightforward, almost blunt, unconventional, shrewd, dexterous, solid,— he owes his commercial success more to strict concentration of his faculties on his business than to social advantages or other extraneous aids. He is emphatically a self-made man.