SCRAPS FROM OUR NOTE BOOK.

Tuapeka Times, Volume I, Issue 50, 23 January 1869, Page 5

SCRAPS FROM OUR NOTE BOOK.

Ko,. XE?^— POIiEpCAJ*., The Muggins family have never paid ' much attention in politics ; indeed,^ 1 never;he^rd pf a single Pfme Ministee j bearing that illustrious name. Dnrfog ; the time I have been,*gentle reade^ your guide, philosopher, and friend, T do not think I have ever crossed the tapued bcruadary, But. this yeek I cannot help mysejf,. soj comical ttn! aspect is presented to my mind by the proposal of tfce " Daily Times " to' inaugurate retrenchment by cutting off the £8000 or £9000 paid to our Superintendent, Executive,, and Council What an awft^l aj>surd% it does seem, to be sure x to attempt making a politician aa honest man ! Can; the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard 1 his spots ?. Eetrenchment?. Notif our patriptic and dMTOte^ested'^ulers know how to. play the card&; nothing in the least like retrenchment, in fact, but an excuse for a more wholesale system of jobbery, corruption, and dishonesty than even now exis.^. Virtuous Mr. Soapem, caught with his. hand in the public pocket, will be quite surprised at ihe brutal stupidity of policeman T.T. Mr. Soapem cannot devote his' powerful intellect aiyLvjaluable time to public affairs without some compensation — the spheres : cannot be moved without a golden lever, ;ancl indignant, virtuous, but detected Soapem asks which is better, to lose his services or to put up with the " conversion" of a few odd sovereigns; Mr. Sneer, as he directs the golden flood of Government patronage in.the direction of his friends and' partne^rsi chuckles at the rerdancy of the jnibtip, f whp are refqicme at fch'e " enormous /saving effected?' Mr. with heavy. Government ; . Mr. Nepotism, with papa-in-4aw and £ host of , needy relations in- government offices, would not in the least object to the alteration. He is a voluntary and , unpaid servant of the public, giving his. services from disinterested motives, and cannot surely be denied some little patronages. It is in one of Grimm's household tales, I think, that the hero is set to clean a kind of Gothic- Augean stable,' and 'finds that for every tipade-' /ulfpf muck he flings out, five cbme in again, ,A n i *11 attempts at reform will result in. a similar manner, until some benevolent fairy steps in with a charm like that in the German tale, and the present system is reformed off the face of the earth. The people of Otago must light their lamps, and, Diogenes-like, start in search of an honest map, if they/want any scheme of retrenchment to be of any value whatever. At present it simply means giving a fetv cormorants power over a good many more thousands than they at present are able to squander. Such a state of things is, to say the least of it, undesirable; yet a reduction of the £9000 at present expended may surely be effected without resorting to any very harsh ; means. Supposing an advertisement, to the following effect, were inserted in the " Gazette n — »