SCRAPS FROM OUR NOTE BOOK.

Tuapeka Times, Volume II, Issue 63, 24 April 1869, Page 3

SCRAPS FROM OUR NOTE BOOK.

No. XXVIII.— LOYALTY UNDER DIFFICULTIES.

Before Augustus Muggins appears before an enlightened public for the twenty-nineth time, Otago will have been honoured by a royal visit. Balls, race meetings, dinners, speeches, huzzas, addresses, and all the rest of our modern inventions for the torture of royalty, will have done their worst, leaving behind them sore heads and empty pockets as the reward of their patriotic inventors. Judging by the persecution an inoffensive young man, who was unfortunate enough to be a lord, endured some months ago, I caunot help feeling the most profound pity for the Prince, whom the cruel policy of tho Home Government has delivered into the hands of his admirers. His fate reminds me of the mode of death practised on the worst criminals by an Eastern potentate, namely, by smothering in a vat of honey. While sympathizing deeply with H.R.H., we must, however, remember that all this fuss and flutter, so disagreeable to the unfortunate sufferer, must be gratifying to the Home Government, as displaying the unshaken loyalty of the Australasian colonies. A person of the most carping disposition can never for a moment suppose that superintendents, mayors, councillors, and big-wigs of all sorts and sizes are actuated, by the least desire to bring their own brilliant acquirements under the eye of royalty. No ! such a supposition would be out of place, more especially when we consider the intense interest in the public welfare displayed by all classes in New Zealand. So, on with the dance ; fill high the bowl ! Our Sailor Prince ! hip, hip, hurrah ! What does it matter, after all, to residents in the South Island if Hauhaus are, at the very moment of festivity, cutting the throats of women and children in the North ? Have we not always been separationists ? so, what blame attaches to us? Hurrah for Old England, the home of the brave and the free! who generously leaves her colonists to gather strength by fighting their own battles ; whose statesmen are too wise and just to interfere for the protection of women and children, if thereby a penny is added to the taxation of the people ; and they are thus deprived of the materials for a sensational budget. Hurrah for generous Old England ! who, having sent as much of her crime as she could, is about to present Australasia with the bulk of her pauper population. We have reason, indeed, to be proud of our dear old home since we have been honoured with a paragraph in a royal speech. Hunt up the Rejected Addresses, then, all enthusiastic people, and taking the Loyal Effusion as a model, burn incense at the feet of the representative of the liberal country which is kind enough to leave us to our own resources. Creep and grovel and crawl, as it is your place to do, but never more complain of Imperial neglect. You asked for men, and money ; they have given you a visit from a Prince. You cried for succour, and you got the Order of St. Michael ; agitate a little longer, and Mr. Staffordmay receive a baronetcy. When that glorious concession is made, the golden age of New Zealand will begin, and all our sorrows be forgot in a burst of aristocratic sunshine.

Ritualists are conforming to the late decision of the English courts under strqng protest.