PASSING NOTES.

Wairoa Bell, Volume IV, Issue 159, 19 August 1892, Page 2

PASSING NOTES.

[By

Nemesis.]

It is a long time since I troubled the readers of the Bell, but if Mr Editor will allow me I will now resume my pen. 1 have been quite content to lay back and peruse ‘ The Wanderer’s Notes,’ which I have always found pointed and interesting, and I hope he may enjoy mine as I have done his. I noticed that at a meeting of a temperance society where the question of gambling was be ’ ing discussed the ladies did not vote for the introduction of an anti-gambling pledge and this seemed to astonish some. I was not at all surprised, for my experience of race meetings is that the ladies are as fond of sweeps and totalisator tickets as the gentlemen. It is confidently predicted by social reformers that women, when they get the suffrage, will soon put thiugs to rights. It is nice to think this but I see no reason why women are to do any better than the men have done. But for all that I do not agree with the Wanderer and his Maropiu friend on the question of Women Suffrage ; it seems to me that they would give wives no rights except through their husbands and unmarried women no rights at all. * • * I have sometimes wondered what kind of creature it is that writes lie \rapohue notes for your contemporary for I an not inngine it IjO Do a ru.ni much :i>eo a jL...-uiuu . " UUc on this subject i would say that I have missed your own at Arapohue lately with regret; bis writing's, though sometimes disagreed with, have always had a good object in view and what he wrote was evidently for some good purpose. His friend, above referred to, on the other hand strikes me as a creature out of tune with everything and everybody around him. His scribblings are chiefly jaundiced criti-

clans on the go id works of others. Take for instance his remarks upon the Northern Wairoa Agricultural and Pastoral association not a word of encouragement to be founds for those who seek to establish an institution of the very greatest importance to our district, but only sneering misrepresentation the evident outcome of a desire to be able to write failure on the attempts made. He says that at the last meeting the ‘ knotty question of the entrance fee upon which the existence of the Association hangs was deferred till next meeting,’ whereas I learn upon enquiry that all business was completed, the entrance fee decided upon unanimously and the amount paid 'o by every man present, except one or possibly two who had not the money in their pockets, ouch a disordered brain must arise from a wormy or bilious stomach and I would recommend a course of Cockle’s .pills to eradicate self from the system. I strolled down to the Kopuru wharf the other day and was somewhat surprised to find no less than a dozen large cases of empty bottles there evidently packed ready for shipment. I thought at first that Mr Lindley was doing a large trade, but on looking closer I noticed that every one of the cases were branded ‘ Hancock and Co., Captain Cook Brewery.” I do not think that our friend Mr Barclay has gone into the liquor business so am at a loss to know where so many bottles had accumulated. Is there an hotel at Kopuru, or have I struck upon a mare’s nest ?