TOWN TALK.

Wairoa Bell, Volume V, Issue 189, 17 March 1893, Page 3

TOWN TALK.

[frou our own correspondent].

More weather ! Heavy gales with rain, also a hurricane for a change. This latter took place on Saturday between four aud six in the morning'. North Shore suffered most ; coal wharf totally demolished, ferry steamers damaged, small craft sunk and smashed, trees uprooted, and the dickens played generally. All picnics have been postponed, and unless the weather stops its capers the wedding cake builders will he totally ruined Seventeen hundred pounds hare been collected in Auckland for the Queensland Relief Fund. Collected quickly and easily. Fcr why P Because the names of the donors were advertised in the papers. Every old screw in the place gave something to the fund because their giving was blazoned forth hefox'e the world. Look down the list and you will see the names of notorious screws who never ‘ part ’ a farthing in private. Prominent sweaters who screw the last drop of blood out of their employees Loud mouthed usurei's —whoso business transactions wouldn’t bear the light of a farthing rushlight, et hoc genus ornnt —rushing with tearful eyes and lacerated feelings to relieve the sufferings of their follow beings in Queensland. Freely writing out their cheques, so that it be advertised in the 1 Star ’ to-night and the ‘ Herald ’ to-morrow morning. Spending the first half of a day in blatant sympathy with the washed-out Queenslander (report era present), the remaining half in grinding or robbing the poor or the unfortunate, and the evening in gloating over the newspaper reports of their sympathetic and tearful speeches. Tears ! tears ! Onions ! onions !

The Hon. Mr Rolleston on Monday night endeavoured to persuade an Auckland audience that the Opposition, of which he is the leader, could do, would do, and had done better service for the colony than the party now in office. The contract was ever so much too big for Mr Rolleston. There was a large and attentive audience, and there must have been two hundred ladies in the Dress Circle. Mr Rolleston is a nice, comfortable, honest-looking old gentleman, who is under the impression that the tide of progress is rolling in too fast, and on Monday night ho put out his little broom to stop it. But notwithstanding the fact that he was backed up by a stage full of old fossils, representing every stage of mental decay and representing also the National Ass., he didn’t even make a splash. At the end of the address the usual number of idiotic questions anent the Codim Moth, Butter Brands, &c. , &c., were asked, and the questioners promptly guyed off the slage, much to their disgust. In spite of a thousand rebuffs the political querist is always to the fore. He invariably marches proudly on to the platform with the air of a gladiator, conscious of a certain victory, arrives in front, looks proudly at the audience, fires off his question, and is immediately assailed with yells, groans, hisses cat calls, laughter and admonitions to roast his grandmother, The proud gladiator looks around bewildered, hesitates, shrinks and shrivels before that deadly storm of ridicule and at the chairman’s suggestion ignominiously ‘ shoves ’ for the back of the platform, where he disappears like Mephistopheles, minus the red fire, a consequential looking little individual who hears the cognomen of W. J. Napeeah caused a little ‘ divarsion ’ towards the finish of the proceedings. Ihe little man aspires to parliament, the audience knew it, and he suffered accordingly ; however (as the Mayor remarked), you cannot put Mr Napeeah down, so he got off an amendment to a vote of thanks, and the meeting separated in an uproar without thanking anybody. The air is getting thicker with politics as the elections approach, and as usual that nondescript impostor, the political workingman, is the subject of great concern to all those political aspirants whose political opinions are worked with a swivel.

The Bollard’s Operatic Troupe are playing to good business. They are a really clever lot of youngsters well worth seeing, and the scenery and dresses are gorgeous. Sir Robert Stout gave a political lecture on Friday night, hut as the night was rough and baby had the jim-jams, ‘your Own’ stayed at home and enjoyed domestic felicity with the chill off.