Notes and Comments.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume III, Issue 158, 4 June 1901, Page 2

Notes and Comments.

A reader tells us that one of his hens crowed thrice CROWING the other day. This HENS. he rightly thinks

an unusual occur- , rence, and asks the meaning thereof. It is not far to seek. J Female franchise, my dear sir, | female franchise! Just as the woman of the day thinks she has every right to sit in Parliament and on bodies less august (beside “sitting on” he" worser half), so the hen thinks HER sex entitles HER to the privileges of her erstwhile masters —tlie prides of the barnyard. Melancholy it is, but true, that all the domains of the male are being invaded by the female woman, who, in the pride of her youth and her beauty, her age and her —nonbeauty, are stepping into the fat billets hitherto held by the dominant sex. Soon wilt the pooi male stay at home and wash lishes, and drudge, and scrub children and floors, and. shut the door in the faces of pedlars and book agents and tax-collectors, and turn his last year’s spit and wonder how long it will be ere his wife buys him a new hat. Meanwhile that tyrant will be at her shop or office and stay out o’ nights “on business,” coming home with a pronounced smell of aqua pnra with a drop of something else, and a smell of cigarsittoke on her clothes. She will go to all the fun that is on, drop in at the theatre and take out some giddy boy to picnics. And when the poor, patient husband wants to go out on Saturday night to do the shopping he- will have to steam himself to death bathing the children and tidying up before he can spare half an hour, and then have to hurry back in case the house is on fire, and get supper ready for “ the old woman ” when she comes home at midnight, after a jolly good time. That is, of course, supposing the present order of things is reversed. O woman, lovely woman, your day is coming ; see that you use it like a woman. The Mount Ida Chronicle, in applauding the GovKIX(? ernmeut’s decision to MAHUTA. refuse Manilla, the ■ Maori “ King,” leave to “demonstrate ” on the Duke’s arrival at Auckland, says:—“lt is ridiculous to offer an actual reward to this poor, puffed up fool of a Maori to go on strutting about as he is doing; while on the other hand it is quite beneath the British dignity to offer him a bribe to give up making a spectacle of himself, as this very Government has already come dangerously near doing. But he rausn’t eat his cake and have it too. He has hia chance now to “ chuck” his tinsel flummery ; if he prefers hugging it still to his dusky breast, there is no room for him among those surrounding the heir of the British Crown.” Poor Mahuta! He desired to fitly welcome the Duke and to present to him a minature canoe containing the historic meres of his tribe as a token-of fealty to-the Crown. He would voluntarily have “ chucked his tinsel flummery ” from him, but probablj in his exasperation he will now “hug it to his dusky breast.” There is no doubt that the Royal pair would have been less bored in witnessing the fervid enthusiasm of the Maoris than they will be in going through, for the hundredth time, the routine pursued by the dominant people. It would have clone no harm to humour the Maori “King” thus far, and it might for ever have removed the chance of an attempt to make the title good.