Notes and Comments.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume IV, Issue 278, 4 November 1902, Page 3

Notes and Comments.

The prevailing epidemic in Waimate is colds —colds of colds, all sorts and conditions. You meet a friend, and ho looks at you and murmurs, “ Thishyoo, thishyoo.” “ Certainly it’s me, Johnson; who else would it be ? ” Then (sternly), “ But I thought you were a prohibitionist.” “Just a cohd id my ed, ohd mad, dothig bucb.” This is the tale with variations, that meets one in every nook and corner of the place ; old men and maidens, young men and children—all have the same tale of woe. What is the cause of it ? No one knows. It may be the fact that we are getting a sample of weather turned oil at the wrong station on its road to the South Pole ; it may be a judgment on us for our wickedness, but it certainly cannot be because we have not physicked enough. Morning, noon, and night our chemists and our grocers hand out quarts upon quarts of mixtures to alleviate the sufferers, and as fast as one batch is relieved another is ready for physicking. And with what faith strong, ablebodied men swallow their doses ! If it says on the label, “ Chiseler’s cough crusher, the best on the market ; an instantaneous cure, all is well. There are also as many other remedies as one can count on the hairs of one’s head. Every man Jack knows an absolute cure for a cold, and even though he be suffering badly himself, the patient hurries off to try it, whether it be quinine and whisky, rum hot, or simply a decoction of bluegum leaves. Truly, as the wise man ought to have said, of cough mixtures there is no end. Yet one can hardly expect this unless there is also an end to colds, which, though a consummation devoutly to be wished, is not likely to come to pass.

The Hon. R. J. Seddon, Premier of

New Zealand, etc., ete., “ brass ad lib, must be about band case-hardened now, but Richard.” still he is evidently

good practice for the adjective slingers- of the colony’s press. Hear (Christchurch Truth on his trail:—Mr Seddon arrived in Wellington yesterday with the customary brass band. As he never seems to do anything now unless there is a brass band in the offing, all sorts of suggestions have been put forward to explain it. A second fiddle and a journalistic choir of tin whistles is often used by the Premier, but it is only when the trombone snorts and brays that he shines in all his bulbous lustre. He has got so much into the habit of having the noisy accompaniment that anything into which a brass band cannot be introduced is distasteful to his loud and noisy soul. Just as to the German, according to Mr Dooley, Heaven is “ painted blue with cast-iron dogs on the lawn,” so to the Premier, life on this earth is an expanse of rant and foam, a place for Premiers to parade to the cacophony of a lusty orchestra. Mr Seddon found long ago that the seductive tenor horn and the soulful saxophone appeal to the public better than explanation, and almost better than denial. Hence, think some people, comes the order in tight places “ Strike up !” The writer goes on to quote a story of Mr Seddon taken from “ Tay Pay,” O’Connor’s “ M.A.P,” thusly : After school one day I went to bathe in a neighbouring pond, got out of my depth, and was on the point of drowning. A brass band was passing, and ray sister gave the alarm, and one of the men came to my rescue. Her further cries brought a local quarryman, and in the moment before I lost consciousness I caught sight of these two men, one with his trombone, the other in his leather apron, and ever since I have always felt a particular partiality for all men who play trombones or wear leather aprons.’ Leather aprons, however, are not much use to Mr Seddon. You can’t explain that two and two make five, and a little over, on tho strength of a crowd of leather aprons, and men that play trombones are more suitable accompaniments to fanfarronade, gasconade and garrulity than are mere quarrymen. You can’t excita the giddy populace to the music of unattrac-tively-garbed artisans. It had to be quarryraen or trombones. And Mr Seddon chose the latter in youth, and is true to the old love. Not many men can be saved from drowning to the tune of a brass band and live to climb to greatness on their windy chords.” If after that, Richard Vox de Leon does not call in at the office of Truth and “ shout” for Editor Poison he has a poor appreciation of talent.