Our Wellington Watchman.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Issue 2688, 1 September 1887, Page 2

Our Wellington Watchman.

, Wellington, August 31. The pptatoe is cooked nnd Robert, our own beautiful Robert, has cooked it.. He has written Sir Dillon Bell a lotter in which he has been guilty of a—for him—rare indiscretion. He told the truth. He communicated to the Agent-Geueral—who with' equal indiscretion has communicated the fact to someone else—th»t it was all U.E, with the Vogel cum Stout-Ballance combination troupe. ■ No more corner business, no more financial extravaganza, no more Governmental •burlesque, the performers will have to take a back seat, a very back Beat among the audience-and they know it.

Really, Sir Robert Stout, for. a lawyer, is a most indiscreet porson to give himself and colleagues away in tbis manner. The slip, however, is all owing to bis vast 'vanity and . raging self esteem. He thought-, no doubt,; that th« nyes of all Europe wero upon him, and that the question "agitating civilization was whether his one horse little Board of Guardians would oi 1 would not be defeated, and bo be wrote to Sir 'Dillon Bell to relieve the gnawing anxiety suffered by thecrowued heads of Europe. Poor Bir Robert! Save tha Agent General, (one or two old Colonists, and some dreary.' old clerk in. . the Colonial "Office, no one in England knows of or pares fo.r thy existence. The tides ebb and flow, the sun rises and sets, and the great world wags on, and no one out of New Zealand cares a cold potatoe whether you earned your own living at 13 or 14 years of age, whether you are an Agnostio or any other tic, of whether indeed you are a man or a mouse. In five years from date, Robert Stout will be, even in New Zealand, as utterly forgotten as a politician, as if be had nqver been, or if remembered, will only be thought of

with a tolerant half-contemptuous smile as one of the numerous demagogue who had attempted to reform the world, and. build himself an ever, lasting name ,by the almighty power, not ...of (loyV.. but? of jaw—and had failed. Vale J -Bobby.

, . 'Nothing ia certain but the uncertain —and/death; ... If one desired to moraliiei theme, might be'found in the awfully,'sudden death of poor pick .Winter,.'late Editor ofthe Marlborough Times, a well-known and 'esteemed- journalist. When-last J'Saw him in Blenheim lie wjjs full of fire, lite and energy—jjjfai one of those men for>'whom the veriest- tyro and the moat experienced in ther affairs of life would alike prophecy a great career—and yet one night be : falls asleep, hale and vigorous, and in the night:

" Thi Bhadow oloak'd from head to foot; Who keeps the keys of all the creeds," touches him, beckonß him, and iii a few short hours after, stilled is the quick restless brain, silent the cheerful voice, oold the warm blood, and laid aside for ever the ready peu that, to his honor be it said, was never used in any cause that ita wielder did not himself believe to be the cause of justice aud of truth. Now Zealand can ill Spare honest men like .Richard Winter.

. As for local politic-—bang local politics/

I am delighted to notice that a'change has come o'er the spirit of Mr Bunny's Carterton sheet, Last Saturday it was, for it, almost clean and modest—as modest as the proverbial Jille dtjoie at a christening. The agricultural editor who supplies information concerning the vegetable world was conspicuous by his absence—let us trust he is not up a tree." There were a number of highly interesting cuttings in the issue in question which were a great improvement on the "original" matter. One of these cuttings suggosted the " propriety of employing monkeys as detectives." Monkeys might do for that, because the average New Zealand detective need not necessarily , .be afflicted with gigantic brains. But it has been demonstrated that the quadrumanous animals in question are utterly unfitted for newspaper editors. The experiment has been tried—iii Carterton—-on the Obitrw. It was an utter failure.

Talking abeut Mr Bunny, the Standard emphatically asserts that be is pledged to support Messrs Ballancc and Stout, although be (Mr Bunuy) has repeatedly: declared that bo is unpledged. The Stakltird offers to ptore its statement up to the hilt if Mr Bunny desires it proved. Most people are under the impression that Mr Bunny will not desire proof.

. A late issoe of a Sydney paper has the following :-~ " Sir Robert Stout has hail (jo luck since ho left off being plain Bob. He is riot nearly ho popular iu New Zealand as he wsia twelve mouths ago. There ia an incubus of ill-luck attaching to K.CiM.Q.-ships for Colonial statesmen that sooner or later relegates to obscurity?^

The Sydney Bulletn is responsible for the following

Something weut wrong recently at Holdtika (H.Z.j-a muggy spot which the gruesome natives generally call " Okytikky"— and there was a Tophet of a row. Bevan, M.P., saw that an election was. looming, bo ho wont up to his constituency just before the Jubilee and proposed to'oolebrate the festive occasion by the establishment of an Old Man's Homo, whereby, some people imagined he was attempting to-shy two bricks at one fowl or. something of the sort. But he told the miners; that they were the " bone and sinew" of the country; that they wore "labor's noblemen," "glorious freemen," tho "genuine'rulers of this great country,and generally that they were the head,.backbone, and tail of the State, and when he sat down ho had a misguided idea that he had struck a rich patoh. Presently, 'however, a local magnate arose and asked what kind of gag this was to work on the infant mind of the West Coast digger, and why in the name of lightning and oowgrease he should bo ohosen as a special candidate for a workhouse just because the Queen was having a jubilee; and then he grew madder and madder and fore round the platform, and asked if Mr Bevan would kindly oome out of his sholl like a winkle and explain himsolf. And next a brawny minor opened out like a hinge and spoke these words: "It's hall gory rot; ' Wot do we want a Hold Cove's 'Omoi'ere for? Hain't there the Happer 'Oose in "Wellington ? That's the ■sort of'ome, and it costs enuff, too." And when ho sat down another man got up, and said he was unused to public speaking but he knowed.a.hass when he see'd 'im: and yef another mumbled that it was" one of the happiest moments in his life—or—intelligent awjonco—or—=ihaloved Quoen-er—•." And now, somehow, Mr Bevan does not feel so soro of a block vote at Hokiiika as he did, and he wishes some of these West Coast diggers would not allude to him so persis-tentiy-as " work'ouße."

The .following true story may be stale and old as the everlasting hills to yoii, Mr Editor, and your readers, but to me it is as bran-new as Sir Robert'a latest fad, and in any easel should like to embalm it in the columns of the Daily, : . : Bern ia the veracious anecdote let us say in Timbactoo, there resided a citizen who bad. acquired ricbes. He bad acquired the:}dcre iu au honest if not exactly fragrant manner. I need not enter inlio'precise details j suffice it that a cart, a lantern and the night time were all .essential to bia profeaaidn. Ultimately this citizen retired, and was anxious to get into sawiety. 80 was the citizeness, bis fair wife. This lady accordingly hapded her paetebftard to the gilded servitor of a lady of one of the " fust of families," The cailer was shewn into the hall while Mil bloated domestic carried the cifd to the missus, Presently the ' augbty. menial returned, with tk card and this message " Missus; doii't want that there attended to. jjist now/but she knows yer 'nsband'a addresß, and will let him know wh^n'his services ut required.

I had intended to steer clear of politics tin this letter, bb they are, just now in New Zealand, a raging epidemio of more vitulenc# thin the black death, and.' everyone is surfeited and disgUßted with the wretched things. Nevertheless, aa a veracious correspondent, it is my duty to point out that no Government known to New Zealanders Has ever taken advantage of its position to influence elections, as bu the iocerrop-

tible patriotic Stout-IJallance bination. There arfy.hq.wever,• certajn depths of political to once fondly imagineiihat would not sink, but I have, jWtieard on undoubted authority a regarding the mannor in which 'sw public service is to be prostituted' ends, that 1 declare—if it tuted—the guilty person-wjlliiever m allowed to again .bold OfficiaF posit\on of any sort in New Zealand, unless the Uoyernraent of this tib'dnt'ry- siokSl9" •the level of those disgraceful', whioli- we-have .■he&frcl so- mucirSPjn America. ' be injudicious tosay, but l ean promise that, should this latest contemplate jmiiticftl swindle—for it : is fiotßM else-—corae off, all New Zealafid will ring with it. : ' ; "• '