Our Wellington Watchman.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume IX, Issue 2796, 12 January 1888, Page 2

Our Wellington Watchman.

Our excitement just now is of course the English fleet of four war vessels, anchored in the harbor. The gentlemen of leisure—and we .have a considerable number of persons of leisure in Wellington—spend their time in looking at the warships, and expectorating in the water. The people who have no leisure in the.daytime, stroll down the embankment of an evening—the males with their best girls—and listen to the strains of martial music wafted from seaward, and explain, with more or less correctness, to the tender creatures by their side, the meaning of the signals supposed to be flashed by the electric light. To the newspapers, the fleet has of course proved a godsend, and we are favored daily with cheerful gush, concerning everything appertaining to. it, from the last-joined guinoa-pig or cadet, to the till of the Admiral's shaving box. In the meantime, we look towards the white ensigns floating in the breeze—and "blow." Thunder and Lighting 1 how we do blow, to be sure. We long for a hostile Eussian fleet" to appear, in order that the Britons may chaw them up before our eyes; we long—at least the Evening Press longs—for a Naval engagament outside the Heads, ato "Shannon" and" Chesapeake." But then the Evening Press is a terrible warrior—on paper. . : To my "nautical eye, which, by the way, is the eye nautical of a past era, the war-ships look large and threatening enough, but they do not fill my beau ideal of marine architecture. Nothing for matchless symmetry can ever replace the dear old sailing-ship frigates—the most beautiful things that ever walked the'waters. Then again, the old three deckers; what can ever touch them for majestic power, coupled, as real power ever is, with grace ? Shall we ever again see such "Leviathans afloat."

My old dad, who was of the pre-annor-plated period of sea-dog, and who had seen, in Nelson's days, England's ships, " Lay their bulwarks to the brine," And bad heard, '• The sound of battle fly Along the lofty British line," ■Was wont to declare that armor plating, big guns and (steam) speed would be eventually carried to such a pitch of perfection, that the great powers would, nolens [vokns, revert to the old order of wooden sailing ships, and that seamanship and valor would once again sweep the seas, long after the last torpedo had been exploded, and the last 200 ton gun had been melted down for ploughshares. Perhaps the wish was father to the thought, for the old school of naval officers were terrible conservatives, and with each fresh innovation of modern nautical science religiously declared the service was wing to the devil. There used, in my younger days, to be a lot of good stories flying about relative to the indignation displayed by the old " Hard-a-Wethers" at the rubbish" introduced into the British Navy about the time of the close of the Crimean War. There is one Old Admiral Boxer—was it Boxer? Well, it does not matter. Old Boxer was once, so the story goes, appointed member of a Committee to report upon the expediency of introducing wire rope into Her Majesty's Navy- The Committee of gorgeous Admirals and Post-Captains met on board a man-of-war, and after looking at samples of wire rope, and chatting a little, repaired to the cabin to luncheon and champagne. Admiral Boxer, howover, was missing, and a servant was sent to look for him and tell him luncheoir was ready. The Steward returned and whispered to his master; his master arose, and the others following, the gaudy group proceeded on deck. There, forward, with his cocked hat on the back of his head, chipping with perspiration, profanity, and tobacco juice, with an enormous marline-spike in hand, sat the gallant old tar—Admiral Boxer—bravely, but unsuccessfully, attempting to shove an eye-splice in a four-inch wire rope. "What d'ye think of it, Boxer?" "Think of it!-it." said the old salt, " Think of it! If God A'mighty had known that the British Admiralty would a' wanted to use stuff that'll neither splice, hitch, or bend, he'd a' brought on the end oi the world long since. Think of it! Bring me some more grease and another marlinespike, one of you swab-headed, longshore sons of—!"

There are three classes of professional gentlemen for whom—as olasses -I fear that I have not that reverence which conventionalism declares to be their du2—lawyers, doctors, and parsons. As individuals, no doubt, some of the best fellows in the world are to be found amongst the Devil's own, the Devil's providers, and Devil dodgers. It is not the individuals but their trade that Wellington Watchman is down upon. Thelawyer's knowledge of law, the dootor's knowledge of disease, and the parson's knowledge of theology seem to me to bo simply the measure of the layman's ignorance on these recondite subjects. In a couple of centuries, more or less, the student of history will grin at the barbarism which maintained the lawyer, doctor, and minister of religion, I am moved to this mild diatribe by the qonduot of the leading physicians of the world in connection with the throat disease of the Crown-Prince of Germany,. After deolajing he suffered from cancer, and presumably pre-disposing him to that disease-for imagination is a terrible factor in illness-the•'< idjuts" find out he lias some other ailment. Of course the Crown Pringe is a conspicuous figure hi contemporary history, and suoh a blunder made about a prince is emphasized by the rank of the sufferer and that of'the medical blunderers. But doctors am perpetually making similar blunders about persons who are not prinqes, and murdering—there is no other Vord fpv jt-H3uoh persons by their ignorance. At the present time I know no less than three, indi-

viduals in: Wellington suffering from' ; disease wliioh no: local sawbones can' ' diagnose. This does not prevent saw- > bones from experimenting, however, rior deter the fraternity from sending/ , in its little bill. Ido not deny the use 1 of surgeons, bukijited any mysterious internal' the saints .n protect me' from the experimental tinkering,of. -the " learned and skilful DrDash.'! \ i '

The case of that Geiraan Prince H recalled to my memory a little incident H which hapnenMl..-Hrlnftfi fl ago. An" English soldier presented fl himself at the regimental hospital one fl day with the alarming intelligence jfl that he had been bitten by a snake— 'fl a cobra. The apothecary in charge J had him seized, ere the words werefH out of his mouth, poured half a bottle, 1 of whisky down his throat, and com- ( " 3 pelled the attendant niggers to drag J the man up and down the verandah..! A mounted orderly was despatched for >■ the regimental doctor. Ha arrived/ m Briefly he examined the ini&te punc- H ture, " What Lave you giwfi him ?" fl he asked the apothecary. " Whisky, H sir." " Good God! man, don't you fl know better than, that? Bring brandy fl immediately and send for one of the 9 other doctors." They pouied a turn- H bier of brandy or so in him, butfl the man ooimnencdL to doze asS they dragged himHßsut. Another H doctor of superior rank now arrived, fl "What"have you done," he said, fl " Large dose of biandy," ejaculated the inferior sawbones. "Heavens, sir, do you not know better than that. , Fetch Commissariat rum at once." They filled'him up with rum, and they trotted that patient about, but he was ■ quite, comatose. Other medicines arrived, and some poured champagne, some sherry, and some milk and hart- r shorn in him, and he swallowed the j lot and slept, and did not, marvellous " to say, swell any, as he shonld have swollen with a cobra's bite. He slept, but he lived, all that afternoon, and the ( punhak-whallas dragged him about and swore in the Urdu vernacu- i - lar, and doctors came from all quarters and wrangled about the symptoms > and the remedies, and made bets as to the hour m which the man sjjjmld die, and still he slept and lived,—lived and slept, all through the night, and woke up in the morning, smiling child-like and bland. They Wjfo then he had , but a lew minutes flflive, and they ' told him to give them any messages he might have for Iris friends. And he pointed to his mouth, and they poured a' corps reviver 'down it, and he smiled some more. And the doctors got out their watches to time his deatli struggles, and one young and imhardened apostle of rhubarb and senna went into a corner and snivelled. And the Hospital-Sergeant 'came softly up to the cot and said to the dying man. "Brown, wkn did you get that }' snake bite ?" And Brown smiled faintly and replied, with a tar off look in his poor dying eyes ;—About a month ago, Sergeant." ; iO.-Cobra bite kills in half-au-hour if the cobra is well bred and lively.

Then, the ParaoiL I MfeJ4 speak with all due rejP'ot oMiem and: their profession, but Really Retimes they say things which ate so outrageously absurd that one wonders, if it be really true that thought has progressed any since the seers of Chaldea and the .Babylon mystery-men played off their innocent little" hocus-pocus upon the people of their day. That " Presbyterian" aud his rabbits, for instance, He says that the rabbit; trouble is all caused by man interfering with the designs of the Creator in letting the rabbits loose and not chaining them up. How does this gentleman know what the designs, of the Creator are ? Has he had a special revelation ? But rabbits went into the ark with Noah, I presume. Did Noah let them loose, or keep them on the chain? And if everything should have been kept boxed up, who was the man that let loose the lively and irritating flea to prey upon humanity ? But let us take Presbyterian up on his own logic. He says : "But in this case he (man) Btcppedbeyond his proper sphere and leithe rabbit loose with the ostensible liurpojfcf supplying an imaginary deficiency in SKaAustr&lian fauna and mending the Creator's work. * *■ *. The Divine Distributor makes no mistakes, but man, in presuming to meilAJias only succeeded in marring." ***f ' j . Now, if this is correct, man had no I business to bring sheep, cow, or horse to New Zealand, and, had Presbyterian been a New Zealand missionary, he would now, I suppose be eating " long-pig" for dinner,' and driving to Church on the back of a blackish. My own opiiion is that the person who let •'Presbyterian 1 ' loose interfered with the designs of. the Creator, who evidently intended him for a cuouniber.