Our Wellington Watchman.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume IX, Issue 2842, 8 March 1888, Page 2

Our Wellington Watchman.

If it be true that happy is the nation that has no history, then New Zealand is rapidly developing into a terrestial paradise, for thd days go by absolutely uneventless. We never nuw have' even such slight distractions as a tnynteriolis murder or a satisfactory suicide, and the " daring burglar" and " monster shark" alike suffer languor. .Perhaps it is the weather, as, during the last few days there have been certain, meteorological indications which might lead the subtle observer to infer that summer is somewhere in the neighborhood.

As regards Wellington we have been a whole week without hurricanes or typhoons, and our streets are radiant with ladies in the most charming of light summer dresses, and one or two of our inhabitants—hardy souls—have actually ventured out in silk dusters. This, however is more for the sake of perpetuating the good old delusion that we have a summer than owing to any actual warmth of temperature, Truth is, slowly but surelv, New Zealand climate is changing for the worse, and no doubt the stupid and criminal wholesale destruction of our forests has much to do with it.

The only local political event of the week has an imperial rather than a significance. I allude co the meeting of those favorable to Home Eule for Ireland, which has been called at the Opera House for Thursday night, lam glad to see the Wellington Nbtioualists coming out of their shells, even if rather late in the day, There is no doubt that there are large numbers in this colony, as in all British Colonies in favor of giving to Ire* land the same rights we ourselves enjoy. The majority of those against it,are those who have taken no trouble to make themselves acquainted with the genuine grievances oflrislimen,hut are content to take their Irish data from such up trust worthy sources as one of our Wellington evening papers, in which weak jingoism and garbled facts disport amicably together,

These stories about poor Mrs Gordon Baillie, "the crofters friend," are really very sad. Not so sad for Mrs Gordon Baillie, perhaps, as for thos« simple and confiding colonials who accepted the guiless Gordon at her own valuation, These excellent persons might have pardoned Mrs Bailiie her little nefarious transactions with tradesmen, even, possibly, her experience of durance vile, had 3he been -really, as she represented a person of blood. But Mrs Girdon Buillie's mamma, horrihik dicta, takes in wishing, and grinds the festive mangle. That is where the pang comes in, and it is really too dreadful to reflect that our New Zealand aristocracy admitted such a person to their hearts and homes. Tiuly, she was a stranger, and she took them in.

There are people who read Thackerary's Vanity Fair, and declare poor Becky Shprp an impossible character, but Mrs Gordon is a living proof that the Becky type exists. No doubt the trail Gordon would declare with her prototype that she could be a £jood woman had she 15,000 a year, It seems a pity that the talents of these citizennesses of the world should be wasted—and wasted, simply because by a mere freak of nature they were not. what is called" well-born."

Suppose Becky Sharp or Becky Gordon had been Marchionesses or Countesses, or seraphic beings of similar high estate, is it likely that they would ever have suffered nine months imprisonment for victimizing tradesmen, or that all their unfortunate little antecedent slips would have been raked up, and wired to the uttermost limits of civilization 1 Not they. Why if we aro going to punish the salt of the earth for suoh little pecuniary irregularities, what noble English family would escape whipping ]

There are two people—and possibly, '.wo only—now alive, who could write (he most thrilling record of the financial troubles of the British aristocracy. Both these people dwell in New Zealand, One of them is a grizzled old doctor, setting miners' broken bones somewhere or othei on the West Coast of the other island, and the other—well, never mind who As is. But, Hlees you, when J noto the howl of execration that arises when some poor, |,nail, shabby adventurer of the Gordon Baillie tvpp, gets found out, and when I reflect upon the unutterable rascality of certain smart and shabby bucks, scions of noble houses, and when I reflect also that not one ao-called "noblehouse" in England, but owned or owns one or more of these swindling 'well-born' blackguards and that the world had and has no stone to cast at them, I become more and more a cynic. Mfny years ago, in a London slum, there existed a residence of the British aristocracy indifferently known as 'J Hudson's Hotel," "The Bench," '' Spike Island," but never by its true title—the Queen's Bench Prison. It was a debtors' prison—a rich man's prison. There was, ifc,. is true, a poor

side; or "County Side" as it was called,. where debtors supported by . their county starved. But that was out of sight, and clean forgotten, save . ' - by some broken-hearted wife, or by a few thinj wan children. The poqr aide - was considered a 'disgrace to 4Bplace, ■, and even the Turnkeys ignfflM its < existence. Sometimes a ' poor 1 debtor died, and was buried. Now and again, one of them, after outliving every creditor, and possibly every relative, •vould be free—free at 70 or 80 years . i of age to begin the world again or die in a ditch, Many of such men had been a lifo-time in the prison for an , ..v original debt of £3O or £4O. They were mostly unfortunate small tradesmen, and it was quite a funny saying tliat the scions of aristocracy on the other side of the prison kept the poor side full, the meaning of which was that these well-connHOted sharpers ruined little tradesmen by never paying them.

But the 'rich' side of the Queen's Prison was a source of pride to all con-v cerned. : A prisoner might. live alnp44L \ os he liked, and many of . them wML" clad in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day. 3plendid equipages of swell visitors stood in the courtyard outside the prison gates; , game and grapes, and magnificent pines were sent irt to these titled j a complaisant doctor prescribed wines,' ■ and rascals who had. ruined scores of •• . honest men, sipped languidly the finest vintages, and smoked the rarest brands of cigars.' There was to be found the . finest (racket court in England, and what with rackets, cards, and the society of demireps, these scoundrels lolling about in gorgeous dressing gowns and smoking caps found existence very tolerable. , Many of them are dead and ro'.ten ;maiy of tha.n are now in . the best positions in England. Among them were heirs to vast estates, to earl* doms, lordships and the rest. Colonels and Post Captains were common as blackberries, and there was| a fine sprinkling of generals, Anglican parsons, and country squires, But they were were all well born, and though bigger scoundrels than poor Becky Baillie or her like, no one how would be ill-bred enough to remind, them of their ante--cedents troubles way back in the fifties* (To be continued,). *