ECHOES FROM THE CAFE.

Waikato Times, Volume XV, Issue 1280, 11 September 1880, Page 3

ECHOES FROM THE CAFE.

As usual, when there is a change made in the railway time-table, there are complaints about the inconvenience caused by the alteration. This is to be expected, as it is impossible to please everyone, but I think that the new time-table is a great improvement on the old one. If atfy one in Waikato sends an order to a business 1 house in Auckland, it is received either the same evening or the first thing the ifollowing morning, and there' is time to reply to letters before the mail closes at 11 a.m., or to send goods by the train leaving at noon. Some time ago a gentleman was proposed a3 a member of a very Conservative little club in London. All of the members knew' him very well, but none of them wanted him to be admitted to the club. On the day on which the ballot was taken thei*e were twenty-six votes recorded, of which twenty-five were black-balls. The unsuccessful candidate asceitained who had been present on the day of the ballot, and went round and asked each if he had blackballed him. The result of his enquiries was that he found that each of the twenty-six had put in that solitary white ball. Solomon said, "Put not your trust in princes." St. Mungo says, " Put not yoar trust in those who vote by ballot. " There was a nice littla breeze in the City Council the other day. There is a little shoemaker named Oifer. who has been a councillor for some time past, representing the North Ward of the city. No one aspired to the honour of stepping into his shoes (excuse the pun), so he was re-elected without opposition. He had, during his former term of office, been in tl c habit of annoying Mr. Philips, the Town Clerk. After his re-election he , went into the Municipal Office and told Mr. Philips that, as he would be in office for the next three years, he would "make it hot" for him, and immediately proceeded to put his threat into execution by interfering with the subordinate officers of the Council, and generally making a nuisance of himself. The Town Clerk complained to the. Mayor, who advised him to send in a formal complaint to the Council, which he did. Mr. Offer soon found that " the boot was on the other foot," fox*, whereas, he intended to " make it hot for tbo Town Clerk, the other councillors "made it hot" for him. He got no sympathy from them, as Mr. Philips lias proved himself a very ■ painstaking officer, but he was reminded ' tlmt Councillor Offer is not the City Council, and that the North Ward is not the whole city. A committee was appointed to enquire into the matter, so we will hear more of it anon. Seeing that retrenchment is the order of the day ; I think that, during the reces>, the Governnent should endeavour to reduce the cost of the Audit Office. It may be said that it is very necessary that all Government accounts should be properly audited. No doubt it is, but cannot that be done effectually without the present cumbrous and costly office ? If two public accountants were elected annually in each of the principal towns, to audit the Government accounts in the same way that auditors are elected to audit the city accounts. I believe that, if some such plan as this were adopted, the work now performed by the Audit Office would be as well done as at present, at a very small fraction of the present cost. During the last year the present costly Audit Office discovered mistakes in the railway accounts to the immense amount of seventeen shillings, and subsequent investigation proved that ten shillings had got wrong in the Audit Office itself. The reason is obvious—the clerks in the Audit Office are in iriany instances vastly inferior in ability to those whose accounts they have to audit. A change must be made, for the present office is too cumbrous and too costly. The Melbourne people are very unfortunate in receiving in one day information of the loss of two ships with the exhibits for their Exhibition. The ship Eric the Red, containing the major portion of the American exhibits, has become a total wreck, "while the steamship Sorata, containing a large number of the British exhibits, has stranded, and, though the cargo is being discharged, it is feared that it will be more or less damaged by sea water. The landlord of the Provincial Hotel was fined £10 and costs for permitting gambling in his licensed house. lam much amused when reading the reports of almost all cases of a breach of the Licensing Act by the air of injured innocence almost invariably assumed by both the landlord and his counsel. Not only is the offence committed without the kuowh^lge of the landlord, but in defiance v of his orders given immediately before. Talking about gambling, it is said that the sudden departure of one of our mercantile community, which took place a few weeks ago, was accelerated, if not wholly caused, by gambling losses. He would bet on anything so long as he had anyone to bet with, and I am afraid lie did not study the science of probabilities. He was like a man whom I knew 'in "Melbourne who made a "book" on the Melbourne Cup. It was just a mild amateur affair, and when he had completed it he showed ifc to a professional whom he knew. The professional looked at it, reckoned up the figures, and then

told him that the best thing that could happen to him with that "book" was that he would lose only £2, while the worst would be a loss of £50. He lost only £15, so congratulated himself that he had not lost more, and gave up "book-making." I happened to be behind the counter in one of our leading grocery establishments the other day. My attention was arrested by knocking my shins against a drawer which projected beyond its fellows to a notice on the lid of the drawer —"Do not swear ! Patent Shin Trap !" I never swear (unless under very great provocation), but that placard soothed my feelings, for I knew that someone else had suffered as I had. The Rangatira has been wrecked, and, without wishing any harm to the owners or underwriters, I sincerely hope she will never float again. My wish is prompted by a desire for the "greatest happiness of the greatest number," by sympathy with the travelling public. I have a very lively recollection of my solitary journey in the Rangatira. She could roll and she could pitch, and she did roll and she did pitch, and when she did pitch and her stern was out of the water how that wretched little screw of hers did fly round ! But it was her speed that pleased me most. When she had full steam on and wind and tide with her she went four knots an hour ;—; — read that and wonder ! However, the wind changed, and blew right in our teeth, so the speed decreased to three — to two— to one knot an hour. Then our gallant ship remained stationary. Then the fast and powerful steamer, with a full head of steam on, began to go backwards. We were glad to run into Hicks' Bay for shelter, and to remain there for twelve hours, although there was not what the sailors called "half a gale." I was for nearly a week on board that splendid ship coming from Wellington, and made up my mind that I would rather walk than travel by her again. Can it be wondered then that, in the interests of " suffering humanity," I hope the Rangatira will never float again. On Tuesday evening, I went to the conversazione given by His Worship the Mayor to inaugurate the opening of the Free Public Library. The Mayor made an excellent speech. Sir G. M. O'Rorke gave an address, which would have been good but ior the melancholy style in which it was delivered. Dr Wallis preached a short sermon, with a few laboured witticisms thrown in. Dt Purchas made a few remarks in praise of himself and the other members of the Council of the Auckland Institute. The Artillery Band played an overture and a waltz. Mrs Mitchell, Mr Gordon Gooch, and Mr G. C. Wilson each sang a little ditty, and the proceedings terminated with their singing the National Anthem. St. Muxgo.

According to the " Magazine of Art,' ' thf Queen is not merely a dilettante adi rairerof painting ; .she is hert>elf an artist. All her life it has been one of her favourite occupations to handle the pencil. Take up her •" Joarnal in the Highlands. " At Blair Athole, in the autumn of 1804, "We sat do ,vh cn'the ground, and Lady Canning and I sketched ;" 1852, when her husband had shot a *>tag, " Isnt down and scratched a sketch of him on a bit of paper which I put on a atone ;" in 1862, within sight of thb Lomond Hills, " I made some hasty Nketches; 1 ' and ou board a yacht in Cork Harbour in 1849, ''While Albert went on shore I occupied myself in writing and sketching ;" — such entries as these mark scores of occasions on which Nature caught her Majesty's eye with a peculiar beauty, or when she plied the pencil to | while away the hours during which she waited ou lonely hills and in the solitary woods for her husb end's return from his sport. Of that gentler exercise of the pencil there is in this volume other evidence than these entries— some of the skeLohei themselves, is or is this the only instance in which her Majesty's has ran the gauntlet of criticism by submitting her work to the public. To several exhibitions at home and al>ro?d has khe contributed, among other to that of Philadelphia, where she sent a series of etchings which we specially mention becau.se they indicate that the co-optration alieady alluded to sis existing between the Queen and tho ''rince Consort in the study and patronage of the fine arts was also cai - ried to the extent of collaboration in the practice of them. And the mention of tho^e etching* reminds us that some of the royal handiwork in this kind n.irrowly csraped being made rublie against the wilt of the artists. This was i n 1848, when some copies of etching-*, the joint work of the Queen and the Prince, were .stolen by a workman in the employ of a printer at Windsor, who had beeu engaged to take impres.-ions from the original plates and these were reproduced by a publisher in Paternoster row, named Strange. The Prince instructod tha Queen's private solicitor to apply for an injunction preventing the i>-sue of copies of any of the private engravings referred to in "A Descriptive Catalogue of the Royal Victoria and albert Gallery of Etchiugs" ; and this was granted by ViceChancellor Knight Bi-uce, whose decision was appeiled against a few months later before the L-n-d Chancellor, by whom, however it was finally confirmed. Not long since, one of our millionairesses becoming disstisfie t with the manner in which her dresses were made, informed that long-suft'oring creatui'e, her dressmaker, that she intended to bring an action agninst her for damages to her dry goods. Full of this determination, she sought one learned in the law, and Laid her grievances before him. After hearing her to an end, he elaborately explained to her what could and what could not be done, in the premises Not content with what she heard, Mrs. Croesus insisted that in her case a point must be stretched to suit her wishes, whereupon the impatient counsellor exclaimed, "My God, Madam, have you no common sense?" " No, sir, " replied the irate female, " I'd have you to know there's nothing common about me. Every-tnmg I have is high-toned, the most expensive to be found in the city, and, thank goodness, I have the money to pay for it, too, to there !" It is the easiest thing in the world to find a man willing to bet a hat on his candidate, but it is the hardest thing in the world to find the man if he leses. A negro passing along Fleet-st. was astoni hed at hearing a voice oil out, 4 'How d' ye &-*, Massa M nnge Munge? How d' ye do Snowball?" and, on looking up, observed it proceeded from a parrot, in a splendid gilt cage. • 'Aha, Massa parrot, " said blackie, "you great man here?, you .live in a gold house now; but me knew your fadder very well, he live in bush." How aptly Shakespeare's well-known aayiiig, " What a fall was there !" applies m the case of royalty in the Sandwich Islands, when the announcement is made — in allusion to the festivities on board Merrit's yacht in Honolulu harbor— 'King Kalakana and a band of music were among the attractions offered. " Sam Tetlow shot his partner, Skeantlebury, at the Bella Union Theatre lately, because business was not good. The receipts of the week will Snwfli/bun/ him. A youxo fellow tried to acare a Brooklyn widow by appearing to her as her husband's ghost. But, as ho was in the house before 12 o'clock at night and did appear drunk, she detected the fraud, at once and thumped the burglar on the head with a fire-shovel.

THE BEER TAX.— MR. WHITAKER VOTING FOR THE SIXPENNY TAX ON BEER INSTEAD OF FOR THE THREEPENNY TAX. TO THE EDITOR. Sir. — You were sojkind as to insert my letter of August 28» I see in your paper of last Tuesday, that " Another Working Man" has taken up myletter and answered to it. Sir, this reply of "Another Working Man" if simply an abuse of me. He also wrongs the majority of working men. What right has he to say that I am a "bibulous correspondent, and evidently one of those working men who spend more than they ought in beer, and their time in hanging round a public-house bar. " I ask him and you why this abuse? Abuse is not argument. As to those who Mr Whitaker M.H.R. " sought to represent when canvassing for his seat, ' I know that he asked me personally for my support and I refused to give it to him. Then let " Another Working Man" tell the Electors, through your Waikato Times, why he assumes that I "am probably exempt from the tax on personal effects, my love for the seductive beverage having assured that." I have always heard say that we must " take a man to be j innocent until he is proved to be guilty. J "Another Working Man" charges me ! with sottish habits, and with spending | Imy time and money in a "pub." Then also, without knowing 1 me, he finds me I guilty of theee vices. Now, those who do know me know also that " Another Working- Man" is quite in the wrong-. He is also making a great mistake as a supporter of the member for Waipa by charging working-men generally with drunken habits. When Mr Whitaker was canvassing, he called us all " Gentlemen." The real ' l gentleman" is he who acts a 9 such. Mr Whitaker also professed to do his all for us working-men, an.l yet here ho is on his first opportunity in Wellington doing his level beet to pans a tax which he well knows will fall most heavily on the shoulders of workinj?-men. I decline to abuse " Another Working Man' 1 as he has abused me, but, in Sir George Grey's language, I maintain th^t " Another Working Man " has throughout Ms letter stated what he himself should know is " absolutely untrue." As to what I say about the working-men being in favor of Sir George, I look to the next election to prove it. Mr Editor, excuse my long letter. Don't, if yon please, close your columns to " Another Working Man," but give him a chance to abuse me and other working-men again if he thinks fit, or to reply to this. I challenge him to do it. — I am, &c. , Working Man.