CORRESPONDENCE.

Waikato Times, Volume XVI, Issue 1374, 23 April 1881, Page 3

CORRESPONDENCE.

[Our correspondence columns are impartially open to all, but we do not in any way identify ourselves with opinions expressed therein.]

TO THE EDITOR. Sik, — I see a communication in your iasue of the 14th inst., written by some person for Mr McCutcheon, and I at once waited on the "poor man" to inquire about his grievance. The poor man said lie was sorry for putting it in the Waikato Times, but he would have to take all the blamo. Now, had the Waikato TiMts no circulation beyond the locality where poor Mr McCutcheon and myself reside, I should simply have taken no further notice of the affair. But as this is not the case, for the better information of your readers who do not happen to know poor Mr McCutcheon, it is absolutely necessary for me to correct some of the misstatements which have now got a typographical permanence. It is stated that poor Mr McCutcheon has been able to keep pigs on the run for thirteen years. Yes ; before I came to occupy my land the poor man occupied it with pigs and cattle, and no doubt it is a great grievance to the poor man that anyone should have the audacity to curtail his run. It is stated that I keep pigs on the run ; this is absolutely untrue. When complaints were made to me about my pigs 1 at once set about finding out which pigs did the mischief ; and the first pigs I saw in Mr MeCutcheon's mangolds were his own. I still kept a good look after my pigs, but the next animal I saw regaling itself in this "poor man's" crop was one of his own horses. But then Mr McCutcheon keeps a live fence to protect his crops, and when this live fence takes it into its head to walk away from his crops, his own pigs take it into their heads to walk in. When poor Mr McCutcheou comes home, after being away for two or three days, it is not likely that his live fence will tell him truly how his crops come to grief. Oh, no ; Mr Foxall's pigs have done it all. The "poor man" says " he will have to leave his laud ;" this statement would be quite as correct were the possessive pronoun omitted. There is no one who could be more sorry than myself to give Mr McCutcheon any trouble to shepherd pigs off his crop 3. — I am, &c, F. FOXALL, Whatawhata, April 20, 1881.

The Otago Hnrbour Board has offered its employes to arrange for insuring 1 them against accidents of all kindu from month to month, by deducting from their wages at the rate of Id per day, which -would entitle them to £1 per week while unable to work, in case of accident, or £100 to their heirs in case of death. The Coming Australian.— This is the title of a remarkable paper in the Victorian Review, in which Mr James F. Hogan maintains that the tendency of young Australia is decidedly downwards. The three main characteristics of the native Australian appear to be (1) an inordinate love of field sports ; (2), a very decided disinclination to recognise the authority of parents and superiors ; and (3), a grevious dislike to mental effort. Mr Hogan says that nine out of every ten native Australians spend all their leisure either in cricket or football. The insubordination of the Australian " larrikin" he attributes largely to the extent to which State education takes the place of parental training ; and, whatever its cause, there is no doubt that the proportion of juvenile crime in Victoria is abnormally large. His evidence is less conclusive as to the dislike ■which he thinks he discerns to all mental effort. He sums up his conclusions by saying that ''the coming inhabitant of the Southern continent will b8 peacably disposed and sportively inclined ; raiher selfish in con : duct and secular in practice ; contented and easy-going, but non- intellectual and tasteless." In other words, remarks the Pall Mall Budget, Mr Hogan thinks that the Australian of the future will sink to the level pf the Sandwich lelander.