THE LOBBIES. [BY ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH, SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.]

Waikato Times, Volume XVII, Issue 1425, 20 August 1881, Page 2

THE LOBBIES. [BY ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH, SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.]

, t / Public Domains. ? - Wjjllkgton, Last Night. A question put l>y the member for Gerakhne may be nf interest to your 4'fctrict.. He asked whether fche, Government intended making permanent provision for the * maintenance 'by local bodies, or otherwise, of botanical gardens in ithe chiof centres of the colony, and domains in country districts. With the latter - par t of the query you are alone personally interested. The .reply given by Mr Rolleston was to the effect that under the existing- Acts County Councils and Municipalities had the necessary power for Domains where those Domains wre vested in such bodies. Where they were not, provisions would have to be made, and that fact would be borne in mind when fresh legislation bearing on the f ubject was framed.

A FracasAn Auckland free fight, which waxed fast and furiou", took place on the motion for the committal of the Onehunga Grammar School Bill. Free from the restraints imposed by the Speaker's Chair, Sir G-. M. O'Rorke, who stood sponsor for the measure, had an opportunity for raising the key note of his voice to the highest pitch, figuratively Bpeaking. Swanson and he had each other by the wool, and in open defiance of the restriction imposed in the nursery rhyme •' Let dogs delight to bark and bite," they had a worry at each other that would have done substantial justice to a couple of bull-terriers of the right sort. They raked up old Provincial Council grievances, and when nothing else came to hand they made use of the rakes for belabouring each ether soundly. The ostensible object of tho fight wat Education in its higher branches, and judging from what transpired, one would say both the hor. gentlemen have had the advantage of good educational training in the art of recrimination.

Despatching Business. This is how the business of the colony is set about with increased dispatch : — The Standing Orders prohibit new business being undertaken later than 12.30 a.m., but for Thursday evening sitting the Order was suspended, and the House sat till 3,30. The intervening three and a-half hours were occupied exclusively with a goldfields wrangle over the abolition of gold duty, and so energetically was the ground disputed and so persistently were the divisions called, that when the House rose members were so completely fagged out that the afternoon's sitting had to be postponed. The Scotch have a proverb about "Losing battles gathering straw," which applied pointedly to the transaction in question.

Dr. Wallis Bantling. Dr Wallis bill for annual Parliaments was not allowed to see the light of day. It had a premature birth, and when the hour of trial came even its own political father, the man to whom it owed its paternity, deserted it. On being called upon to move the second reading Wallis essayed to shuffle out of it by a kind of apologetic remark about having discovered that members were not sufficiently advanced in liberalism to swallow such a dose. The House being in a kind of devil-me-care frame of mined insisted upon the motion being put, on which Dr Wallis made his escape from the Chamber, thereby succeeding in evading the division.

A Patch for the Unco' Guid. The report on the Adoption of Children Bill and the second reading of the Married Women's Property Protection Bill affords members an opportunity for airing their opinions re domestic relations. It was amusing to listen to the old ecclesiastical dogmas of "marriages being made in heaven" and "these twain becoming one flesh, " as propounded with Calvinistic unction by such men as Thomson, of the Clutha. "When men of this stamp come to be guided by the reason God has given them, instead of the blinded zeal instilled into their minds by religious bigotries a great impetus will be given the cause of peace, order, and good government.