ECHOES FROM THE CAFE.

Waikato Times, Volume XVIII, Issue 1484, 7 January 1882, Page 2

ECHOES FROM THE CAFE.

Mother Shipxon is " played out. Her prophecy, if it was her prophecy, which I very much doubt, has proved a failure. The year 1881 closed on Saturday last, in a blaze of moonlight and sundry other lights. The latter, so far as we in Auckland were concerned, consisted of rockets, blue-lights, etc., put up by the vessels in harbor, notably the barque Antares. She lay out in the stream to the northward of the wharf, and with her yards decked with colored lights, with a patent light floating near her, with rockets, etc., sent up from her deck, presented a brilliant appearance, despite the .fact , that the moon was calmly shining 'in a cloudless sky. Many people were disposed to vote the moon a bore, as the pyrotechnic display would have appeared very much better had not the queen of the mght shed her soft lustre on the scene. Tr^fe we are a long-suffering people./ Zip. moon spoiled our fireworks to a contra?;* able extent, and yet no one proposed" the lynching of Professor Lambert, Mr Cheeaeman, or any other, of our scientists for not arranging an eclipse of the moon for Saturday night. I think we deserve great credit for our forbearance. This is not the only instance of forbearance shown on Saturday night. Among the hundreds, I think ' that thousands would be more correct, but I prefer to err on the side of moderation, -of. people on the wharf were a number who tortured their fellow-creatures by playing concertinas and other, so-called, musical instruments, but, in spite oLthe agony they caused, not one of the players on those vile apologies for music-producers was thrown into the clear waters of the Waitemata. More than that, none of the concertinas, etc., were thrown over to be a source of annoyance to the fishes and the mermaids down below. Though they did not respond to the summonses of the church bells, the people on the wharf on Saturday night were quiet and wellbehaved, and, as I have already said, showed a large amount of forbearance. Soon after the exhibition of its innocuous gambols were finished^ the fire fiend gave another exhibition., It showed its malignant spirit, the object of its wrath being a block of two-storied brick houses 'in Albert-street. Fortunately, we have a splendid water supply and a most efficient fire brigade, so it was not long before the fire fiend was subdued. It is quite a treat to see the alacrity with which our fire brigade reach the scene of a fire and the magnificent body of water which they immediately pour on it. No wonder that the crowd cheered, as they did most heartily. Whene'er I take my walks abroad, How many poor I see ! ' —So says the little hymn, but so say not I. In this colony no one need be poor if he can work, and will work. Almost everyone can work, and does work, though, unfortunately, there are a few people who hate work and love drink, and there are a still smaller, an almost infinitesimal number who are wholly incapacitated for work. These two very small sections (it is a blessing that they are so very small, and it is greatly to be hoped that they will soon become still smaller) form the poor of the community. Though I do not see many poor in the course of my "walks abroad,?' l do see some curious things occasionally. For instance, on one of the last Sundays of the last year, I called at a quiet little wayside hotel to partake of the " cup which cheers but not inebriates" (I do not mean tea, but a certain other beverage which is quite as harmless, and of which one can drink a considerable quantity without ' running any risk of one's wife asking the awful question, "My dear, where have you been?") I sat down in a quiet little parlor and made known my wants to the landlord. I soon saw that I was not the sole occupant of the room, for at the opposite side of the table from me sat a man. There was a slight discoloration of the skin of his face below the sinister optic; there was an abrasion of the bridge of his proboscis, and his lips were pouted in such a manner that either he was about to bestow an osculatory salute on some female woman, or they were swollen. I summed up the case as quickly as Pardy could have done it. My vis-a vis had been imbibing too freely, and had been severely punished ma" mill." And what do you think he was doing ? He was reading a sermon, md I sincerely hope it would do him good. This week agaiu the weather was somewhat "mixed" on the holidays. On Monday Sol " bossed the consarn," while on Tuesday Jupiter Pluvius was in the ascendant. Monday was a clay for straw hats and silk dust-coats, Tuesday for macintoshes and umbrellas. On Monday the weather was beautifully fine, though, perhaps, a trifle too hot, while Tuesday there were "thunder, lighting, storm and rain," as Shakespeare's triend Macbeth 's friends the witches expressed it. On both days there were races at Ellerslie, and on both days the races were very successful, the weather not altogether marling the sport on the latter day. The Racing Club Handicap was the best race that has ever been run on our course, twelve horses facing the starter, almost all of them being "in it " until the finish, the three foremost horses coming.in neck and neck, and the race being won by a nose on the post, the next two horses running a dead heat for second place. Of course the great event on Tuesday was the Steeplechase, and, despite the rain and the mud and the spills and the baulkings, it was a very good race. King Don's win was very popular, even with those who had money on some of the other horses, as Mr Morrin is a thorough sportsman, runs his horses fairly, and means them to win if they can. He is just such another as the owner of Sportsman, who should have won the race, but came to grief through being in bad com. pany. He and Young Sleclmere were running splendidly together and were a long way ahead of King Don when Young Sledmere fell close to one of the jumps. The consequence was that Sportsman baulked and would not negotiate his jump, and King Don came up, passed him, and won the race. By a telegram from Dunedin, I see that a starch and cornflour factory has been burned down, and that the fire brigade succeeded in saving an adjoining hotel. I consider that the brigade were guilty of a grave error of judgment. They should have saved the factory and let the hotel burn, as the manufacture of starch and cornflour is an important industry, which will be at a standstill for some „ time, whereas the hotelkeeper could oi»ye carried on his, business in a tempMluy building till his hotel was re-built. |By the way, why have we not astaron'and cornflour factory in Auckland ? Do not our farmers grow potatoes, from which starch is made, and corn ? We will have something of the sort in the course of two or three centuries.' "Taihoa" is the motto of Auckland. » . - f , - A correspondent of tho Star, signing himself "Consistency,"' wants to know why a stowaway by the mail steamer .was sent to MotuiM to be quarantined for a fortnight, while the,Hon,^F,.,^hitaker, ! who went out. to the", steamer ,;to confer with^SirH; Park"e^^aJwutJ;tiets|ep| i ,tO;be "taken ; to obtain,^a r^iMipn\6f N the 'duty ohAwobl Venf/to was alidad tpjand^af«n|gf|^p^siitency " iha^;been the ''tiarticlei of, ' comnion«sen<ie%he^rieed^not .'have .asked, tna^quMtion^the^ answer to