ALEXANDRA GOSSIP.

Waikato Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2107, 9 January 1886, Page 3

ALEXANDRA GOSSIP.

TO THIS EDITOR. SIU, — We are in a fei merit. It was bad enough to bo continually growling at the weather, without having our objurgatory poweis taxed to the utmost by bning told uipl.iin language what we are. " Alexandra is the Ultima Thule of civilization" So bays the Auckland Almanac for I^SU. It is not because we at all comprehend the meaning of the words that we are engaged. They are far too profound for our weak minds. Wo fcol like the Billingsgate fishwoman who, upon being called a parallelogiam, declared it was the " orfullest langigeshe ever heard in her life." Juvenile roysterers in Auckland have a ready jibe when a sonorous word salutes their ears ; " that is one of Dampier's thieepenny woids." Surely there is a whole sixpennyworth in "Ultima Thule." How the author's thoughts muit have roamed from Siberia to Labrador, from Alaska to Terra del Fuegn looking for small Ultima Thules before he finally accorded the honour to our township! We had turned fondly, with an excusable vanity, hoping to find it lecorded in the pap;es of the almanac that we had the only royal personage and the only i*oyal resiin all Australasia, and, further, that we had been honoured by a female royal party vUiting us in the year gone by. Alas ! we only met with "Ultima Thule." The quality of our royalty may not be up to much. The outside world perhaps is apt to icgard it as a minister of the "Church of Scotland, as by law established," regarded the Provost and Councillors of a diminutive borough on the Scottish border. As in duty bound he prayed that " God would presei ye the Provost and magistrates of the borough," adding signihcautly " Such as they are." Royalty aside, we «uc a very comfortable Ultima Thule. No need to conjure np C<es-ar, Se\eru&, or the ancient Briton to ic.ili/e what we are. We have hotels and churches ; telegraph, railroad and steamer, and the outside \v orld is &o close at hand thit even th», great G. A. Sala could have come and returned to our metropolis in "Twice round the Clock." The almanac article goes on to say we are " a decaj ing township." At that we cavil not. It is the order of all things to decay. Our houses decay., we pull them down and rebuild. A common end to wooden structure* is fire. In that line we make no show. Other villages shine, or rather have sinned befoie us. As the Yankees say, we can't burn worth a cent, and we do not want to. I must close the subject of lire. The heat of the atmosphere, the choleric temper of my fellow townsmen induced by the almanac, are altogether too much for my weak humanity. The character of my lucubration furnishes sufficient excuse for signing myself, not Billy, but Silly.