REPLY TO A. J. OKER.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 3038, 5 January 1892, Page 3

REPLY TO A. J. OKER.

TO THE KUITOK.

In your isnuo of December 12th last yon published one of those remarkable effusions of A. J. Oker, in which ho appeared in an entirely nnw role—tli.it of the Pharonh of the Waiknto, pr-ivided with a diviiiur—not in the person of an incarcerated Jnsoph, but in his matter-of-fact and esson,;aUy practical spouse, Jemima. In the 'minis of your issue of Saturday, the 10th cemhor, there also appeared a fuw ex■anatoiy comments on thu fame by Ono.nl tho Lower Orders. As I am also one of tho lower oidern, I wititmt with i?ro:it expectancy to soo if the Wiikiito Egyptian would, in his waking hours, rnply to toe comments and how he would tihape whmi divested <.f Ihe mists and shadows of sleep and imnowd from tho unrealities of his draitioland Hvironmeut. Days passed, and issuo after issue appeared, but still this somnambulistic vision-monger remained ir responsive, forcing me to conclude that, like Rip Van Winkle, he had gone to sleep for twenty yenra, and hud probably lost himself in the tortuous mazes of dreamland. That, my conclusion was erroneous was fully proven when I opened your issue of Saturday last and snv tho dreamer's funny cognomen, in In row type, heading one of your columns. More dreams again, thought 1, ana reading on found that I was not mistaken. I must, *ir, before proceeding further, congratulate your very able f till on achieving what I had hitherto deemed an

impossibility—viz., the set,tine up « dream in the columns of a newspaper How •on earth A. «T. Okor cot it to your office is a mystery to me. Dirt he and Jomimn upend it and by their united efforts transport, it thither? or was it b"t'led up, like the genii in the " Arabian Night- 1 ," and carried in the capacious pocket of A. J. Ok-r - pants, along with the penny with which he go recklessly gambles ; and which, if ho lose, he, with a profuse generosity, offers to hand to you to devote to any chuntaolo purpose you may think most deserving and most in need of such a munificent dona turn ? I cannot inm'.'inc \yhy he allowed such an unconscionable time to elapse be fore he took up that Extern instrument of flagellation, the bastinado, to apply to One of the L >wor Orders, the only reason that I cau adduce being that he could not get into fighting—l beer his pardon, I mean dreaming—form until he had induced nightmare by eating largely of th 9 seasonal puddingsure coujpelleroif his chvmm form, and slimy snakes; and Mien Mm logical dreamer goe.s on to say th<«t he aid not intend *' to be otfensive" when he used the term "lower orders," and this is how lie "logically" — he's a whale of a logician, to whom Mill fn 1 Whately are but small potatoes—explains himself: "The lower orders are various," he says, and proceeds to lay down the definition from which we deduce the foil .wing syllogism Major—The lower orders are thieves, pick-pockets and singl«-t.ixers; Minor—Honest, industrious, working men are of the lower orders; Conclusion — Honest, industrious working men are thieves, pick-pockets and dintrle-tixers. What the dreamy individual meant to say was that honest, industrious working men are the low order, men carrying swags and reloaded prisoners axe thG lower order, and thieves, pick-pockets and sinerle-taxew are the lowest order; only lie did not underscand the correct use of comparative forms of the adjective "low." I ask him what ha means by styling honest, industrious walking meu as of a lower order? A lower order of what? Surely not of

mankind, for lie who is industrious and honest is immeasurably higher than any white-handed drono or society loafer, or ne who grind* the wealth that constitutes him a member of a higher ordor—falsely so called—out of the suffering and starving poor. Dost thou incline to the opinion, oh modern Pharoah, that thou movest on a higher phno than thy working fellows? Surely thy tone implies that thou dost, thou soor of evil days and reveller in tisions of thy placnrdod brethren and slimy snakes. I hope, Sir, that he will quote Gray correctly next time he dip* into his el gy for au illustration. I am sure that lie of the lower orders ought to feel infinit-ly obliged to liirn for recommending him t'i apply t" that source, from whence he evidently draws his inspiration—the old woman. Having s-lected one, he is to tell her that he has—mark the self opinionated, wotixtioal, bucolic, Bomb ; istes Furioso— "caught a miruir '"—when he is uot suffering fr mi " phrenetic phreniti* he meant, Mr Editor, only he managed to g-1 adjectivally mixed a*ain—he may expect some assistance. i[■; savs, u When I see a puppy tryine to mount n pyramid, I find it too much for in.v ii«ihle faculties." Which, oh cachinating dreamer, the puppy or the. pyramid t When I see a monkey, essaying to cliinp a high pole, I feel confident that the higher he climbs the n ovo lie will show his—osmcrmn. After a great deal, «iinila» to whiit we have so frequently been tuld lately, relative to ".-tikes in the country," " robe-rv," "spolia'ion," and the "iniquities of tax ition, " Bedlam,''Sc., which i" mere " d uiinahle reiteration," he proceeds to give lis another of his most lucid, logical demonstrations, from which this conclusion is deduced, that if you damage the thieves, loafers and single-taxers, yon damage the colony. Ichalleugehim to disprove the dedur. tion dr vvii trom iii* own premises, What a "allant dreamer he is 100, and how chivalrously lie breaks a lance in the causa nf thoso " wretched " servant girls. He is doubtless urged thereto by Jemima, who, though now contemplating with her lord the Lower Orders from a higher plane, has sundry reminisconcies of the days when she was young, l'robably A.-J O. will deem this an impertinence, let him ; for he is certainly most prodigal of such things himself. I cannot "wade" through all his] muddle-headed nonsense, but will skip on to the " funny " part, llero, he accuses One of the Lower Orders of invoking the "IJuce." He did nothing of the kind, he merely m»(la use of the word in its proper form—" deuce " —as I will presently show. See, too, how beautifully mixed the logical dreamer gets through contemplating the "duce." Cloven feet appear to him, these again change into dreamland serpent', followed by all the horrid noises supposed to accompany the torments of the damned. Mark well the sequence of his sleepy ideas. First, his erroneous persmal definition of his mis-quoted " !.)uce,'' suggests theorthodix Satan : this again trains off into that tricky old gent's metamorphosis into the Adatnic reptile, followed by A.J.O's most vivid, mental pictures of the same old party's permanent abiding place. He is all at sea, however, for it is not old "squarefoot" who is meant by the "deuce," but his (A.J.O's) own special friend, his aider and abettor, the nightmare. Now Mr Editor, I trust that you will not think that I wish to introduce into your columns any discussion on matters theological, and I am sure that my fellow member of the lower orders had no desire to do so. A.J.O. himself was the first to introduce anything of the kind when he, in his dream relation, sneered at freethinkers and atheists ; aud you, in all fairness, inserted what one of the Lower Order deemed a reply. After all, what is J. Oker's foundation for his true morality ? Why that " which has been in all ages the moral police force of tyrants, and has chloroformed poverty with promises of heaven while robbers have plundered the earth—with a lot of myths and superstitions, derived from a dark and barba ous past, it has prevented civilisation from protecting mankind ; and Nero like, has tiU'.i!'.,; aw;v upon >t« ridiculous dogmas while the warld was burning. What great rsi' rm ntm it t opposed? What new discoveries has it not resl-te'l ? man has only become great when he has escaped out of its clutches." A few wordß more in reply to J. O.'s frothy and meaningless tirade, and then I done with this p«rt of the subject. Ho says, "To defend Christianity is not my object." My advice to him is—don't try until you have educated yourself a little more. Many infinitely better men have undertaken the task and failed ; men with brains, not shallow-pated, half-informed, old women cum parson advised dreamers, who misquote and wilfully misunderstand anyone who dares to question anything in connection with their time worn and slowly-dying fetish—a, fetish that has caused more infernal slaughter and misery and hutran woe than that of any other people, aucient or modern, on whom the sun has ever shone. Should A. J. O. desire to champion orthodoxy, I daresay we can accommodate hiin, together with his feminine dream diviner Jemima, and his referee parson. Transeat. Experience,'' 'tis said, makes fools wise." Let him rend, he says, llobin St, Cruso." Who the—no, not the deucenightmare was ho ? and "Jack the Cciant Killer." These are doubtless the sources from whence A. J. 0. drew his intellectuality, else ho could not s> confidently recommend them. "We shall «ce then, lie s-.ys—not what his attainments are, but —"what his attainments might be. As how*! 1 l'Vom what I can glean of A. J. Oker's remarkable effusion he is plainly a busy farmer, and yet not too busy but that he can daily find tiinß to visit Mrs (jwvnofe'i b«*te!rv, for, .1 snpr-osc, the very purpose that, according to him,

characterises tho doings of a certain section <.f tho lower order-i. " Where wo can 'daily' look at it [" Ergo! lie is daily there. Imbibing?—l did not say so. Perhaps Jemima knows whan nho catches tlio aroma of his breath as ho lays by her side wrestling xviLh those visions of the night, ho closely akin to D.Th., and which may, after nil, be easily accounted fur. J. Oker says " he is no magician," yet he knows—dreamt it, mn.-t likely—that One of tho Lower Orders in a student of Tom Paine, which fully explainH hi« folly and ncounts for his fury. It is the first time that I have heard tliiit tho writings of him who said: "The world is my country, and to do good ia my religion," caused men to rush into folly and become furious. Gp to, you narrow-minded abortion of a modern man; he whom you revile will bn reverenced when you and yours nre buried in nblivinn, nnd the author of "Tho lights of Man" and " Tlio Age of Reason " will occupy a niche in the temple of fame and a place in the (Ovarii of all true-hearted men worthy of one of mankind's greut emancipators; bui fur him and kindred spirits yon, J. Oker, would to-day bo a servile, crineing serf, a'xiut on a par with the Russian peasant. Space forbids my dealing with several fther things in J. Oker's screed, his misuse of adjectives, his loose construction, his ambiguity, an J his orthogriphical blunders. I will conclude by stating that wo of the lower orders are too honourable to bet od certainties, for «e know, without going to Dr. Murch, that the tail evidence can be found, and that the dreamer, much as he may affect to despise the "oningotang" (sic) ancestry, has also got it, although I ennot concede to him a descent from a high order of ape, circumstances compelling me to the belief that his Simian progenitor was noueht but a chattering, prehensiletailed, little monkey—in fact, one of the Simian lower orders j and then, with the air of ono who has accomplished a mighty work and who has performed a task over which ho feels inclined to cackle like a noisy pullet over her first egg, he mneniloqnently cries: "I have done witi him! Yes, and still ho lives, after daring to introduce "J. Oker'-termed ignorance, etc., into what was, doubtless, intended to be "simply political;" but which was, in fact, nothing but the prolonged nightmare-boin wail r>f a narrow-minded, thought constricted pessimist.—l am, etc., Anothkb of thb Lower Orders.