Thank you for correcting the text in this article. Your corrections improve Papers Past searches for everyone. See the latest corrections.

This article contains searchable text which was automatically generated and may contain errors. Join the community and correct any errors you spot to help us improve Papers Past.

Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image

OCCASIONAL NOTES.

Two hours' work a day ! To remove the unemployed difficulty, Mr Tom McCarthy (of the Dockers' Union), advocates the compulsory restriction of a day's work to a limit of two hours. It is a heroic method of treating the difficulty, and reflects immonso credit upon the thoughtful and intelligent source from which it sprung. We are all to be unemployed for twenty-two hours out of the twenty-four—or six and a half days out of seven—in order that there may bo no unemployed ! From this wo may infer that Tom McCarthy is a homoeopathic, as the remedy ho suggests is quite in accordance with the homoeopnthic dogma, " Like cures like " (Similia similibua curantur). The infinitesimal dose ot work recommended strengthens the inference. Two hours a day ia also a decidedly homoeopathic quantity. With twelve hours fixed as the outside limit of our weekly hours of labour, we will bo able to put through our work for the week in one day, and thus be afforded ample time in which to 3pend our wages, which, under these conditions, will, I am afraid, also be of a homoeopathic character. But, stay ! Perhaps Mr McCarthy, with the wisdom and prescience for which we must Rive him credit when we consider the brilliance of his proposition, has provided againßt such a contingency. If he has not, then I am afraid his scheme has at once run against a snag. The hours of work nuy be reduced even below the limit fixed by Mr McCarthy—to that I have no objection; but any corresponding decrease in the rate of wages paid must not even be thought of—no, not for one moment! No, to make his scheme complete, Thomas must (if he has not already done so) at once set about making the necessary arrangements with our employers to maintain the rate of wages paid at their present standard—in fact, an increase of wages would be quite justifiable, considering the greater leisure we should have at our command in which to expend them. I would respectfully throw this suggestion out to Mr McCarthy. When he has brought the employers to agree to these terms, he may rest assured he will be well backed up by the working men, and he will have no more hearty and thorough - going enpporter than myself. Things, howover, so far as I can see, are likely to remain pretty much as they are ab present until the end of tho current year— perhaps longer.

The finding of a pack of playing cards in b Hamilton schoolgirl's kit will be to some ultra-oorrect people all the proof that is necessary of that young lady's wickedness, and be looked upon as an outward and visible sign of her inward and spiritual demoralisation. Personally, Ido not so regard it. It may, perhaps, be proof that the young lady is of an unconventional turn of mind, but that ia all. As a means of amusement and a pastime, playing cards are no more harmful in themselves than are a skipping-rope, a bag of marbles, or a set of tennis tools. The young lady had the hardihood to admit that the game in which she and her schoolmates indulged was euchre ! This, no doubt, intensified the enormity of her crime in the eyes of her teacher, and I can imagine the look of utter horror upon the latter's face as-she drew her hkirts more closely round her and stoud off another foot or two from the young incorrigible. Had the game played been beggar-iny-neighbour, all-fours, or even baccarat (around which the odour of royalty so closely clings), the offence might not have been regarded as so heinouc; but that our daughters should indulge in euchre—that low, horrid game of the taproom and shearing shed—ia enough to make every puritannical and quakecish hair on our heads stand bolt upright 1 That cards are often employed as a means of gambling (that vice which vitiates nearly all our amusements) has brought them into bad odour and repute with some people, and the term " the devil's books," first applied to them by the blue Presbyterians of early times, still survives. Notwithstanding this, however, there are those who can thoroughly appreciate a neighbourly game of ccibbage or whist, and to my mind there is no more enjoyable or sociable way of passing an evening; and against the ffuilelessness and innocence of a number of schoolgirls who may take a hand in a quiet game of cut-throat euchre for love, nothing can be advanced from that tact alone.

John Burns, the labour demagogue, has got a new suit of clothes! This fact, startling as it may be, would have been unknown to the world nt large, but in addressing a meeting of those who render him allegiance they were quick to notice that he w&s attired in a new suit of ■'store clothee " —the crease down the front of the trousers, that unmistakeable sign of the new slop-made article, no doubt "giving him away." Even had the world at large been aware of the fact, it would have been a matter of supreme indifference to it; but amongst his satellites this knowledge gave rise to some weighty suspicions and suggested probabilities as to whence and how he obtained them. Had John so far forgotten himself and his position as to devote some of his attention to a little work for the purpose of earning sufficient currency wherewith to purchase a suit 1 Perish the thought! 'twas not at all likely. Had John confiscated, or nationalised the suit ? This would have certainly been more in keeping with his advanced Liberal opinions, but until certain alterations and amendments have been made in the Statute Book and he and his party have obtained control ot the Police Department, thereby rendering such a course safe, John was hardly likely to have adopted this method of replenishing his wardrobe.

Giving flight to the imagination in this manner was, however, mere (guesswork, and to allay the suspense and suspicions of the meeting, one nf those present asked straight out for information as to how the suit was procured. Although the questioner did not parry the meeting with him, John fully realised that a crisis in his career had arrived, and unless a satisfactory answer were forthcoming and the suspicion that he had been working removed, he might be ruthlessly set aside, and his occupation as organiser of strikes and the unemployed be gone. A great weight was taken off the minds of his foltowers when he informed the meeting that he had not bought the suit. He then explained that he had obtained the new clothes by swapping his old and ONLY suit (this must have been especially gratifying, showing that Jchn was staunch to the principle of one-man-one-suit), to Madame Tussaud in exchange for the new one, in order to give a more realistic finish to his wax presentment in her collection. It is to be hoped, for John's sake, that the explanation given was as satisfactory to the meeting as the bargain made between him and Madame must have been to both parties. Fusee.

Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/WT18920209.2.32

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

Waikato Times, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 6053, 9 February 1892, Page 3

Word count
Tapeke kupu
1,189

OCCASIONAL NOTES. Waikato Times, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 6053, 9 February 1892, Page 3

OCCASIONAL NOTES. Waikato Times, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 6053, 9 February 1892, Page 3

Help

Log in or create a Papers Past website account

Use your Papers Past website account to correct newspaper text.

By creating and using this account you agree to our terms of use.

Log in with RealMe®

If you’ve used a RealMe login somewhere else, you can use it here too. If you don’t already have a username and password, just click Log in and you can choose to create one.


Log in again to continue your work

Your session has expired.

Log in again with RealMe®


Alert