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BY THE WAY.

How great minds puzzle themselves over small things! There is a little story of a dealer in hides who as an advertisement bored a hole through his door post and stuck therein the tail of a calf so that the bushy end hung downwards. One day a gentleman dressed in deep black and wearing green spectacles stood a long time gazing earnestly at that tail. “ Good morning, sir.” “ Good morning.” “ Want to buy any hides ?” “ No.” “ Want to sell any ?” “ No.” “ Are you a farmer ?” “ No.” “ A minister ?” “ No.” “ A doctor ?” “ No.” “ Well, what are you then ?” “ I am

a philosopher. I have been studying for an hour to solve the problem of hoflwwt calf got through that augurat once it has dawned members of the Harbor the Engineer has somehow become a permanency in a * billet, their curiosity excited, and the question ' JHlMjjDw disturbing their minds is— he get there? Those who there seem least capable of Jolving the problem and seem to think is immovable.

Poor Engineer! Petted one moment and kicked (metaphorically of course) the next 1 Who would be an Engineer even with £BOO a year ? Boards and Councils are never noted for gratitude, and certainly if any man is deserving of the thanks of the Harbor Board it is their Engineer. It is unquestionable that the Engineer’s elaborate report in which he proclaimed the splendid virtues of the now ungrateful Board did much, in gaining the consent of the ratepayers to the spending of the extra £40,000. And now they turn upon him*and threaten him with dismissal! It’s a queer world my master! And then when they see an action for wrongful dismissal sticking out they draw in their horns. Wrongful dismissal! Ha I ba I What consistency ! They assert that he is but an ordinary servant of the Board and yet to give him the ordinary notice would be wrongfully dismissing him. And yet all the members of the Board are employers of labour, have no doubt “ sacked ” their employees scores of times upon notice without deigning to assign a reason. I never did pretend to know much about the law of master and servant, but I at least lay claim to a little common sense.

Last week I related an anecdote of a jury trial in which O’Connell was engaged. I have come across another good story of O’Connell which gives an example of the artifices sometimes resorted to by lawyers in order to gain a verdict for their clients. O’Connell was defending in a case which looked very black for the prisoner. There was a [young judge on the bench and O’Connell saw the only chance of saving his client was through him. He therefore, when he began his defence, asked the first witness questions which he knew would be and which were objected to. As one after another question was objected to O’Connell simulated vexation, and at last in a violent pet threw down his brief and declaring that he would not carry on the case any longer walked out of Court. Later on he met the solicitor engaged in the cause, and was told a verdict of not guilty had been returned. This was just what he had anticipated, for besides the effect already produced on the minds of the jury, the judge, conscious of the responsibility now imposed npon him, leaned unconsciously towards the prisoner and summing up in his favor, in fact acted as the man’s advocate.

While upon the subject of judges and juries I may venture to give another story which may be new to some of my readers, and having reference to more recent times. Some blunt judges do not scruple to tell juries they have perjured themselves. Mr Justice Hawkins is, however, much more circumspect, as the following incident will show. Recently a prisoner pleaded guilty of larceny and then withdrew the plea and declared himself to be innocent. The case was tried and the [jury acquitted him. Then said Sir Henry Hawkins: 1 Prisoner, a few minutes ago you said you were a thief. Now the jury says you are a liar. Consequently you are discharged.’

Our worthy Premier, Sir Harry Atkinson, has two pet hobbies. The first is Property Tax, the other Eemale Suffrage. Expressly to vindicate the former he travelled all the way to Auckland where he expressed his wish to discuss the tax, “ not as a special advocate but in a calm and judicial spirit.” Well the tax was discussed and the doughty knight was beaten at hij own game. It seems, to say the least, a little undignified for the Premier to enter into a debate upon a subject of this kind and it does not place the Government in a very enviable position. If on every occasion that there is opposition to any tax —and to what tax is there no objection?—a member of Government is to stump the country in its favor the Government had better appoint a special minister for the purpose.

With regard to the question of female suffrage Sir Harry never loses a chance of advocating it. He was presiding at a temperance meeting in Auckland. They tried to draw him out but he would not budge, but true to his habit he put in a spoke for his hobby. “ I would like to say ” said the Premier, “that I have not very much hope in the direction towards which we are all striving, which is to give full power to the people to deal with the question. Isay we have very little hope of that until we suceeed in giving women votes. I believe that then, and not till then, will we have real success in this, and also in many other questions which are calling loudly for treatment in this and other colonies.”

Some one endeavoring to demonstrate the selfishness of charity says that it is qtemplifiedin the proverbs of every nation. ,r WhgWMjt baa his baud* Jdrned toward* My

the Poles. “ Everyone rakes the embers to his own cake,” is quoted by the Arab ; while the Servian housewife will .tell you that “ Every cow licks her own calf,” or that every old woman blows under her own kettle. Cross to .America, ami Brother Jonathan will advise “ every man to skin his own skunk.” “ Let everyone carry his own sack to the mill,” is German advice ; while the crafty Italian will tell you that “ Every fox should [take care of his own tail.” Possibly, however, the Scotch, as becomes that thrifty people, are most prolific in proverbs bearing on the folly of indulging in charity. “ Everyone for himself, and God for us all “ Let every tub stand on its own bottom ” “ Let every sheep hang by its own shank “ Let every herring hang by its own gills,” are all Scotch quotations, and savour of Scottish soil.

Mr Sala, in his capacity as an art critic, has been rather badly hauled over the coals by Mr Furniss, artist. Mr Sala had chaffed “ Punch’s ” Harry, and told him he had no right to speak on serious matters, alluding to Mr Furniss’s portrait lecture. So much for the attack. And now Mr Furniss says, “ You’re another.” “ Mr Sala,” says he, “ began not only as an artist, but as a caricaturist, and he had to send into the Academy schools three ‘ short drawings,’ as they were called, of a head, a hand, and a foot. Unfortunately for Mr Sala, he had six toes upon the foot he drew, and the examiner having counted these toes, pointed the matter out to Mr Sala, who did not get into the schools ; so now he is the art critic of the ‘ Daily Telegraph.’ In 1851, Mr Sala painted the pictures upon the walls of an eating saloon, and that probably had given him the taste for cookery which he had evinced ever since.” What “ ’orrible revelations!” Beally journalists live in glass houses, and should never, never threw stones —at one another.

From Truth I extract a tit-bit:—A funny scene took place a few days ago in a small northern town at the fortnightly meeting of the local literary society, at which a paper was to be read on ‘ The Works of George Eliot.’ The vicar was in the chair, and in the course of his preliminary remarks he explained that he anticipated this paper with much interest, because he had for many years ‘enjoyed Mr Eliot’s personal friendship? The writer of the paper ventured to remind the reverend romancer that ‘ George Eliot ’ was a lady. ‘Eh ? what ? answered the vicar. The -observation was repeated in a louder tone, and the reply was, ‘Oh! Ah! Yes! Of course, exactly so, just what I meant,’ and the vicar abruptly sitting down, there was a laugh from some of the audience, whereupon the reverend friend of Mr Eliot turned round in sad anger, and exclaimed that Solomon had rightly described the laughter of fools as resembling the crackling of thorns under a pot, and then something was rather loudly muttered about Solomon’s condemnation of liars, and, as a local paper pleasantly put it, ‘ the author of the paper brought a painfully embarrassing situation to a close by commencing to read his paper.’ After such preliminaries, the Vicar must have found it ‘ painfully embarrassing ’ to move the customary vote of thanks at the conclusion of the entertainment. Mask.

Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/GSCCG18890216.2.24

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume II, Issue 261, 16 February 1889, Page 4

Word count
Tapeke kupu
1,568

BY THE WAY. Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume II, Issue 261, 16 February 1889, Page 4

BY THE WAY. Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume II, Issue 261, 16 February 1889, Page 4

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