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Typo: A Monthly Newspaper and Literary Review, Volume 5

[miscellaneous paragraphs]

The following extract is not from the Arizona Kicker, but from a newspaper in the North Island of New Zealand: « Under its present control, with which we profess no personal acquaintance, it has, however, reached the grovelling condition of a sycophant that licks the feet of its masters, and draws sustenance from a diseased diet. We pity such a journal. It has no freedom; it is a slave. It has no soul; no spirit; it is dead, and inanimate, squeaking forth the utterances of its masters, after the manner of Edison's phonograph. Such a journal, living on misrepresentation, and distributing the venom that is peculiar to the crawling reptile, is a blemish on a free press, and an insult to the intelligent reader. »

Among the Australasianisms which must sometimes puzzle outsiders, is one belonging peculiarly to New Zealand, in daily use by speakers and writers, and quite unintelligible without explanation. It appears in a letter in Typo this month, and has no doubt figured in our pages before. It is the term « an old identity. » Thirty years ago, when gold was found in the steady-going old Scotch province of Otago, a rush of Victorian miners set in, and for a time things were turned upside-down. Capital flowed in apace, the new-comers speculated recklessly, stores and warehouses were built, a village became a city, the one weekly paper became a large daily, and the old residents were staggered, though as a rule they were canny enough to take advantage of the changed state of affairs, and to participate fully in the most solid results of the « boom. » But the Scottish element was for the time overwhelmed. This was a source of much tribulation to the founders of the settlement, and the subject came up for discussion in the Provincial Council, where the late Capt. Cargill, an early and highly-respected colonist, made a speech which became historic. In itself it would have attracted considerable attention, but a wit named Thatcher gave lasting currency to its most characteristic expression. He was a man of education, a good singer, and with a facile gift of parody, who will long be remembered in the Australian colonies. He travelled from town to town, giving concerts. In songs adapted to the most popular melodies of the day, he satirised individuals and administrations, and tickled popular prejudices. Everywhere he drew crowded houses, and he made a small fortune. His songs were at times vulgar and slangy, but he had a considerable measure of the poetic gift. When he was horsewhipped, as he sometimes was, he would have a rattling song on the subject at his next entertainment, and cover his assailant with ridicule. He came over to Otago on the great wave from Melbourne, and became immensely popular. One of his most familiar songs referred to Capt. Cargill's speech, and was copied into nearly every paper in the colony. It was called « The Old Identity, » and this was how it began:

Mr Cargill in the Council
Made such a funny speech—
He got up and he stated—
That it devolved on each
Of all the early settlers
To preserve safe as could be,
Amid the Victorian influx
« The old identity. »

Does he wish each brither Scotsman
To come out in a kilt?
To kittle up a chanter?
Or go in for a lilt?
With bare legs in Otago
How very cold 'twould be,
But 'tis one way of preserving
« The old identity. »

And so on, stanza after stanza. The Scottish element was straightway nicknamed « the old identity; » thence came « an old identity, » and the plural « old identities, » which seems to have become a fixture, followed. The early settlers in Otago, it may be noted, retaliated by styling the Victorian element « the new iniquity; » but the term soon died out. The epithet is a puzzle to every new-comer, and must have a strange appearance to outsiders when they meet with it in the colonial press. The expression as used by Capt. Cargill and by Thatcher was correct enough; as now used it is peculiarly absurd, though interesting on account of its history and associations. It has long lost the contemptuous sense in which it was at first given, thereby illustrating one of the immutable laws of language—an opprobious name applied to that which is in itself good or noble fails to degrade the object, but becomes itself dignified by the association. The term is now used affectionately in regard to the early colonists who are so fast passing away, and is accepted as embodying the sterling qualities of the men who founded the brightest of all the British colonies.