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Typo: A Monthly Newspaper and Literary Review, Volume 5
[miscellaneous paragraphs]
A printing firm in Chicago advertises: « We have no use for solicitors. We give estimates when called upon, but prefer fixing price of work after it is done. Would be ashamed if we were the cheapest printers in town, but intend never to charge more than a fair price. » ؟When will our New Zealand printers have the courage to advertise in this style?
A small wit some time since displayed his ignorance of Maori prepositions by alleging that « Minister for Lands » in the Maori Gazette was really « Minister against Lands, » and made merry over his supposed discovery. The Colonial Treasurer is now officially described as the Minita Whakahaere o te Moni o te Koroni. This is villainously bad Maori, and is susceptible of only one interpretation, which was given by Dr Newman, amid the laughter of the House: « The Minister who makes the money of the colony to fly. »
Mr Hogg, the Prize Bore of the House, empties it in the shortest time on record. A few of the most seasoned of his own party—just enough to make a quorum—remain and agonize while he holds the floor. The joke is, that he glories in the immediate stampede that occurs whenever he opens his mouth. The scene is thus described in his own dreary advertising-sheet:— « Directly the speaker begins his onslaught on the powers that were, but are no longer, and fires volley after volley of shot and shell into the dilapidated Opposition ranks, the members uncomfortably shrug their shoulders, then begin to look indignant, then move their legs about uneasily, and finally, like sheep that are being drafted, rush after one another into the lobbies, beyond the range of the speaker's voice…. One o'clock chimes and still the member keeps up a vigorous onslaught. Then the Opposition whip appeals to the Speaker and tries to effect a count-out. The artifice is not successful. » (!!!) The stupendous egotism displayed in this extract falls short by one step only of the sublime.
The House of Representatives made itself ridiculous on the 3rd inst. in a four hours' discussion on a « breach of privilege. » The Press had published an article of a very personal kind, ridiculing Mr J. Palmer, a new and inexperienced member. The article was decidedly objectionable—with the exception that it made no reflections on private character it was more in the tone habitually adopted by such journals as the Wairarapa Star and the Napier News than in the ordinary style of the Press. A resolution was proposed that the printer be called to the bar of the House, but was withdrawn. That experiment has been tried before, and the House has always come off second-best. Mr Rees, a lawyer, said that the House could fine and imprison the printer. The « Minister-Against-Lands » —any one of whose speeches would bring a newspaper-man to grief if published as a newspaper article—actually proposed to rush a Bill at once through both Houses requiring all newspaper articles to be signed by the writers, and authorizing any person feeling aggrieved by any such article to horsewhip the author. The suggestion was not adopted. Ultimately the debate « fizzled out » in a resolution of sympathy with Mr Palmer—the sole result being, as Mr G. Fisher put it, a first-class advertisement for the Press.