Bad for the Coo!

Mr. Weller, Sen. (loq.): "Susan," says I, "you've been a werry good wife to me altogether. . . . Keep a good heart, my dear; and you'll live to sec me punch that ere Stiggins's head yet." "She smiled at this, Samivel," said the old gentleman, stifling a sigh with his pipe, "but she died arter all!"

"Yell," said Sam, venturing to offer a little homely consolation, after the lapse of three or four minutes, consumed by the old gentleman in slowly shaking his head from side to side, and solemnly smoking, "veil, gov'nor, we must all come to it, one day or another."

"So we must, Sammy," said Mr. Weller the elder.

"There's a Providence in it all," said Sam.

"O' course there is," replied his father, with a nod of grave approval. "What 'ud become of the undertakers vithout it, Sammy?"—Pickwick.

Ay, there's the rub! If the reaper with his pale horses and mowing machinery were to cease work, what would become of the undertakers and their black animals? And if Government, by means of a State Bank, were to give a cash credit to small landowners at 3 or 4 per cent, interest instead of giving the banks the right to issue notes instead of money at 2 per cent, tax, what would the money lenders do then, poor things? How would they live? And if the Government, by making advances on land registered under the Land Transfer Act, by endorsement of title, were to do away with the legal expenses of borrow- page 20 ing money, what would the lawyers do then, poor things? How would they live? And if a State Bank were to bring prosperity to New Zealand by checkmating usury, what would the bailiffs do then, poor things?

Stevenson, the railway inventor, was asked what would happen to a train if a cow got on the line? He answered gravely, "It would be vara bad for the coo!"

From cows to bulls and from bulls to bears are easy transitions. And what will the bulls and bears of the London Stock Exchange say to a National Bank of New Zealand? It is impossible to please everybody—undertakers and all! The bulls and bears won't like a State Bank, nor will it please our money lenders, nor our lawyers, nor our bailiffs—but—so much the better.