Burke Manuscript

Burke Manuscript: Page 145

Transcript

corridors – had Mr Edison’s phonograph then existed, and treasured up the sayings and doings, the plottings and schemings of the pacers upon those wooden flags, and the assemblers by appointment, and now did it retail to a new generation the mysteries of the early days, in land, in surveys, in contracts, in politics, could tell a very interesting story, and furnish a very material supply of memorials for making history. What intense political excitements, disputes and controversy the battles of the Moorhouses and the Halls, the Brittans, Fitzgeralds and Wards, coming down by a graduated scale to the Rowland Davises and Dobbses and others; and when a later generation of politicians arose in the Montgomerys, Turnbulls, Williamses, the capsizing of ministries, the making of premiers, the plottings and jealousies, the unbending obstinacy of Rolleston, the feeble rule of Bealey, all ending in the Vogellian era, and the hushing of Provincial Greatness to obscurity and relegating the honored [sic] walls of the old Parliamentary hall to the uses of an annual Race ball. Many yet think, the new generation of course has arisen with things as they are – but many cannot at times help feeling that perhaps it was a mistake when so thorough a sweep was made of Provincial Days. There might it may be, have been found a half way house which would have left the old Hall with some financial work to do, and to local hands the acting and legislating upon local matters, which only encumber and embarrass