MAX O'RELL ON HIS OWN' COUNTRY.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXIV, Issue 8559, 2 January 1890, Page 4

MAX O'RELL ON HIS OWN ' COUNTRY.

Max O'Rell (M. Paul Blouet) gave the other day, at South Plaoe Institute, tho fourth of a series of free lectures on "National Life and Thought." His remarks took the form of a comparison instituted betwoen " Jacques Bonhomme" and " Josef Prudhonime " on the one side, and John Bull on the other. Jacques Bonhomme, according to M. Blouet, is a very small landowner, who has " three aores and a cow," and lives by them. He is sharp on tho market, ■wears cheap' clothing, which is always new when he gets it, has a wife who is one of the mainstays of the country, and a daughter whose life is mapped out to fill a' similar podtion. The women dress ■ neatly, always cleanlfly, they pass their y lives quietly, but industriously, and are, &£._• as individuals, unknown to foreigners. Wtf'-- Joseph Prudhomme, of the bourgeois or fay, -middle-class type, is entirely maunderUyi-. stood by Englishmen. He does not ache U l ". * or glory and conquest ; his cry is lX: ".^ eaee t .peace." He is quiet and rosy. ' ■ tiring ; his wife, always good, leads him fyf by the nose, he lives with his mother-' ':..-• in-law, and his aim in life might ty :: be briefly stated— to give hia son a %; good education, save a good dowry for hia - daughter, see them both happily married, - and have their children around his deathbed, and he usually realises this. The ■ two characters, with their prosperous contentment, were the people that made France at the present day probably one •^ of the richest countries in the world. In the French savings bank there waa now £96,000,000 as the result of the thrift of workmen and servants. The Frenchman .', had the reputation of being a Republican. He was a Republican. He (the lecturer) Leiieved, especially now, that a Republic was probably the stable form of Government for France. Frenchmen suffered from over - administration. They lived under a Government wbich looked after all their wants, and even supplied him ■with matches and fireproof cigars. It was said they meant to take a monopoly of alcoholic liquors, but if their alcohol was not more inflammatory than their matches and cigars, they would not do much misehiet.