Sketcher.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 349, 15 January 1903, Page 7

Sketcher.

AND INCAPACITY. HEN we tarn to a study of those IImIS conditiona which are modifying «ti|f&]£vs the general intellectual capacity of the raee we are confronted by a paucity of definite factors to which we can assign a value ; some point a, however, come out pretty clearly. We era certainly giving an extended advantage to those who are intellectually capable and withdrawing artificial props to the incapable. Family ties and the transmission of property (a truly Lamarckian transmission of that which is acquired) have had much to do with the prevention of those selective influences which operate with great power in semi barbaric times. We are here dealing with feelings which are the highest and strongest humanity possesses, the love of a parent for a child. This love may, however, be misplaced and ill-judged, and it is with this misplacement and mis judgment that we are dealing. •- ~ Until recent times a gentleman might send his son into the army, navj, or church j a point might be skate'.ed. for law or medicine, a bank was hardly admitted, and a brewery was unheard of; bnt every year the number of pursuit* tbat a gentleman's son may follow without breaking the family ties is increasing. We have already lady dressmakers; perhaps we shall come to' gentleman shoemakers and tailors. With this greater field of work it becomes more possible to pat a round man into a round hole, * and a stupid boy will not be kept by force of money and family interest in a position for which he is unfitted. We should never wish to see a parent refuse to give every help to a child to aid him on in his

struggle fox success in life's battle; but already the wise parents are beginning to see that in their children'a interest it is better for tttem to be engaged in those occupations for which they are most fitted. Thud it happens that we find men of jgood family looking after sheep and fruit farms; they are, perhaps, ashamed at present to follow these callings in their own country, and therefore migrate for that purpose to America or Australia. The tendency of modern development is often spoken of as democratic. This may be so in a certain sense; but doss it not seem that we are tending to build up a new aristocracy of innate worth; an upper cl*ss of cap*bles ? The old system of keeping class separate from class in some degree preserved the innate equality of the classes. By open competition we: establish a difference, and tend toread-" just matters by standards of - personalcapacity. It may be arranged, possibly at seme future time, that the personal possessions of citizens shall not vary in quantity so much as they do at present; in that case mere personal possessions will be little esteemed, and innate qualities of manhood and womanhood will make the chief difference—a truly organic one—between the upper and lower classes. ]

The rapidity of thiß selection is, howaver, greatly retarded at the present time by another factor which must not be overlooked. The unambitious and notvery capable man takes to some occupation requiring little still and rapidly earns the full current wage of his occupation. In consequence of this he marries and has in all probability a large family. His more ambitious brother, g spiring to a calling requiring skill or extended knowledge, undergoes a long apprenticeship or enters a profession. At first his wages are small and the requirements of his advanced position are considerable. Marriage especially is a drain upon his resources, for while his less capable brother is married to a woman who perhaps prepares his food and rears bis family, his own wife bears him children and perhaps suckles them, but is not prepared to perform any other useful function. He of necessity marries late in life and has a small family. The public have be«n for some years accustomed to temporary segregation with a view to the prevention of contagious fevers, and they have for centuries been accustomed to -self-enforced and permanent segregation dictated by: religious enthusiasm. The latter has deprived the race of' some of its best and noblest strains, whereas the segregation that is proposed will deprive it of -someoosf s its worst. * I cannot but think that there is another and even more fundamental step that we can take. < Two or three hundredj.years ago the lower classes were bondsmen more or less; their wages were arranged for them and competition for a better wage was debarred. The growth of,a middle; class, and the enforced treatment of the lower classes on something like rational lines were due to effort and self-assertion from below. 'Our rights,' became "the legitimate demand of the: masses, and even to-day nine-tenths of us are more* or less busily intent upon the same demand. The State now insists upon a parental repaid for the external- well-being-of the' child; may we not also insist that a ( parent is responsible for its innate wellbeing too ? Once we bava such a poihfr of view, once people havia learnt to look farther ahead and realise how much of the happiness of the future depends upon their present action, I cannot but believe that this will affect their attitude in respect to marriage. Not only will the feeble and diseased realise fully the consequences of hereditary transmission and dread their consequences, but if they marry they will do so in face of public opinion—perhaps of public rule,

QUEER PUKEEAL KITES.. ;, ; : .4-.... .whimaiqal Frenchman, having selected his,last resting-place, drow np a special programme for his. funeral, ''" which religion was to play no part. A prooeasion of his friends and relations, headed by a band, was, however, to follow his remains to the place of interment, where a political comrade of fchs deceased's would deliver an address dealing with the latter'acharacter, with special reference, to the good points thereof After this the. band would play selected pieces of music, .windingsup; with songs and dances, to' raise the drooping~spirits of the mourners btfpre (Quitting the grave-side. .•-, The eccentric' man was so anxi6us that the programme. should be faithfully carried out • that he- hahl a most -succeasf al rehearsal of it—even to the eulogistic speech—in his life-time. Why a woman should desire to be laid out oh a piano when she 'had - struck her last note it would be difficult to say. Yep ' that -was: the. wishexprossed, by pn Amer'ican lady shortly before her death which took place some two years ago. She also requested that her funeral sermon should, take the form of a temperance lecture, and that the speaker should, as far as" possible, act and talk as if he were the -deceased conversing with her friends. -These directions were carried out, to the h-tter. V ~ ! Still more extraordinary the. instructions regarding her funeral contained in the: will of another 'American woman. She decreed' that as soon as possible after her decease her executor should dispose of'her psrsoaal. property, to raise funds for her burial and. the cremation of her peta. After cremation th« ashes, of her pet dogs and birds were to be placed upon he* g»vo Mn order thst the agonies attendant es their separation

frcp her might be spared them.' A pl&m, white coffin was to receive he* remains, and the funeral cortege was to consist only of a hearse and one carriage. .Nearly one hundred years ago most eccentric directions for his interment wen* left by a strange individual who died worti about .8200. He stipulated that twelvo persons should attend his funeral banquet, all of whom should be strangers &kE m l lly ' Each was t0 a fair fp ?SfF IOV m 8 , and bal£ a P inti 0 * whisky £ a K'lu J They were fch « n to be asked m drißk the deceasid's health, with three times three, and afterwards join the procession to the grave. The cost of the funeral was not to exceed one hundred pounds, and the remainder of his property was directed to be handed over to his widow provided she married again within six months. The bereaved lady qualifi d tor the bequest within the space of three months, bub, whether for that purpoße alone, we know not.