THE HEAR NEIGHBOURS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXVI, Issue 4525, 29 November 1884, Page 3

THE HEAR NEIGHBOURS.

[By Max O'Rell.]

Some little time ago a rumour reached r London in the afternoon that the Chinese I had annihilated the French troops in Tonkin. The great evont was immediately nnnouncod En the newspapers' contents bills in letters five inches long. The rumour turned out to be a hoax. Two days later the little French garrison gained an important victory over the Celestial troops, and the same contents bills announced the sad intelligence in minute type, carefully hidden among other more or less uninteresting news.

Oh J the dear neighbours! A Royal English prince dies in the south of France. From Cannes to Calais, let the French nation, along the whole line, pour forward to show their sympathy with a Queen and a nation in mourning, and'not a j leader will appear in England to comment on the fact. But let an anonymous pamph-. let, not even written by a Frenchman, ap- \ pear on the Boulevards, calling upon the French people to sink the island of John Bull at the bottom of the sea, and although no serious French paper will so much as notice it, the "Times'' and all the English dailies will for days be filled with leaders on the Bubject. , Oh ! the dear neighbours ! Let books appear in France, written with a view to acquainting the French people with the virtues as well as the oddities of this great nation, and some brutal English penman will immediately publish his experience of Parisian ill-famee resorts—which he, of course, visited eh tout Men tout nonneur, for the benefit of his countrymen. : -Oh ! the dear neighbours ! ; ;. .. :; ; < If you go to certain dark by-streeta in • London, you will see advertised in some shop windows, " French specialities." If you po to the same kind of .streets in Paris you will see "'Specialities. Anglaises." ' , ■Oh ! the dear neighbours! . '■■•' " Let the French send an army of 200,000 men to the Crimea. to assist the English in.keeping the Russians out ipf Constant^ noplej and you will Tead in English books: —," We prevailed against Russia with but a very small force," Not a word will besaid about General Bosquet, who, at Inkerniahn, prevented the whole of. the " small force " ffbm being; annihilated. I have seldom met with Englishmen who/even remembered the name of Bosquet, or had heard of, his Zouaves. ; ■ Oh ! the dear neighbours! ' / . ' Let the French cast loving glances at the western coast of Madagascar, and John Bull, who always bears the Tenth Commandment in mind as he looks at the map of the world, is'the first to exclaim, " Stop thief!" • ■'■■ ■'■-■■■: -'■ : '■■ ' ■' - •■"'-

' Oh ! the dear neighbours I i ' ffi'tiHufi Let the English honestly ask the French to join them in trying to put down anarchy and Arabi Pasha in Egypt, and they will refuse; but some French-papers -wilL be found ready;' when the work is done, to set down in black and white- their disappointment at seeing Arabi cnv the'losing side; 'hay more, should the cholera'break out in the land of the Pharaohs about the same time,charitable suggestions will ;be -heard about its having been imported from India, ■in order to 'give the am excuse for not leaving their poor'victims tod hurriedly. Oh! the dear, dearneighbours;! • ... ■When lilook around; among my friends and-acquaintances in France and' England, and think of the kind -manner in» which I invariably .hear France^ and) the French spoken of by Englishmen/and England and her people spoken of by my countrymen, I ask myself: Where are the haters T Who wants to fight? : i-ouiVjod* i . •: : It seems to be a thousand pities that two regiments cannot be-formed, one in the Faubourg Montmarlre, the other in! Fleetstreet. ! Then, perhaps, the two- bellicose parties might bo inddced to go and fight it out to their heart's content in some neutral spot in the distancel —say•Jeriohoi • *■ i ■