RANDOM SHOTS

Auckland Star, Volume XXV, Issue 95, 21 April 1894, Page 2 (Supplement)

RANDOM SHOTS

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Some-write, a neighbour s name to lash Some write—vain thought! for needful cash, Some write to please the country clash. And raise a din. For mo, an aim I never fash - I write for taru

I was glad to notice that the Lord Mayor of London has moved in the direction of getting colonial Mayors to pay due honour to the anniversary day of England's patron Saint. He suggested that banquets should beheld, but it is questionable whether the ad vide will be accepted. It seems to mo - that ib is unfair for Sb. Patrick to have all the honour, and as our Government was kind enough to make the 17th of March a holiday amongst the Civil Service, thesainb *who killed a dragon should ab leasb bo equally honoured with the one who is credited ia eong and legend with having given the toads and snakes a twist and banished them from Ireland. Therefore Monday uexb should be a holiday, and also St. Andrew's Day and St. David'e, then the natives of all three divisions of the United Kingdom should bo satisfied. In New Zealand wo do not own a saint at) preheat, this is no reflection on churchgoers, but I have been thinking thab if some scientific individual could invent something to exterminate rabbits and the codlin moth, he would have a fair chance of being canonised. #** * * ** • * Nothing is forbidden ground to the American newspaper man. The irrepressible Yankee newspaper has now broken out in a fresh place. The scene of the reporter's latest exploiting ground is the church ; bia theme is the dresses of the lady worehippora. In a loading New York paper, so ib ia said, one may now read glowing accounts of tho costumes of the fashionable ladioa who attend the principal places of worship in thab city, and minute descriptions are given of Miss Vere de Vere Brown's striking appearance in green merveilleux satin and striped stockings, and of how Mies Yon Porque looked charming and distingue in ribbed diagonal goods with heliotrope fixings. This fashion freak, no doubt, ia booming the New York churches, and the galaxy of beauty in the churches is, I should think, distracting alike to preacher and worshippers. If the American papers follow the example of this New York journal, then a real churchgoing revival may be anticipated in the land of the spread eagle.

Bub surely there is something very shaky in the sbate of the churches when the women need a fashion craze to take them to the chief seats in the synagogue. The practice of quizzing dresses in

church is a peculiarity of lovely woman thab will never be eradicated, to my thinking, until the fair ones wear trousers, crop their hair short and wear billy-cock hats—and may that terrible consummation never take place, ab any rate nob in my time. Nowadays the women go to church to be seen, and'aa an after-thought to worship, and the men go to worship and Bee the women—ab least thab is whab a sarcastic friend of mine says. Bub I trusb sincerely tbab the acute American church fashions craze may never be introduced into the sancbuaries of Auckland.» The unfortunate fathers and husbands have quite enough demands on their not-overburdened purses as ib is, wibhoub the extra strain of providing even more gorgeous raimenb wherewibh to dazzle the eyes of the spectators in church and fill the columns of the ' Society ' chronicles. And, besides, the more devout and staid churchgoers will object on very good grounds to the bethels and babernacles of Auckland being burned into show rooms for fashionable dresses. It mighb remind people too forcibly of the dress circle at the Opera House.

Friend John from the Flowery Land is often made fan of tor his manifold peculiarities, and one is apb to overlook some of the virtues of the almond-eyed Celestials. An instance of John's sympathetic feeling for friends who were in sorrow was manifested last week at Devonport. The hand of death had laid low a young lady who was universally esteemed, and each being the; case many friends called to condole the bereaved mother. During the young lady's sickness a Chinese resident in the marine suburb sent frequent gifts of fruib to the invalid, and shortly before the time for the funeral he arrived ab the house' arrayed in his best suit, and expressed nia sympathy to the mother, He also asked to be allowed to see his dead friend, and upon his request being granted he was visibly affected. He gazed sileutly for. a moment or two, and then quickly lefb the room, remarking as he placed his hand on big heart, 'It makes too much pain here.' John then went away and hired a buggy in order to follow hifl friend to the grave. Those who witnessed the acene are nob likely ever to revile the Heathen Chinee in the future.

Religious people have ever been good at splitting hairs in argument, in fact, some of them can perform the feat of straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel admirably. In a recent number of the 'Church Gazette, 1 an interesting article appears which*is marked 'Communicated.' Ib deals with the question of the pure lives of unbelievers. The writer, after referring to the temptations that ever assail those who try to be Christians, then sets to work to explain why some unbelievers live such admirable lives. The argument is so convincing thab ib is besb pub in the writer's own words : ' Satan sees one of these virtuous unbelievers in Christ, and we may well imagine reflects somewhat as follows :— "Ahf he does nob believe; he is condemned already (see John iii. IS). I need not trouble myself to place temptations for him 1 I'll jusb leave him alone to his virtuous life ! Indeedj ib is my besb policy 60 to do. Men will say, "See thab man, how well he lives, and he never troubles Ms head about Christ; why should we?" Whereas if I succeed in tempting him into greab sins, the Christians might point to him and Bay, "See what comes of 'rejecting Christ.'" No, no! besb let him alone.' Of coarse, we dare nob assert thab this is the reason, the sole reason for this good keeping of the second greab commandment), which disturbs so many ; bub at least ib is a possible reason strictly, in accordance with Holy Scripture. This may be one of the ways in which Satan can become as ' an angel of lighb.'

The obvious inference to be drawn is that taking all things into consideration ib is wiser to trust.a virtuous unbeliever than a Christian, because the former nob being eubjecb to temptation are loss liable to deceive you, whereas the greater the Christian, the more severe the temptation, and the greater the risk for the one who trusts. After all, the argument seems somewhat) far fetched, bub still ib is gratifying to find that such a good

Chrisbian is prepared to admit the possibility of unbelievers living .virtuous lives. Formerly the sceptic was held up so scorn, and people were warned nob to go near him lest they should be contaminated. Now all ia changed. Probably t,hi& development of charity may to some extent be due to the exposures of good men like Jabez Balfour, whom apparently Satan tempted too severely on account of his superior piety.

What a pretty target there was for the Anarchist and his bomb in London the other day! According to a cable mesaape, Baron Hirsch entertained sixty millionaires ab dinner in London. The total cost of tho banquet was £1,200. The irony of the thing in a great city containing thousands of hungry, starving, despairing men, women and children eteeped in degradation and vice because of their hopeless poverty 1 YVhat a sorry commentary thab costly guzzle is on our much vaunted civilisation ! Selfish, big-paunched, modern Dives, feasting within in barbaric luxury, while miserable Lazarus lies starving on the cold street wibhout, craving for the crumbs which fall from the rich host's table! We pride ourselves in these days on our democracy, and on tho advancing spread of the ' brotherhood of man ' gospel, bub what an anomaly ib is that such insolent flaunting of vulgar wealth in the faces of the poor should be possible in this age. What wonder is ib that Anarchism flourishes, and thab incendiary speeches are made by the starving unemployed of London ! Surely the ' new Liberalism ' will be able to devise some plan for tho 'docking' of millionaires, whereby the immense accumulations of riches of thesa monstrously wealthy men may be turned to account for the good of tho community ab large.

We are beginning to do thab sort of thing in New Zealand, with our graduated income tax and absentee tax, though we have no millionaires in our midsb as yeb — I devoutly trust we never will. Bub in the United States and in England the plutocrat has the people in his grip, and there seems to be no prospect of an anti-millionaire crusade, unless indeed the merry Anarchist starts out to hoist the wealthy few with his little bomb. Few have any clear conception of the immenso hoards of ill-gotten riches possessed by multimillionaires in the United States. According to recent statistics, there are in the United Statea to-day 70 men possessing more than 37,500,000 dollars each, 90 possessing more than 11,500,000 dollars, and 180 men possessing more than 3,000,000 each. Such an extraordinary concentration of wealth in the hands of the few seems to me to possess a terrible significance for the future. Who can wonder at social unrest under such a state of things ? Th is millionaires' gorge rather sbrikes one a9 like unto a man sitting smoking his pipe on an open barrel of gunpowder. If_ an explosion occurs he deserves no commiseration. He who spoke the words ' Woe unto you that are rich,' uttered no empty prophecy. Tho probabilities are that He knew what He was talking about when He condemned those that did grin"d the faces of the poor.

** • * Sir Roberb Stoub rather scored on the ' native question' stamp orator and the advocates of the taking of native lands by compulsion, in the course of his speech at the City Hall the other night Me vigorously championed the land rights of the Maoris, and for thab reason his address was rather refreshing: in these days when we are accustomed to hear so much from thoso who know nothing about ib of the desirability of confiscating native land for settlement purposes. He mentioned the commandment 'Thou shalb nob covet,' and said that by the way some people spoke ib seemed thab the ancient injunction should be extended so as to read ' Thou ehalb nob covet anything bub native lands.' The laugh which followed showed that Sir Roberb had struck homo 'some,' aB the Yank would say. There has been a good deal of landcovebing and land-stealing—well, land acquisition—going on in the country which would not, I fancy, tally very well with the spirit of the ten commandments. However, New Zealand is not the only place where the white man looks upon the land and covets ib in his hearb and then diddles the aboriginal ownerß oub of ib. The British land-bucaneer is sufficiently revealed in these brief matter-of-fact cablegrams from Capetown : ' Pondoland has been annexed by the Government of Cape Colony.' 'The chiefs in Pondoland who opposed the annexation of the country by the Government of Cape Colony, have been deported to East Griqualand, which lies to the north of Pondoland.' So the British lion is busy a-grabbing more territory in the wilds of South Africa. He slaughtered the Matabele—probably they deserved ib—and quietly annexed their land, and now he has gobbled up Pondoland, wherever thab is. Truly, the spirib of _ what) is termed British enterprise ia eetting along very nicely, thank you, in Africa.

What strikes me most of all in this Pondoland affair is the beautifully simple manner in which tho semi-piratical annexationista have disposed of the troublesome owners of the soil who had the audacity to insisb on their own prior rights to the country of their forefathers. They Bimply • dejrl" ''' them, as they euphemistically term io, ;ifber tho style of the Germans with the rival kinga of Samoa, and there's an end o't. Certainly, we have treated the Maoris somewhab more justly than that in New Zealand. We nave a* any rate gone through legal form and a show of judicial procedure in our acquisition of native lands, but in South Africa the British land-grabber, under cover of the Union Jack, filches right and left with a coolness and a sublime disregard for the^ rights of a weaker race worthy of the ancient bucaneers who roamed the Spanish Main and did what seemed right in their own eyes.

Journalism in the Sandwich Islands is getting along with mighty strides. The American idea of a free press is strong in Hawaii, and they have now in Hawaii a fearless daily journal known as the.' Hawaii Holomua,' in addition to the ordinary • butter-wraps' of the cocoannt city, which should, judging from some of its articles I have seen, be a terror to evildoers and, perhaps, a praise to those that do well. Here is a characteristic sample of what may be called its • forcible' style in dealing with the unfortunates that come under its journalistic lash : — The socalled Rev. Blankety . Blank's report to Commissioner What's His Name is of such a nature that) if the commonest rules of decency would allow us to publish ib, a storm of indignation would arise which would sweep the blackguarding old goseiper out of sight. Besotted by fanaticism and hatred against political opponents, he slides along in his scurrilous libelling, his old-woman gossip and the extraordinary harvest of his prurient and unclean mind. The language is insufficient to describe the feelings which fill the heart of every being entitled to call himßelf a man when he contemplates such a creature like this ' reverend' thing. No wonder that Colonel finally succumbed to his feeling of nausea, and ordered the slanderer oub of his presence and only by an extreme effort restraining himself from kicking him oub of the yard where the flag of the republic under which men live, was floating. We have done with Mr Blank for the present. May he in the last few years of his existence learn true Christianity and so avoid the coming wrath of God and men.' Thab is free speech, of a

verity. Bub how would the public take ib if the Stab, say, exposed men in their true colours, and turned them inside out for the delectation of its readers, like the valiant • Hawaii Holomua?' ' Speak the truth and shame the devil' is an aphorism of force, if not eloganb, which inculcates whab philosophers call a 'great moral lesson,' bub it is honoured more in the breach than in the observance, I fear, thanks to our draconic libel laws. **# * * * # * * This is an instance of the gentle way in which the 'Holomua' refers to its loathsome contemporary, the • busber' with the weak circulation across the road:— cThe " Evening Rag "is a "cuckoo." It appropriates the " Tiser's " idea of the Kauhane Kaouli collection, and gives no credit). Whab chumps Royalisba would be to deposit money for any purpose in the " Rag" people's hands? Nob a man on the paper from the chief to the devil has yet been in the country long enough to prove thab they may nob be " wanted " elsewhere. ' Talk of journalistic amenities after that !