NEWS, VIEWS. AND OPINIONS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIII, Issue 45, 22 February 1902, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEWS, VIEWS. AND OPINIONS.

The amazing' spread of Christian science in America, which is beyond challenge the -eculiar home and manufactory of "fancy religions," may be explained by the theory that there is an. analogy between young nations and young individuals, who are naturally more gullible than their seniors. But the more concrete [explanation, that Christian Science flourishes because it pays its professors handsomely, is supported by the evidence of the notorious Mr?; Eddy herself, the founder of the ci:lt. With an interesting mixture of irreverence, blatant assurance, and conspicuous lack of any saving sense of the absurd, Mrs Eddy explains that at first "when God impelled me to set a price on my instruction in Christian Science mindhealing,"' she could thing of no financial equivalent for the impartation of that divine power. Perhaps what the lady means is that she considered that nobody would be likely to pay as much as she would have liked to ask. However, she "was led to name 300 dollars as the price for each pupil in one coy rse of lessons at my college" (a startling sum for tuition lasting barely three weeks). "This amount greatly troubled me. I shrank from asking it, but was finally led, by a strange providence, to accept this fee. God has since shown me in multitudinous ways the wisdom of this decision." No doubt, "Mrs Eddy's purils have been led, by the same strange providence, to fleece the credulous in like manner, jf not in like measure; it is significant, too, that the Text-Book of the Faith costs from 12/ to 25/, and could he put on the market, if the spread of the cult were not of less importance than the accumulation of profits, at half-a-crown. Mrs Eddy has declared that she "can do nothing with money": in view of these simple facts perhaps what she meant to say is that she can do nothing without money.

The Marquis of Anglesey, who recently figured before an admiring world as a man who took rather less care of sixty thousand pounds worth of jewels than the ordinary person takes of his pence, is now, it appears, anxious J:o rival that admirable scion of the nobility, Lord Yarmouth. He recently made his debut in pantomime, and "scored an enormous success in a butterfly dance." It is true that the peer's appearance was in his own private pantomime at Anglesey Castle, and one doesn't wish to dictate even to a peer what -iis amusements at home should be. But it i^tit good to read that a descendant of the field marshal who commanded the cavalry at Waterloo is to be seen nightly pirouetting behind the footlights arayed as a giddy butterfly. Kipling has'called the men who amuse themselves at cricket and foot.oa.l flannelled fools" and "'muddied oafs." By what name will he greet the danseur Marquis?

The latest caricature of i-r Joseph Chamberlain to be seen in London is scratched -n one of the windows of the Colonial Office. The artist is unknown, and no-suspicion rests on Phil May. "Moatlhodi" may certainly boast that he is'at present the most widely caricatured man in the world, and the reason is that he is the one British statesman who is at all popular (in the artistic sense) on the Continent. Draughtsmen differ as to the possibilities -f Mr Chamberlain's features for caricature, but anything with a long hatchet nose and an eyeglass is good enough for Continental consumption.

Mr J Foster Eraser, of "round the world on a bicycle" fame, has recently been meandering in the lar East, and has returned Home with a tolerably go-3 yarn anent the übiquity of the Scot. Orce ~. landed at a o-od-forsaken place somewhere rip the Persian Gulf, and asked if Ihere were any Britishers about. He was directed to an isolated cottage or corrugated hut, which was the abode, he was assured, of a man who had been sent there to keep an eye on the plague. He knocked at the door, and was invited to come in. '•I hear you are a Britisher, he said; "my nam. is Fraser, and 1 came from Edinburgh." "Ah, that is interesting." said the solitary plague inspector; "my name is also Eraser, hut I was born at Aberdeen.

\ high premium seems to be placed upon the foreigner's power in the Chinese courts, at least in a certain county in Eastern Shantung. A certain man had a lawsuit which seems to have gone against him in spite oi all ordinary measures. He suddenly left for Chefoo, but soon returned and announced to his adversary that he had bought a foreign title. To prove the genuineness of his claim to official rank, he donned a suit of foreign clothes and nourished a cane. This was enough! The opposing parties sued for peace and gave up their case.

An aged Athenian professor, now living in retirement on a pension, has become a convert from Christianity to the religion of his classic ancestors. He has transformed a room into a temple, has set up two statues of Juno and Mercury, before which he sin£s and prays, and has erected an altar on which he now and then offers up sacrifices. He is now under medical treatment for mental derangement, in which his relatives attribute his spiritual vagaries.

A sensational departure in the sphere of industry is reported to have boen decided upon by the Austrian Government In order to counteract what are believed to be_ the evil effects of Amerienn competition in Austria:—"The Minister of Commerce, acting on the advice of the National Council of Labour, intends lbuymo- American machinery for manufacturing boots and shoes, and winplvins1 it jrratis to Austrian manufacturers. This measure is to be adopted as the only meins of saving the Austrian boot and shoe trade Jrom utter ruin."

Not every automobilist who runs over live stock has the good fortune of a well-known Parisian who, while touring in the Ardennes a short time ago, killed a pig before it could get out of the way. As soon as the accident happened the automobilist stopped his machine, paid for the pig, and carried it off. Going through the next village he sold the animal, and, to his surprise, received more than he paid for it. Unfortunately, the automobilist told the story to some of his friends, and now it appears that when they go into the country every unfortunate porker which dares to show itself is chased for its life,

At the Ccrcle Philidor, Paris, on Christmas Eve, Dr. Lasker, the chess champion, gave a superb exhibition of his skill by playing single-handed and simultaneously forty games against two score of the best players in the club. Play commenced at 8 p.m., and lasted until 2.30 in the morning. During the whole of the six and a-half hours Dr. Lasker went from table to table, making a counter move to that made by his opponent while he was engaged with thirtynine other players. At the end of the tournament Dr. Lasker was declared the victor in thirty-five games, the loser in three, and two games were scratched.

A Chicago physiologist, Professor Jacques Lpeb, has been conducting experiments which it is claimed are a beginning of the unravelling of the mysteries of deatu. At the 14th annual meeting of the American Physiological Society, held at the University of Chicago, Mr Loeb read a paper entitled "On "the Prolongation of Liie of Unfertilised Eggs of the Sea Urchin by Potassium Cyanide." He maintained that death was not a negative process, a simple breakingdown of the tissue, but an active agent born with the birth of the egg, and destined it not checked to gain the upper hand of the life instinct and bring about its extinction. He announced that he had been able to check this death tendency in the eggs of the sea-urchin, and he added: "This means nothing less than that on a minute scale the secret of et-;.%----nal life is in the power of mankind."

There are some shocking fools in this world, and the worst of it is that their folly is so frequently attended by the gravest consequences. As an instance: At a fancy dress ball at the Metropole Theatre, Berlin, Herr yon Bleichroeder, a young member of a well-known banking family, having become rather excited," lighted a cigarette with a bank-note for 1000 marks (£SO). Count yon Schoenborn Buchheim, an Attache of the Austrian Embassy, made some remark about the young man's foolishness. High words were exchanged, and the two men came to blows. Ths police had to interfere, and separated them a-fter some difficulty. Herr yon Bleichroeder was found to be badly hurt on the eye. A duel will probably take place. Herr yon Bleichroeder was formerly an officer of the Reserve in the Guards.

Mr Harold Clifton, of Karori, Wellington, is to be congratulated not only on winning the "Tit Bits" 20 guinea prize offered to colonial readers for his account of his "experiences in New Zealand," but on the fortunate outcome of the thrilling adventures recounted. Our London correspondent has been startled by this successful competitor's narrative. He writes: —"I fear that London clerks, will get the impression from his article that N.Z. is a dangerous country, where it is advisable always to carry a revolver. Mr Clifton relates how, when cycling on the pumice plains, he was charged by a mob of wild horses, and only saved himself by taking refuge in a cavity formed by a falling tree; how, when ascending Tarawera, he was charged by a wild boar, tripped and fell, the boar galloping over his prostrate body, and finally fired his revolver at 'the furious animal, which decamped. He further narrates how when ascending Mount Egmont in winter he slipped and fell in a snow rift almost on to the frozen corpse of a tourist, who' had years before gone to sleep in the snow, how he took a peep at the bodies in a Maori burying ground, and was chased bj' the natives with hatchets, spears and clubs, and nnally how a lunatic rode up behind him in the bush one day and fired a couple of shots at him with a pistol, Mr Clifton defending himself effectively with the faithful bulldog revolver, which apparently he always carries with him. Really, if Mr Clifton's adventures are a fair sample of those encountered by the average N.Z. athlete," thinks our correspondent, "New Zealand in time of peace must be almost as dangerous as South Africa in time of war."

It is now explained that Lord Rosslyn with the aid of his infallible system, won 100,000 francs not at the tables at Monte Cano, but in the columns of a New York journal, which is a much easier though less satisfying feat. According to the latest'intelligence, his Lordship has never been more than £500 to the o-ood, and when he raised his stakes until' £520 depended on a single coup, he left the table on Wednesday nMit, January Bth, £5000 to the bad The same infallible system applied to roulette realised £500 in two days, so the Rosslyn System Syndicate, Limited, has still a substantial debit balance to wipe out before declaring- any dividend on the preference stock. The syndicate is now playing in relays from morning to night, and Lord Rosslyn is still sanguine, because although he has dropped some £4500 during a week, "everything went in his favour when he was at lunch and dinner " There is something- attractive in this infantile explanation; _ and now that the luck, which invariably follows a player's system when he has no money on, is to be rounded in toy constant attendance at the table! Lord Rosslyn should be a millionaire in less than no time. At present it must be rather exasperating for him to know that a gentleman named Ephrussi has won nearly £6000 in a single day without any system at all. But then he had "Phenomenal luck"—which is always beckoning the gambler round the nest corner but one.