TOPICS of the DAY.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVI, Issue 18, 21 January 1905, Page 9

TOPICS of the DAY.

' (From Our Special Correspondent.) I I LONDON. December 9. CAUSE AND EFFECT. One result of the Russo-Japanese war in its later phases has been to swamp the East End of London with a rare assortment of Russian "patriots.'' who have left their country for good (and may be | -'for their country's good'") rather I than risk their lives in her defence. Since the authoirties at St. Petersburg commenced to call up the reserves London has been inundated with deseriers. Every I kind of Russian is represented among | our uninvited guests—the Greek Catholic, the Pole, the pure Russian, the Russian Jew. Some are respectable creatures, but the majority are of the lowest class, lilthy in flesh, in garment and in habits. lv six days at the beginning <>f December no less than 1111 of these deserters arrived at 1 lie London Docks alone, and probably hundreds more found English soil at Harwich. Grimsby and other east coast ports having direct shipping communication with Hamburg, Rotterdam, Bremen and Amsterdam. How do these deserters get to these ports? If we are to believe the talcs told by the deserters themselves it is a very simple matter to slip away from Russia provided you have a few roubles and are fairly near the German or Austrian frontier. By clubbing together hatches of unwilling soldiers can. it is alleged, bribe officers in charge of i-eservist camps to keep their eyes shut whilst they clear out. Enough pence to buy a few "goes" of vodka is sufficient to blind the frontier guards, and with the money obtained for his uniform and accoutrements, which it appears arc <juitc easy of sale in Germany, the deserter's way is smoothed, by an emigration agent, to England or America. America is said to be the Mecca of nearly every one of these deserters, and we in London are assured that most of them have a ticket for New York in their pocket when they land hero. So mote it be.; but tickets to America are always saleable, and London lias its attractions we know for the average Russian undesirable, and it would be highly interesting to learn what proportion of these will bo accepted by the shipping companies as likely to pass the strict survey of Brother Jonathan's Immigration Bureau, what number are returned to England as unfit to live under the Eagle's wings, and how many ultimately settle down in England. Curiosity on this point will not. 1 fear, be satisfied. We shall be left to make gttesses at the number of our Russian friends who remain with us from the amount of the increase in crime which takes place in those areas which they are partial to for residential purposes—C'lerkenwell, Whitechapel. Bermondsey and the lower quarters of Marvlebono.

Already we have good indications of the class of men these deserters are in the main. In the course of the last few days over thirty recent arrivals have been brought to the police courts charged with theft, burglary and other offences. This suggests that the criminal element is well represented among them. For the rest some are physically tine men. suffering only from the degrading effects of the Russian peasants' normal mode of existence. These are quite harmless—they have scarce got, spirit- enough in them to wilfully break the law—and with a few years' residence under such conditions of life as prevail in America's agricultural districts might make excellent citizens. But we have no use for them in London, and still Jess use for the sickly, weedy, half-starved looking youths who form a noticeable percentage of these deserters. What possessed the Russian authorities that they should take the trouble to clothe and arm some of these striplings is beyond comprehension. Town-bred, ill-fed. lacking in muscle and lung, they would drop in their tracks on a fourmile march under service conditions in the Far East. Yet to such as these and worse John Bull opens the. door without question, while at the same time he says to his own children who find life hard for them here because of lack of work. "Why don't you emigrate?" Considered from one point of view John is really a very fine fellow, but if you look at. him in another light he seems pathetically idiotic.

SALVATION PER "CAKE-WALK" Since the days of the exposure of that unspeakable couple Theodore Horos and the "Swamf" London has been a cold place for teachers of new religions. One after another 1 hey have arrived full of hope that in this great city they would find an ample supply of credulous fools to swell the ranks of their disciples and restore their financial equilibrium, and oue after the other they have folded their tents and vanished, leaving no traces behind them save unpaid bills. The latest, arrivals in London are a -et, of very unorthodox American revivalists who tire pleased to call themselves the --Pentecostal Dancers." and who seek to call sinners to repentance by singing and dancing a la Miriam what time the Red Sea had overwhelmed Pharoah and his hosts, 'j he heads of-this "cake-walk-ing" see! are Mr. and Mrs. Obadiah KentWhite, whose antecedents have not been divulged, and a Chicago ex-hotelkeeper named Harvey. This trio, with some young people of indiscreet ages, arrived from America at Liverpool Some time ago. hut Liverpool was suffering from a recent overdose of Messrs. Torrev and Alexander, and would have none o f the "Pentecostal Dancers." They could not even find a hall wherein to preach the gospel of salvation per cake-walk, and. coming to London, found almost as much difficulty, being finally compelled to hire the Camberwell Swimming Baths, which arc rendered available for public meetings during winter by the simple process of boarding over the bathing space. There for the past week the Pentecostals Iv.vc beet! submitting their peculiar jumble of hustle, money-making and religious eestaey to the penniless youths and maidens of Camberwell. to the great delight of the. latter, who. unable to raise the necessary coin to frank them into the local theatre or music-hall, contrive with added improvisations of their own to make the Kent-White performances nearly ''as good as a bloomin' pantomime.'' The performance generally opens with a

rambling prayer, next comes a hymn—of sorts —set usually to some tune more appropriate to a Harvard College chanty, and then the dancing begins; also the fun. The turn-turn of the missioners' piano is the signal for the ''congregation" to commence a sitting-down step dance of their own, and as the stage performers warm up to their wor.k and their gyrations become more and more akin to cake-walk-ing, the audience gives weird encouragement in the shape of cat-calls, tin-trum-pet melodies, and invitations to the dancers to "chuck 'em a bit higher." Once or twice some excitable youths have gore

so far as to hold a. little "revival" meet* ing orf their own so far as dancing pure and simple may go, and once the meeting go so much out of hand that police had to be summoned to cool the ardour of cer« tain temporary (very) "-converts." Mrs< Kent-White now declares Cambervvell ia be the "vurry wickedest spot in wicked London.'' Not even her husband's terrifying statement that the place of everlasting torment, with its temperature of 3700 degrees Fahrenheit, is only eighteen miles down below the place where C rnberwell stands., or his lurid word-p ■- tures of them squirming in flaming torment, can chock the exuberant hilarity of the unregenerate youth of the locality, who greet with vocal "pip-pip" or trumpeted "toot-toof the most awful Pentecostal threats, and vociferously encore tha terpsichorean efforts of "the c ect." So, sans dollars, sans converts, the dancers are going to leave us. to seek first in India "and"then in Australasia that which they have failed to find here. You are very welcome to them.