RANDOM SHOTS

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVII, Issue 95, 21 April 1906, Page 12

RANDOM SHOTS

ZAMKtSS

Rome write a neighbour's name to laen; Borne write — rain thought — tor needful cash, lame write to please the country clash, And raise a din. For mc. an aim I never fash— I write for fun.

Readers of their "Star" -will remeni- , ber the mighty raging of the righteous \> in England when two or three ladies, r with views on the hygienic value of the bare head, Vvent into church without the customary covering, and had finally to be warned that if they persisted the building would have to be closed against them. Personally, I tried very hard to get excited over the matter, but my own personal predilection ior the uncovered head, whether of woman or man, shut mc out from the appreciation of the dialectical niceties on the other side. Now I learn that an American Church is taking the novel view that not only is it right for the ladies to remove their hats in church, but that it is somewhat wrong of them to keep them on. And the. Reverend Warren Wilson, of the WilJington-Avenue Presbyterian Church, at Brooklyn, has come to this conclusion because the ladies' hats obscure the view of the men sitting behind them. As Mr Wilson so tersely puts it. "It is not always possible to run a modern church along the lines laid dovra by St. Paul. Many of the men of my congregation have" asked mc to do this thing, as they could not see mc if they -were more than five or aLx rows back."' Whether that will be regarded as a conclusive argument for the hatless head, I dont know: but at least it will be considered a good argument for Mr Wilson iv advocating his reform. The only wonder is that he did not think of it before— as well as of a sloping floor, and a liberal supply of opera glasses. ********** The. advantages which we twentieth coaturyites enjoy for the study of God's noblest creature—Man—lead occasionalIv to such mental bewilderment that YOU just plump limply into the nearest relief from the exercise, and weakly give it up. What e)*G is there? Iv the same daiiv paper, for instance, we read of reverent thousands gazing in hushed responsiveness on a canvass, upon which is wonderfully interpreted a story of transcendental loving kindness; and in the next headlines are revealed atrocities so revolting that the bare reading of them is as inadequate to the grasp of iheir horrible reality as a glance at a painted inferno would be to carry the mind through the unspeakable, terror? oi Hell itself. When one reads of such an act as that chronicled this week, in which we were told that a woman and her two little children were driven within a burning building and the doors loc-ked upon them —when one reads it and remembers that the perpetrators have all the outward semblance of men, ami probably claim to be good Christians —it is-, to say the least of it. liable to make one wonder whether after all our existence is not all ouc- hideous jest of tlie Creator's. Granted those Bulgarian revolutionalists are among the Devil's last hope, yet it is every bit probable ■that- they would have flocked with perhaps less of mere curiosity than we do —to fasten their eyes reverently on "The light of the World" iv numbers greater proportionately even than Auckland ha 3 yielded. And coming to ourselves, the veneer of civilisation., leaving aside the question of Christianity, show? at times perilously near worn to the inner cussedness of the original son of Adam. We are very little ahead of the game, in fact, if wp regard the situation dispassionately. Which gives food for honest ! reflection, if we like to trouble, as to how distant in general fitness we really j are for the advent of the millennium. ********** If there is any particular body of men in the community who deserve preeminently to enjoy fine weather for their annual picnic outing, it is without doubt the men who work the electric tramcar. For three hundred and sixty-four days in the year they hurry us to and from the busy stress of city Jife. dust-choked and time harried, yet courteously and cheerfully, with, an unassuming matter-of-faetness that the unquestioning public, accepts as part of the easy mechanism which its pence demand. No one thinks of investing the motorman with any lialo of peculiar worth, unless it be the small boy who regards worshipfully the dust-grimed, gong-warning -figure as the eleetrichunted car dashes past, and dreams the ambitious dreams of the small boy. Yet on the alertness of that niotorman's straining vision, and on the steadiness of his grip of the blue devil hissing and Taging to break his control, the safety and lives of a human freight depend at every curve of the road. Let the sense of his responsibility short-circuit the current of cool consciousness into red mist for one critical moment, and his car might become a shambles any dozen times in an ordinary day. The roving gaze of the conductor need be scarce less alert; one eye on the boarding passenger and the other on nis monotonous fare collecting, hour after hour he must keep at it like a lost soul etriving at salvation. It 13 not a task to covet of him, and everyone who travels iv a tramear should rejoice to see the sun shine benignantly on the one day in the year this man can call unreservedly his own. And yet, dpwn in Wellington there are those that presumably call themselves Christians—save the mark— who howl in protest against the enormity of giving these men one clear holiday in the livelong year. But after all one can hardly exert sufficient gorge to feel even contempt for such human fish, they must be so utterly beyond the pale of ■warn human sympathies.

********** I have always been nnder the impression that public officials in this happy land are highly paid, and that they don't get too inueh work to do. But last week I saw an advertisement that went a long ■way in the direction of shattering that fond delusion beyond hope of recovery. A Eoad Board in a district not a hundred miles from Auckland City has been requesting competent and eligible people to apply for a position in its service. But I Bhould hardly call the thing a portion, because there are so many of it. The accomplished candidate -who succeeds m securing this appointment will have as "clerk, collector, treasurer and returning officer" to the said Road Board; and for the faithful discharge, tfcsae anjiea be

per annum! ! Fancy doing the clerical and financial work for a Road Board and collecting its debts, and supervising local elections, at a remuneration of a little less than 10/ per week! And yet I have no doubt that there will be a great deal of competition for that billet, i I never realised before that a country official in New Zealand is sometimes a perfect Pooh Bah, so far as monopolis- i ing public duties is concerned, and that I he gets paid at rather a worse rate than an ordinary shop boy. New Zealand may be a very good place for the average -working man, but it is evidently not very hospitably inclined toward people who can only "read and write and east i accounts."' J *********** 1 There is another little particular that J has come under my notice this week, in I which Xew Zealand seems to differ—not I wholly for the better—from other countries. We are rather proud of our public schools, and like to believe that our boys and. girls are much better trained than the children of any other nationality. But we certainly are not so business like in this respect as they are in Germany. There, the infants are all taught by men—the theory being that the boys will thus get sooner used to the idea, of military discipline. When the master tells a boy to do anything in school—to bring him a book or a map or move a blackboard—the child is not allowed to walk: he must run. Everybody, to use an expressive Americanism, must "go from the jump." They don't believe that work and play are the same thing in Germany—far from it. In fact, there is no "play" at all. In the alleged playground the pupils do not rush casually about in the British fashion. They walk solemnly about in column, four abreast, under the supervision of a teacher—and they call it "recreation!" Nor is there any chance of playing of another kind —what schoolboys here call (though I could never learn why) "playing the wag."' At Charlottenburg, the great industrial and technical school centre, if a pupil s'taj-s at home for insufficient reasons, he can be called upon by a policeman, and led gently but firndy to school by the strong hand of the law. 1 don't fancy that the average, schoolboy in Germany can regard his strhool exactly with feelings of affection. And as for , the schoolmasters—well, I got hold of a very instructive little fact about them' the other day. Not long ago, in a certain German town, there was an epidemic of sore throats; and the local doctors ordered gargles in profusion. But a difficulty arose; the children had never been taught to gargle, and the parents couldn't do it for them. So the local school committee or its German equivalent ordained that the school teachers should give public lessons in

sarghng, with experimental illustrations! Since F read that. I have ceased h> envy Germans their primary schools. After all. give mc the school where work is work and play is play, and the master is neither a drill sergeant or a policeman or a druggist's assistant on half-pay. There is a good deal to be Mid for the New Zealand school, even if the children do play in their playgrounds, and don't jump to attention as soon as they hear the voice of the eommander-in-chief. Waihi is certainly on the highroad to future greatness, if only the treasure stone of its rocky foundation continues in undiniinished supply. Last year it ■welcomed the locomotive. It,wasn't any coolness on the part of Waihi, by the way, that caused the loco' to stop short within some three-quarters of a mile from the township. No, no. Just part of a general sort of shyness that is noticeable in the iron gee-gee when invited to enter through the gates of the country towns; possibly from a repugnance to rob his predecessor entirely of his occupation. And now this dividend producing centre revels in the luxury of gaslight. I was informed proudly the other day that the main street has become quite brilliantly illuminated. And they had a big try to close the pubs, last election, although some cynically minded folk aver it was because the Waihi publicans refused to deal out threepenny drinks. But the fact remains on record, to the everlasting wonder of all mining centres, proverbially thirsty aggregations of humanity. And now Waihi yearns to take yet another step in its triumphal.march of progress; its cup of joy j/ill not be full till it has obtained an infectious diseases hospitalThis is high vaunting ambition with a vengeanoe. But Waihi is a place with a pretty pride of its own. And the crux of the situation may be found in the fact that the town only posscses one funeral team, in which Tauranga also claims a working interest. Now, should there be a sudden increase in mortality thereabout, and the funeral blacks be absent at Tauranga, or fall ill wtth the weight of responsibility, humiliation might be the lot of the cyanide city, at the sight of its funeral car drawn by a team of chequers. Such a possibility is sufficient to cause any town with a proper respect for itself and reputation, to determine at all hazards to keep the death rate low. Hence Waihi's commendable aspiring for an infectious hospital. TTTTT TTTTT The dwellers in New Zealand boardinghouses, with their thin wooden walls, will be much interested to hear of a great invention that has come none too soon for their peace of mind. This is a really effective machine for the prevention of snoring. It consists of a I flexible plate or mouthpiece adapted to be held between the lips and in contact ! with the teeth and gums when sleeping; and is provided with a check-valve to regulate the amount of air taken in and given out. It is "comfortable to the shape of the mouth," and. supposing that this invention is finally confirmed, the only question is whether something cannot be done to enforce its use among the unhappy sufferers from one of the least pardonable of complaints. I hardly used to remind my readers of what the true snorer is—for they probably have had the same night-long battles with him that I have. You remember how you threw your slippers against the wall, then your boots, and finally your dumbbells? How a mighty rhythmic roar suddenly dipped to an irritating but still welcome snivel as your bombardment reached its height? but how just as you were dropping off to sleep the offender reopened fire from every battery, and dashed your last hopes of one hour's j precious rest? How at last you rose I earlier than usual, and snapped at everyone you met, but reserved a look of particularly deadly malice for the man you suspected of being the disturber of your slumbers? If you remember these things you will feel something of the deep gratitude that I do to on* who may