NEWS, VIEWS, AND OPINIONS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIX, Issue 141, 13 June 1908, Page 11

NEWS, VIEWS, AND OPINIONS.

The Bishop of London is known to be nothing if not a practical prelate. Addressing a meeting recently, his lordship confided to his audience the secret that he always prepares his sermons while dressing and shaving, because he finds that, during those operations, "his brains seem to work in an astonishing manner " We believe that Dr. Ingram is perfectly right, and that nothing clears the brain like a clean shave—the cerebral cobwebs seem to be swept away with every stroke of a welJ-stropped razor. Besides, if one comes to think of it. a successful pulpit manner requires the quality of persuasiveness: the subject should be well lathered: there should be a sufficiency of soap. Probably, then, if we only knew it. that famous Bishop of Oxford whose sobriquet was "'Soapy Sam" believed in Dr. Wilmington Ingrain's winning way. and composed his most persuasive pulpit utterances while his eloquent lips were enriched -with that lubricant. Here, too, is yet another clerical "wrinkle"—really, the public ought to feel immensely indebted to their spiritual pastors. ' The vicar of All Hallows, Gospel Oak, has been lecturing before the Psycho-Thera-peutic Society on "Silence as a Factor in Healing." This reverend gentleman is convinced that excessive talking is responsible for the increase of insanity and nervous diseases in modern society. Certain it is that such maladies are more frequent than they were; and no less certain is it that reticence is not precisely the distinguishing mark of the age j in which we live. But whether we are I justified in regarding that coincidence as a case of cause and effect is. perhaps, | less apparent. But we will certainly go : with the vicar so far as to admit that ability to hold one's tongue is evidence, in most cases, of a well-balanced nervous system, whereas the opposite state is frequently associated with a hysterical volubility of chatter. And certainly he is right when he says that people induce illness by talking about their symptoms, ■which is the almost invariable practice of the malade imaginaire.

A terrible "trunk tragedy" reported from Watertown, New York, is one of those frequent facts which go to prove that trutn is vastly stranger than fiction would ever venture to pretend to he. James Farmer and his wife, both over 70 years old, murdered an old woman named Brennan in order to get possession of her property, and concealed her body in a trunk, precisely as the Monte Carlo murderers did. "Yes, we did it, mc and Jimmy," said the horrible old woman, when arrested. "Mc and Jimmy planned it for months. . . .

No. -we hadn't any grudge against the old girl, except that she had so much more money wan we did, and lived in a nice house. When you come to think of it, we all like money and nice homes, don't we? . . . And so we planned and planned, long and conscientiously. If ■we don't get success, Jimmy said, let's at least deserve it." It is to be hoped that the amiable couple will finally achieve the amount of success they have deserved. But it is strange that a couple standing, so to say, on the brink of the grave, should have thought it worth ■vrhile to face even the possibility of judgment to come -with such a crime on their consciences.

Sir James Willcocks's recent punitive expeditions against the Mohniands were not likely to include one picturesque detail of Sir Uoiin Campbell's opreations against these tribesmen in 1851. On that occasion some of the large fortified enclosures a-t Mia.nkhel, made of chopped straw and) dried mud, were very difficult. to destroy. So, after they had been undermined by the troops, elephants, with their trunks protected by leather shields, were brought up, and sagaciously butted down the walls with their heads. In their life of "Lumsden of the Guides," Sir Peter Lumsden and Mr. George Elmsie tells how onem ullah remained! defiantly cursing in his abodte with two disciples, though warned of what was coming. Suddenly there was a crash, and two elephant tusks appeared upheaving the roof. "The effect was miraculous. In a moment, ■with his unwound turban flowing like a pennant behind him, he hurriedly shook the dust from his feet, and bolted up the hill like a rabbit from, a hole, the two disciples following."

Dancing, it would appear from the vigorous denunciations which have been hurled against it by a Selby parson named Morley, is an invention of the Prince of Darkness. '•'The world," he says (when we say he, we mean the Rev. Morley, not the Prince), "does not expect to see a Christian in a ballroom." By which is meant, one may infer, that the world as represented by the Rev. Morley has not a very high opinion of Cie moral atmosphere of the ballroom, and looks upon all the young men and maidens as prima facie not Christians. In which case one would think that the world, as represented by the Rev. Morley, ought to keep away from the ballroom, and then he need not bother his head about -whom he expects or doesn't expect to see. The castigator of the saltatory art, one observes with gratitude, is not equally down on all forms of amusement. There is no such dark record against cricket, tennis, chess, and football, he admits, but he makes the j admission rather reluctantly as if he were sorry to have to admit it. We are glad to be assured that ehes3 is all right. We have often had heart-searchings on the subject, and been perplexed with doubts. It takes a load off our mind to tear that it is not doing us any harm — or, at any rate, not much.

The attempt at one of Mr. Joynson ffieks' meetings, in the contest for the North-west Manchester seat, in which he defeated Mr. Winston Churchill, to negotiate a little gamble on the'result of the election, is an incident that is rarer in English than in American politics. In the TLS. the most extravagant states *re laid, especially when two candidates *re contending for four years at the White House. When Garfield was before the country, an elector in Ogdensburg, Kew York, bet his moustache against another man's whiskers that James A. would not be elected, but he was, and off eatne the moustache. A Memphis man went further than this by offering to ■tand on his head for five minutes in a public a H u««c, with a Garfield banner flanging from his toes. The non-success °f W. -J. Bryan, a few years ago, wrought havoc .in the hearts of a Kansas couple oamcd Howard and Johnson, because the father of the lady, abhorring the thought 01 a Democrat son-in-law, refused his consent to the engagement unless the silver-tongued orator were at the top of *nc poll. But Uryan's defeat saved a Chiftipv. youth from the ignominy of bearing his clothes wrong side out for ft feitnigfat.

A brief telegram reached England a few months ago to the effect that Kabru had been climbed. In the new "Alpine.' Journal " the climbers—two Norwegian gentlemen—gave an account of their ascent, and so enable us to consider the question whether it constitutes a record. It would have done so without any possibility of dispute if only the daylight had lasted a little longer. The height of Kabru, as measured by the Indian Survey, is 24.015 feet, and Messrs. Eubenson and MonradAaas were quite close to the top when the setting of the sun compelled them to turn back. They had, at any rate, attained an altitude of 23,900 ft., and so

" gone one better " than either Sir Martin Conway on Aconcagua or Dr. BullockWorkman in the Mustagh. Whether they had also done better than Mr. Graham did on Kabru itself in the eighties is uncertain, owing to the lark of precision in Mr. Graham's measurement?. Their own exactitude in the matter should perhaps entitle them to the benefit of the doubt; and the fact that they were able to climb so high without being incommoded with mountain sickness will be hailed by mountaineers everywhere as of good omen for the ultimate conquest of Kinchinjunga and Everest.

The '''marble heart " is an endowment whose value consists, if we understand Transatlantic phraseology, in its obduracy towards the wiles of the mendicant. The " brass heart," which has just been invented by a professor of Norfolk, Virginia, is an appliance which assists in the work of the vital organs, and can even understudy them when their owner is compelled or disposed' to let them cease from their labours. Professor .Poe himself has been enabled to stop breathing i for ten minutes " by letting the c-ontriv-J ance force upon him the inhalation and exhalation of oxygen," while animals which have been "killed" by morphine and ether and certified defunct by medical authorities have jumped up andl run away after a few minutes' application of the new mechanism. Amongst the other remarkable powers of the " brass heart " is that of making a drunken man " sober and normal" in a few minutes.

'"When people stand up at the close of a public dinner, and join in the chorua of the familiar song, 'For he's a jolly good fellow,' they are perhaps ignorant of the antiquity of the air they are singing," says the "Musical Home Joarnal." "The -words were only written in 1827, and belong to the second verse of a song which was first known as 'We won't go home till morning,' but the air is adapted from the famous French song known aa 'Malbrook s'en va-t-en guerre," or sometimes called 'Malbrook' for short. It was composed in provincial French to ridicule the great Duke of Marlborough, and fco throw a slur on his exploits. There axe no fewer than twelve verses to the original French song, -which was improvised, both words and music, by an unknown French soldier on the night after the battle of MalplaqUet, September 11, 1709, in the tent of the Mareehal de Villars at Quesnay, not far from the memorable battlefield. ,.

On April 16th, as has been the cußtora for the past twelve years, Mr. Theodore Napier, protagonist of the Jacobite " cause " in the northern kingdom, visited Culloden Moor, and placed a number of wreaths, including one from Jacobites in ; New Zealand, on the memorial cairn on the battlefield. In the mid years of last century, it may be recalled, there were many in the Highlands who believed in the claim advanced by two brothers, born sons" of a, naval lieutenant iv the early years of last century, that they were grandsons of Prince Charles Edward. The brothers assumed the names John Sobie-' ski and Charles Edward Stuart; were proteges of a grandfather of the present Lord Lovat; and' were for a time known throughout the Highlands as "the Princes of Eilean Aigas," from the Gaelic designation of the house given them by Lord Lovat. The brothers died in 1877 and 1888 respectively; but as no ardent Jacob-1 ites visit their secluded resting place among the Ross-shire hills, one must assume that their claim to be " the last of the Stuarts " is either forgotten or ignored.

' During the past year all kinds of efforts have been made to increase the attractions of Vienna as a tourist centre. The newest idea is that of a competition among the shopkeepers in window-dress-ing, which has been arranged by the authorities. Already some hundred and fifty firms have entered the lists, and the total will probably reach five hundred. There is a small entrance fee, ten crowns (8/4), and about fifty first, second and third prizes will be given. The rival shop-win-dows will be judged by a jury of artists and business men, and prizes will be awardted not for the costliness of the goods displayed, but for tasteful arrangement, technical skill, and general decorative effect. It is proposed to make the competition a half-yearly one, so that the Viennese shopkeepers' progress in the window-dressing art can be properly estimated.

Some amusing extracts from essays ■written by school-children were quoted at the annual meeting of the Dover branch of the Royal Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, by Mr. Reeks, who attended on behalf of the society. No fewer than 275,505 of these essays, he said, had been written by children, and were at present being adjudicated upon. "Feed your horse with horse-radish, and horse-chesfrmits, if you want your horse to grow," said one. Another wrote: "If you are very kind indeed to your dog it may even follow you to your jjrave." A little girl wrote: "The Esquimaux are very fond indeed of their reindeer; in fact, they love their reindeer sometimes more than their wives. But then they are very useful to them." Asked to state the reason why the tails of horses and dogs and other animals should not be cut, one of the essayists quoted the following verse of Scripture: "What God hath joined together, let not man put assundter."

A Japanese doctor never thinks of asking a poor patient for a fee. There is a proverb among the medical fraternity of Japan—"When the twin enemies, poverty and disease, invade a home, then he who takes aught from that home, even, though it be given him, is a robber." "Often," I says Dr. Matsumoto, "a doctor will not only give his time and his medicine freely to the sufferer, but he will also give him money to tide him over his dire necessities. Every physician has his own dispensary, and there are very few chemists' I shops in the empire. When a rich man calls in a physician he does not expect to be presented with a bill for medical services. In fact, no such thing as a doctor's bill is known in Japan, although nearly all the other modern appliances are in vogue tnere. The doctor never asks for his fee. The strict honesty of the people makes this unnecessary. When he has finished with a patient, a present is madte to him of whatever sum the patient or his friends may deem to be just compensation. The doctor is supposed to smile, take his fee, bow, and thank his patron.* .