TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Press, Volume L, Issue 8478, 9 May 1893, Page 4

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

A brief cable message Livingstone's received & day or two ago Friend. announced the death of Mr Oewell, the devoted friend of Dr. Livingstone. At no time was he fond of parading hie name before the public, and it is very possible moat people have entirely forgotten hia association with the great traveller. He was a man of means, who early took an interest in Dr. Livingstone and his work, and not only assisted him pecuniarily, but accompanied him on some of his expeditions. In 1849, for example, when he set off from Kolobeng on the journey which resulted in the discovery of Lake 'Ngami aud the Upper Zambesi, Mr Oswell and another friend, Mr Murray, who were bent on hunting, accompanied him, Mr Oswell defraying the coat of the guides. He shared with Livingstone the honour of the discoveries then made, and a son which was born on this journey was christened William Oswell Livingstone. When the great missionary was leaving England for the last time in 1864 he records in his diary the fact that Mr and Mrs Oawell came to say farewell, aud that Mr 03well offered "to go over to Paris at any time to bring Agnes (who was going to school there) home, or do anything that a father would." In a letter addressed to Mr Webb, Livingstone says of his friend: —"I love him with true affection, and I believe he does the same to mc, and yet we never show it." Finally when the great African hero's bones were brought home to rest in Westminster Abbey, Mr Oswell was one of the pall-bearers at the funeral, the others being Mr H. "M. Stanley, Jacob Wainwright, Sir T. Steele, Dr. Kirk, Mr W. F. Webb, Rev. Horace Waller, and Mr E. D. Young. It is a little over nineteen years eince that sorrowful and impressive ceremony took place. It. would be an interest* Recurring ing, if somewhat fatiguing Stories. occupation to trace out

the origin of some of the anecdotes which from time to time are made to do duty on the platform and in the Press. Most of them would be found to possess a hoary antiquity. There is one venerable specimen which is continually turning up. It was given in a somewhat new shape the other day by the Spectator, whiuh alluded to a Mormon elder whose notion of fulfilling a well known injunction was that he should first turn the other cheek to the man who had struck him, and then "give him Hell." Some years ago it was put in a more elegant form. Then the hero of the story was a muscular Sisshop, who first turned one cheek to hia assailant and then the other, after which he said that, having fulfilled the Scriptural injunction, he felt at liberty to indulge the promptings of the old Adam, whereupon recalling the fistic science of hie College days he " waded in," and gave his astonished aggressor a thorough " hammering" in the most finished style of art;. There is another version of the etory—originated probably by somebody who did not believe in epiecopal institutions—which attributed this feat of arms to a Quaker. A correspondent of the Spectator now points out that the story told by that journal is to be found in a letter by Cowper, under date of July 29th, 1781, but Cowper relates it of a French abb 6, and says he had it from Lady Austen. The very vigorous expression quoted by our sedate contemporary is softened in Cowper's version into "He turned again and beat him soundly." This ie more re fined but not so telling. Meanwhile we quite expect to find in a subsequent issue of the paper that somebody has discovered that the same anecdote, slightly disguised, is to be found in the Vedas or the writings of Confucius. Solomon's adage that" there is nothing new under the sun," it is well known, applies particularly to humorous stories. ■, Lady Violet Gaeville Tight-Lacing has joined the ranks of those who denounce the folly of tight-lacing, and has a well written article in the Hadonal Review pointing out once more the illness and suffering and general deterioration of the race, all to be laid at the door of this imbecile practice. It remains to be seen whether her Ladyship's warnings will have more effect with her misguided sisters than the scores of -earnest cautions on the subject which have already proceeded from medical men and others. It has always been a profound mystery why women make themselves martyrs to what is really a degrading and decidedly injurious practice. It is ridiculous to say that they do it to "please the men," because the men are unanimous in their opinion that' the system. is' criminal as well as imbecile, and that the girls who carry it out only make "guye" of themselves. The Liverpool Poet has another theory on the subject. Women, it says, do not dress nowadays to please the men, but to excite "the jealousy of one another, and their cultus of the wasp waist is merely the result of feminine rivalry, and has no connection whatever with the teachings of art or the preferences of the male portion of creation. Whether this is the real reason we leave it to those who are guilty of the practice to say. Regarding Us folly and iniquity, however, there can be no two opinions.