TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Press, Volume LIX, Issue 11333, 24 July 1902, Page 4

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

The death of Mr Samuel The Author Butler will be regretted of "Erewhon." by many who knew him only by his one popular book and by repute, and more deeply by those who knew him personally during his residence here in the early days. His connection with Canterbury ceased many years ago, but it will always remain to the literary distinction of the province that it can boast of having possessed so distinguished a resident, and of this journal that in its earliest numbers appeared the genesis of the remarkable work with which Mr Butler's name is indissolubly linked. The recent reissue of "Erewhon" and the publication-of "Erewhon Revisited," together in a lesser degree with that strange attempt to prove the "Odyssey" to be the work of a woman, brought Mr Butler's name into greater prominence than had been the case for many years. For his reputation, distinguished though it was, had travelled little beyond literary circles, and many people will probably have read his obituary notices with wonder that they had never bafore heard of his genius. Yet Mr Butler, living, was not without his trumpeters, and the most hearty appreciation of his character and talent appears in Mr Quilter's quaint book "What's What." "One of the strangest men we hive ever met," is Mr Quilter's description of him, amplified, however, in the following terms: —"Exceptionally kind in heart, curiously obstinate, and good-humouredly prejudiced, inscrutable in a laughing wavabsolntely careless of public opinion, full of qnaint fancies in art and literature and instinct, with a form of wit entirely his own." He excelled in giving an unexpected turn to ordinary remarks, as when coming in fresh and shivering from his bath one cold winter morning, he addressed an early visitor with the remark, " 'Pon my word, So-and-so, is worse than godliness.''

Tbe Waima incident, reLeisurely ferred to in our cable mesDiplomacy. sages this morning, is interesting chiefly on account of the extraordinary delay on the part of the Foreign Office in obtaining a settlement. It is nearly nine years since the incident occurred. On December 2ord, 1893, three British officers and twenty-four non-commissioned officers were killed and wounded by French troops trespassing on British territory at Waima, in West Africa. Two days later Colonel Ellis, the chief British officer at Waima, wrote a despatch describing the outrage, in which he gave detailed reasons why Waima was within the sphere of British influence, adding that this fact was "beyond question." When tne news of the affair reached Paris, the French Government issued a semiofficial Note, stating that, should the British version prove correct, they "would not contest the necessity for making the reparation provided for by international law in such cases." Then the affair was apparently forgotten on both sides of the Channel for about a year. In September, 1895, the French Government intimated through Lord Dufferin, -the British Ambassador, that they could not entertain any claim on behalf of the British slain, because they had made no claim on behalf of their own. The Foreign Office meanwhile did nothing, beyond sending Major Grant to determine the position of Waima. This officer confirmed the accuracy of Colonel Ellis's report, yet the next time the Waima incident came before Parliament—which was not till March 19th, 1898 —Mr Curzon stated that at the time of the disturbance the locality of Waima was "equally unknown to both the French and English parties." A few days later Mr Curzon wrote to Sir H. M. Stanley to the effect that it was "wholly and demonstrably incorrect" to say that the position of Waima was determined by Colonel Ellis immediately after the engagement. The Foreign Office, in fact, showed a complete change of front in regard to the dispute. The result was a vigorous agitation in the Press against the mismanagement of the British case, untfl in July, 1898, the Foreign Office preferred a request for compensation against the French Government. But this request remained unanswered, and in May, 18<g, M. Delcasse, the Frencn Foreign Minister, declared that he heard | of the matter for the first time. For close on two more years the affair remained | "under the consideration of the two Governments," and it was not till Febrja-y of last year thcit Baron Lambermont v as I appointed to act as arbitrator. N w, at the expiration of another six*:-?en months, the arbitrator has decided the dispute, awarding Great Britain £9000 by way nf compensation. Truly, the ways of diplomacy are difficult to fathom.

It is to be hoped that Some some friend of Mr Butler's Little Known .—Mr Quilter himself Writings. might very well do it— will Collect and publish the best of the fugitive articles that he wrote from time to time for the "Universal Review" and other publications. These contain some of his best and most characteristic work, amd the article "Quia Desiderio,' in which he dealt with his experiences in the British Museum .Heading Room is an excellent example of his dry humour. He explains therein that as he j cannot write unless he has a sloping desk, I and the Museum authorities do not provide i such desks, he had to find a book that would answer the purpose. It was a task of some difficulty. For mere reading, as Mr Butler remarks, "one book is pretty much as good as amother." but the choice of a desk-book was a more serious matter. Exhaustive experiments convinced him that be could not do better than select Frost's "Lives of Eminent Christians," "the very perfection, and 'ne plus ultra' of everything that a book should be." He used it for a dozen years, and then it disappeared, and lamenting its loss he declared that he felt "as Wordsworth is generally supposed to have felt when he became aware that Lucy was in her grave, and exclaimed so emphatically that this would make a considerable difference to him. or words to that effect." And then followed a lot of delightful nonsense about the resemblance between Lucy and the missing tome. "Lucy was not particularly attractive inside or out—ao more was Frost's "Lives of Eminent Christians' ; there were few to praise her, and of those few still fewer could bring themselves to like her. In like manner I believe I was the only reader who thought much one way or the otner about Frost's "Lives,' and as for the grief we respectively felt and 'eel, I believe my own to be a-s deep as Wordsworth's, if not more so." The artide concluded with a page and a half of cruel criticism of Lucy's appearance aend disposition, the reader being left to infer that the poet was goaded into mnrdering her. Of Mr Butler's private life we get a glimpse in his friend's pages—living "the queerest hermit-like life in an old Inn of Court, attended only by a boy named Alfred, who was at once servant, Iriend, and a butt for his master's ■good-humoured pleasantries." Alfred seems to 'have been rather a character, for being

once entrusted to catalogs • : graphs Mr Butler h*d trips, in some of which he h& wf?*'** #*v duced as a foreground fi«Tßft~i?f fittn> " them -Alfred on tne Fieldrf y** 1 * "Alfred at tie FaEs of th* ©SK'* ''}"- so on. . Mr Quilter's "lasfc *»2f*' : friend will be bettered by ** '''. biographers—"one of the men to «-% world has never done jjotaJ^* , *• 5f scholar, thinker, and a kind, staunch friend and fT**** - fighting man.'" ' -