TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 12867, 27 July 1907, Page 8

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Those who hope as Troublesome vegetarians to escape Gueste. anxiety about ili-kept abattoirs, etc., must reflect that they themselves risk becoming a new anxiety to their friends. "Can you tell mc how to treat a simple liver?"' wrote a conscientious hostess to one of those kindly columns whicn instruct in every social difficulty. When the answer referred her to medical aid, she explained, "I meant a person who leads the simple life." She had .some reason for foreboding, if we taKe iho evidence of tne magazine essayist and the novel-writer. "It's tlie most complicated life there is,"' says a recent heroine, 'but it's absolutely the rage. I dined out Inst night, and five peoplo out of twenty were simple fooders, ate no meat, and wanted all sorts of thin»"s no one had ever heard of." The Hon. Mary Cavendish has discoursed quite bitterly in the "Lady's Realm of tho K tirst who refuses dish after dish with the beautiful solf-satisfied smile of ono who prefers death to dishonour to principles, and finally lunches lightly upon a slico of whole-meal bread and some mashed "turnip, washed down by tepid toast ami water, in,the absence of that vegetarian nectar, mushrcom tea. " I am allowed mashed turnip,' he explains to you with a happy smile, and you mentally resolve that he never shall be allowed it under your roof again!'' Even Mrs Earle has confessed to the irritation she felt, in her un regenerate days, when a vegetarian of some distinction who used to dino at her house invariably emptied the de-sort dish that happened to lie in front- of him, whatevor it contained—unwitting that the time would come when, starving in the unhygienic plenty of rich ment feasts, she would long to follow lv» example herself. It doe* not seem that "simple fooders" as yet havo adopted the practice once suggested, of sending with their reply to. invitations a list of special dishes required.

"Away with your beef and your mutton, Avaunt with your capers and sauce, For beefsteak I don't care a button, Veal cutlets, I count them as dross. Oh, stay mc with rice and with porridge! Oh, comfort mc sweetly with grits! Butter beans give mo plenty of courage, And lentils enliven my wita." But those dear persons who make themselves and their entertainers conscientiously uncomfortable, areprobaOly too serious to quote the "Vegetarian Ballad."

Tlio question of the inReporting adequacy of ParliamenMark tary reporting (from the Antony. members' point of view) has cropped up again at Home, and enabled Mr G. K. Chesterton to mako a few characteristic remarks on newspaper reporting in general. It is not surprising to find Mr Chesterton —journalist though he is himself —expressing the opinion that speeches might well go unreported. "Let the world livo and love, marry and give in marriage, without that particular speech, aa they did (in some desperato way) in tlie days when there wero no newspapers.'' If you must report ,» man, says this censor of tihe Press., roport him in full, or give nis meaning, but don't give scraps of his speech which do not "hang together. ' For instance, if there had been daily papers in Home tliere would, short of reporting him fully, have been three honest ways of dealing with Mark Antony's oration. One would have been, ''Mr Mark Antony also spoke," or -Mr Mark Antony having addressed the audience, the meeting broke up in some confusion.*'' Another would have been to have reported correctly one remark, "Mr Mark Antony, in tho course of his speech, said:— 'When that tho poor nave cried Ceesar hath wept. Ambition should be made of sterner stuff." The highest course would have been to give an accurate summary of the speech. "Mr Mark Antony, in tlio course of a powerful speech, conceded the high motives of the Republican leaders, and disclaimed any intention of raising tho people against them; he thought, however, that many instanoos could be quoted against the theory of Ciesar's ambition, and ho concluded by reading, at the request of th© audience, the will of Caesar, which proved that lie had tho most benevolent designs towards the Roman people.'"' But if a

"Daily Mail reporter bad been on the spot, he would have picked out the odd expressions and put them down ono after the other without any logical connection at all. "Mr Mark Antony wished for his audiences ears. Ho had thrico offered Caesar a crown. Caesar was like a deer. If he were Brutus he would put a wound in every tongue. Tho stones of Rome would mutiny. f->ee what a rent the envious Casca made. Brutus was Cseear'e angel. The right honourable gentleman concluded by saying that he and the audience had all fallen down.'' Englishmen who prefer the older journalism to tho Harmsworth methods must have chuckled at this clever and not very greatly exaggerated satire. Fortunately the "Daily Mail," which Mr Chesterton has plainly had in mind ail through his article, is only one aipect of English journalism. If a Ct~esar is ever assassinated in London, wo think tnat the subsequent proceedings will be fully and accurately reported in other quarters.

America claims from On 'Change, timo to time that the financial centre of the world is shifting from London to New York, but a writer in the "World's Work" dismisses the great American city as merely a local market, whose operations are frequently influenced by London. Paris and Berlin are important centres, but they operate

mainly in Continental securities. London is still emphatically the world's money centre. Few big loans are floated without previous consultation with Lord Rothchild, Sir Ernest Cassel, the Governor of tho Bank of England, and other London magnates. Nearly the whole diamond output and about 63 per cent. of the gold output are controlled from London. Fundamentally the stability of our institutions is responsible for this. Foreign monarchs, including the Czar and Abdul Hamid, put millions in tho Bank of England against a day when their palaces "shall know them no longer. When the Fashoda crisis arose between England and France, cortain French ship-owners insured their vessels against war-rißks at Lloyds 1 The aristocracy aro invading the Stock Exchange more and more, but in the main the successful men are 6elf-made. Sir Ernest Cassel was a banker's clerk; Lord Strathcona, a clerk in Labrador; Mr Ludwig Loeffler, who loft £1,500,000, started as a machinist in a cable factory; Sir Alfred Jones, a shipping king, was a cabinboy. A clever "punter" once adorned the "dickey" of a hansom. Probably ho backed the winner and transferred his money to the Stock Exchange. Some day ho may become another E. T. Hooley, and make £3,000,000 in ! one deal. The article is not quite calculated to raise one's opinion of the Stock Exchange. It is frankly admitted that when the public is "on the feed," as the elegant expression is, West End names are used by most promoters as n "draw." These aristocratic pioneers usually "get out at a profit before prices drop too low. Outsiders nro always rushing in in the hope of beating the brokers und jobbers at their own game. One quite recently forsook a flourishing London business to "play the market." The mnrkej "played" him to the oxtent of £]•">.0,..) in three months, and then his relatives persuaded him to travel for tho benefit of his banking account. You must have luck on the Exchange, but you cannot go far without brains. One ot the most successful outside brokers in London had the foresight to spend £50 a week in advertising in the early days of his business. To-day, while many official brokers are doing little or nothing, ho hns thousands of clients. His advertising bill has risen to £5000 a week.

"What is a yorker?" AnWhy gelinn asks Edwin when "Yorker?'' he, burning with enthusiasm for the noble game, takes her to f-ee a cricket match. Having carefully explained the terrors of this kind of ball, he is asked, "But why is it called a yorker?" Probably he will say he does not know, or if he is particularly but harmlessly insane about cricket, he may say, like the English professional when asked tho same question, "Why, what else can you call it?" Mr Andrew Lang, who worthily reprcsente literature in the pavilion at Lorda, and who thinks that had he studied his Greek grammar as deeply as he has studied works on cricket he might now occupy 6ome dietingdlshed academical position, believes he has solved the problem, with -ue help of an excaptain of a University eleven. When he was a boy a yorker was known as a "block-pitch," which exactly described the ball. A yorker first touches ground just at the point where the batsman takes guard. The batsman, even when his namo is writ large in "Wisden," is apt to be "enticed'" into thinking vie ball a half-volley and slogging at it, with the result that, as some cricket reporters would have it, "there is a row in the timber yard."' The "block-pitch," from its enticing nature, camo to be'known as a "tice." Now comes the secret. By a process analogous to the change from ■Cicero" to "Kikero," •'tioor" came to be pronounced "tike." The Yorkshire men have long been playfully called "tykes," so we have tho follow ing stages: — "Block-pitch"—"tice"—'tike'' —"tyke" (Yorkshiieman) —yorker. 'fills is a scientific theory, and you have to go a good way round to get at the truth. But how precious it is when found! There is wie little difficulty that Mr Lang is not sure whether people did pronounce "tioe" as "tike."

Opposed to this ineory is the much simpler ono that "tioes" wero bowled with special success by Yorkshire bowlers, and that "tioes' 1 were therefore called) yorkers, just as certain sworustrokes were called! 'the Lockerby Liok'' and "le coup de Jarnac." But here again wo havo uncertainty. There seems to bo no oertainty that Yorushiremen did excel in tlio bowling ot "tioes."