TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 13622, 5 January 1910, Page 6

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

In view of th© confiIreland dene© with which the and reform is anticipated, Home Rule, it is somewhat surprising to be told that Ireland at heart does not want Home

ule. Mr H. Stuart Doig is the autho- j < tv for the pronouncement, and he con- ; < Ives to make out a tolerably good ; ise in favour of 'his contention. It i; f -ue, he says, that Ireland still sends , > the Imrverial Parliament four-score ; , ledge-bound stalwarts, sworn to wrest rish liberty from its prison-house at • restminstcr. Tt is true that the fair j ills of Ireland .still ring to the League enunciations of the base and brutal axon. It is true that Mr T. P. ; i'Connor is .<-iill passing round the hat. j •ith undiminished eagerness, among he exiles in the Bowery cf Xew York, ut Mr Doig perceives that the agitation as lest much of its strenuous savour. unds raised in Ireland in support of the ause are growing small by degrees and j leautifully less, and nobody is particu- i irly interested in the sayings or doings j f the four-score stalwarts. "Resolu- j ior.s are still passed at hillside meet- j ngs." Mr Doig admits, "ar.d the de- j lunciations Df tho Saxon, the protest . igainst 'seven centuries of oppression? j ire made with unfailing and mechani- j al regularity. But theso- denunciations j lo not lash the audiences to fury, they j lo not always rouso even an exiguous :heer. The mummy has been too often inrolled; its -lirivelled bones and nouldy rags leave the spectators unnoved, and perhaps a little bored." Ireland, it would seem, has little to thank the Liberals for. The effect of the heavy whisky tax proposed by the Budget would be to crush out the Irish distilleries; while the increment value tax would hit the Irish farmer cruelly. In her present position of sitting upon b- stile and dallying with both Unionist and Liberal wooers, Erin has done very well. Sho has wheedled local selfgovernment and "land for the people" from the former, and a Catholic university and old age pensions from the latter. If tho accepted tho Liberal suitor without further ado, she could not be euro that the national Exchequer would run to old age pensions. At present her revenue falls short of the expenditure by two millions, and she receives this by way of contribution from the Imperial Government. Under Home Rule what welcome source of assistance would be cut off. Mr Doig argues that though tho Irish farmerwill probably vote solidly for Home Rule at the elections, they do not expect to get it. It- is the instalments that they axe out for —the immediate benefits rather than tbo remote and contingent possibilities of thc long viow. A concession in tlio hand is north two in the clouds. That, after all, is the essence of every political reform movement, and the Irish people are no less shrewd in their perception of the main chance than any other subdivision of the race. Paris has been vastly A Tragedy entertained by the ludiin croue attempts that havo Feathers. been made to stage (for rehearsal purposes) M. Rostand's long-promised play, "Chanteeler," or "The Rooster's Elopement." This piece has for -a couple of years been the themo of almost every writer on dramatic subjects in turn, and thc curiosity of the public is being worked up to the highest pitch by the stone. that leak out from the rehearsals. •'Chantecler" is a play in four acts. The first is set in a farmyard, wher. the ooclc (M. Guitry) rules the roost and lives in harmony -with his hem until a wounded hen pheasant (Mmc Simone) takes refuge there, and en snares the heart of the cock. The sco ond act- shows the elopement of the pan into the forest, and the third is a syl van reception in the house of the he. pheaisant. That is as far as the re hearsals have progressed. The troubh has arisen from M Rostand's insist ence upon fidelity to nature. The litth hens in the first act manage fairly well but M. Guitry offers much resistance To begin with, he has to talk withou gesticulating, as his arms are hidde: under his wings. Then M. Rostaw tried hard to fix over his mouth au chin a beak to be worked with a string This wes too much for the actor, anM. Rostand will have to be satisfie with a beak that is a prolongation c tho nose. And then M. Guitry has t fight the American cock (M. Aurelin I_ydney), to use his spurs, and to lea high into the air. M. Jean Ooqueli plays the part of the dog, which is a ways following the.cock. M. Coqueb declared that it was impossible for hii to go on all fours, and so a pair ( doggy hind legs was then mado for hii out of cardboard, with his own legs 1 act as forelegs, but poor Jean bore r resemblance to a dog nor to any know animal, looking like a fantastic hybr: with a bull's body and a d-g's hea< The blackbird and the pigeon disco ered almost insuperable difficulties ; the way of their comporting thei_selv< with bird-like sang froid. Mme. Simoi is pleased enough with her part as tl hen pheasant, but as her kissing scei with the mammoth rooster consis merely in a nibbing of beaks, she mi conceive some fatal objection to tl process before the play is present! to the public. The piece, howovc promises to be a great success, and loi before the date fixed for the prodii tion first night stalls were being eager snapped up at £4 each, while o agency was said to have bought i the whole front row of the balcony sta for tbe first ninety nights at £2 a sti a is quite unprecedent in the annals of any Paris theatre. Accepting the vi< Polar that the commit! Hallucination, of the Danish TJi rersity which ; cently examined the proofs submitt by Dr. Cook in favour of his esserti that he had reached the North Poifinally disposed of his pretensions, Dr. Ernest Jones, Inspector-Gen _ral of the Insane for Victoria, submits a most interesting generalisation tending to support the theory of hallucination. 'It is quite conceivable," he says, "that an Arctic explorer, undergoing privations and spending a long time in solitary wastes, might become possessed of an hallucination. Shackleton spoke of the extraordinary influence of polar desolation. A mind continually dwelling on and anticipating some achievement might come to an erroneous perception of what has happened." Hal- , lucinations, it would aj-peer, are I sharply divided from delusions. A delusion might be produced l by long brooding upon a particular subject, whereas an hallucination require-, tha : assistance of outward influence!., such as the affection of one of the special I senses, and particularly that of hear- | ing. Dr. Jones gives specific instances

* hellucinations b_ing bolstered up by iarv entries. In one of these he reite. that a patient, who believed himslf to be the Almighty, was conversing ■i:h him, when he suddenly broke off nd said, "Did you see that?" ''Did se. what?" Dr. Jones asked. "That __ of light. Ah! I must make an ntry of that." With that he prouced a sheet of palter, and wrote hat the heavens had opened, and a oice had proclaimed him. Many of >r. Cook's friends have concluded that ,c is the victim of a delusion. On Dr. 'ones's showing, if he is «fflicte<l with mything of the kind it is clearly an lallucination. Neither conclusion is >articularly flattering to the intrepid •xplorer, and if there is no point of no re practical purpose to be cleared ip than the question of what form of nenial .'(---slip has affected Dr. :ook's outlook u,pk.n the cold facts with vhich he is dealing, it would be very nuch more acceptable to the public if ie should be permitted at this stage i supposing his claims to be baseless) to sink gently into the obscurity from -vhich ho never should have emerged.