TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Evening Star, Issue 11451, 19 January 1901, Page 2

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

[Froil 06b SPeCIal CokREsrOKDSNT.] LONDON, January 7. THE CARRINGTON FUND. The heed for Lord and Lady Carrington’s Services to the branch of the Lord Mayor’s discretionary fund, established to make temporary loans to invalided colonial soldiers id England,, has riow disappeared, and the branch has been closed. like War Office, after struggling ill the toils of red tape for Some months, has managed 16 make arrangements of a satisfactory nature, which will Obviate the necessity for colonial soldiers raising a “ Mansion House Mortgage ’* on their fairly-eaffletl pay. At Shorticliffe tamp notices have been ifcsUcd to the effect that any colonial soldier who has a clairil for back pay can receive ah advance front their company on signing a certificate of his claim. The amount that Can bo advanced is £5, or. if he has a clniiii, it caii be up to sixtyone day?,’ pay, which, in Some cases, amounts to about £l7. The temporary loans branch of the Mansion House frlfld was sanctioned by the Lord Mayor On October 10, and 104 colonial soldiers have received temporary advances and extra passage-money, the grants amounting in all to £7ol. The entire working expenses printing, offices, travelling, etc.—attOunb to £l3. The Committee testifies to the perfect manner in which the invalided soldiers of Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia,. Tasmania, arid New* Zealand have been looked after by their respective Governments.

It will be noticed that the name of NeW South Wales is again intentionally omitted. Lofd Carrington .SeelhS to have been sofely and foolishly piqued at Mr Qopeland’s justifiable and 'Well-meant protests against money* lending to Colonial SOldlcfs without reference to the AgCnts-General. This Parthian shot at Mr Copeland byj replication accuses not only the Agent-General but the Government of New South Wales of failing to look after the Mother Colony’s invalided soldiers* in London. Such all accusation comes ill from a former Governor of New South Wales. Moreover, an I have already shown, it is unfounded. Mr Copeland contemplates publishing in tabulated form, if he can obtain the necessary Information frdtti the other Ageilts-GenerJl, the amounts advanced by the Australasian Agents-General to the invalided soldiers of their respective colonies. I feel confident that if such a table Is published New South Wales will be found second to none in ter generous care of her firstrolass fighting men. Mr Copeland maintains that the discretionary fund was especially applicable to the coses of those soldiers who, not chosen as members of any colonial contingents, went to South Africa on their own account, joined one of the irregular corps formed there, and from wounds or sickness were invalided Home, accredited to no particular colony. One instance he mentioned of a man who might well have been succored by Lord Carrington, but Who wits referred by the latter to the Agent-General for New South Wales, apparently with the view of giving color to the charge that Mr Copeland did not make proper provision for New South Welshmen. According to the man’s story, he was originally a member of the New South Wales LancCrs, butr'left the corps and the colony to go to America. When war broke out ho made for South Africa, anxious to rejoin the Bancors. but unable to discover where they were stationed ho eventually joined another corps, and was invalided Home. When the nun applied for assistance to Mr Copeland the latter could only explain that his instructions were to afford financial assistance only to members of the New South Wales Contingents, with a list Of whoso names ho had been furnished by his Government. Yet while such a case was referred to Mr Copeland by Lord Carrington, the latter was making further loans to members of the New South Wales Contingents who had already received substantial advances from Mr Copeland. In another instance Lord Carrington intimated to Mr Copeland that a New South Wales soldier was lying Seriously ill in a house in the Strand. Mr Yardiey posted off 6t once to fender assistance, and found the tick soldier had gone out. It i« a thousand pities that in such a good cause, where both Agent-General and exGovernor were doing their best for colonials, and where both could have co-operated with excellent effect, personal pique should have led to serious friction, with the result that the Mother Colony has been represented in England os neglectful of her soldiers. L JOSEPH OF CANAAN’ REDIVIYUS.-*-THE SYDNEY MINISTER’S PLAY DISCUSSED. Some years ago, when the Rev. George Walters, of Sydney, was in England, ho approached Mr Wilson Barrett (then “booming" ‘Tho Sign of the Cross’ at the Lyric Theatre) with regard to presently producing his successful Biblical play, * jp. seph of Canaan,’ there. The great actormanager viewed the piece very favorably, but the project came to nothing through the Censor refusing to license it on the ground that “ plays avowedly taken from the Bible are not eligible for production in Great Britain.” This dictum seemed both good 1 sens? good taste to many people. A

friend of the Censor’s scored markedly by pointing out that, with names and localities changed, Joseph’s adventures might easily and legitimately be staged, but that that, of course, was not what was wanted. The “spiciness” of a Biblical play lies in the Biblical names.. • Everybody—eVery woman, at least—longs to know how Jacob and Joseph, and the wicked Pharadh, and “that bold Mrs Potiphar” really looked. however, their names away and christen them by fancy cognomens, and popular interest dies out. They were really very ordinary people, and extremely like ourselves. Interest in the Rev. George Walters's play hat bfeen revived by ah address delivered to the Playgoers’ Club last Sunday evening by Mr Martin Harvey, the young actor who ftiadS such a success as Sidney Carton in the recent production of ‘ A Tale of Two Cities.’ Mr Harvey explained that ho had been much impressed by a play entitled ‘ Joseph of Canaan,’ by the Rev. George Walters, of Sydney, Hew South Wales. But the Lord Chamberlain, had promptly and absolutely refused to license it. The play treated with taste and dignity the story of Joseph, whifh was one of the most beautiful stories of moral rectitude in the history of the world; and four years ago the play was produced in Melbourne, where it achieved a great popular success. But the authorities at St. James's Palace had intimated that “ plays avowedly adapted from the Scriptures are not eligible for license in Great Britain.” Why? That the aim, the object, the moral of a play should be worthy Seethed to him a thousand times more important in the public weal than that its source should be innocent of any inspiration from what We Were accustomed to call the Holy Scriptures. That a play dealing with conjugal infidelity, of making light of the violation of every moral and domestic tie, should be eligible, while another, representing, as in the case of the one to which he had referred, the bauty and dignity of moral rectitude, Was ineligible, merely because it was derived frdni the Scriptures, Was a state of things which it seemed to him bordered oil the farcical.—(Applause.) Surely, if a moral lesson was to be taught, a stage representation was the most powerful medium for its Inculcation.—(Hear, hear.) In the view he took, he thought he could count upon the support of the clergy at largo. He remembered hearing one clergyman affirm that his faith had been greatly strengthened by witnessing/ The Sign of the Cross.’ Let Hot the great human stories of the Old Testament bo locked away from our workaday World only to bo brought out on the Sabbath, and then treated as something supernatural. Let us see upon our stage the great King David as a shepherd bow, with his sling and his courage and his simple faith in God, going out single-handed against the giant of Gath—a part Somewhat difficult to cast, he admitted.—(Laughter.) Another gf&at attd glorious theme Was supplied by Samson, With his supernatural strength and the awful pathos■ of his end. If Miltons poem ahd Mr Solomon’s picture did not degrade the subject, why should the much more vivid and poignant stage representation degrade it?—(Sear, hear.) To the humanity of those themes—the humanity which was the basis of Christianity itself—was due the universality of their appeal. He believed those things would come. That there were dangers in too great freedom he realised. But those dangers had existed always, and they would always be avoided, nob by the conscience of the community.—(Hear, hear.) That was the great guide we could always rely upon—the great guide that England had always relied upon; and it seemed to him that no institution in. their immediate department was better calculated to fully express that conscience than the Playgoers’ Club.—(Applause.) A discussion followed. AN UNEXPLOITED EL DORADO. Mr James Stirling’s lecture on the ‘ Australian Alps ’ at the Imperial Institute last Monday was far too technical for the large audience which had assembled. Porphyry, diastose, rrtCtamorphlc, schistose, Pliocene, Miscene, Eocene, and the other geological terms were as plentiful as raisins in a plum pudding, but as Greek to bis hearers, who burst into applause when Mr Stirling introduced a little comic relief in the narration of a cave-exploring adventure, in which be and his comrade, having light-heartedly let themselves down some 30ft on a cow-hide ropo, found a hand-over-hand ascent a very different story. The rotund figure and rubicund visage of the lecturer made the yarn all the more piquant. The limelight views, which are always the thing at the Institute, were much appreciated, and Professor Boyd Dawkins, who presided, ahd made a capital speech at the close of the lecture, declared that, judging by the pictures, the Victorian Alps quite outranged the Blue Mountains in grandeur, beauty, and variety. Comparing the vast supply of coal in Australia with the comparatively small store in Great Britain, the professor said he should not be surprised if eventually the centre of commercial gravity shifted from England to Australia. When the Alps wore thoroughly explored and properly developed (hey would probably prove another El Dorado, so rich were they in minerals and precious stones. DEATH OF AN IRISH MEMBER. Though I doubt whether a score of Englishmen outside the House of Commons 'and the National Liberal Club knew Mr Daniel Macalefese, M.P., he was an entertaining person, and his comparatively sudden death will put many other parts of Ireland into mourning besides North Monaghan. Tim late member had had a varied career—shoemaker, clerk, printer's reader, reporter, editor. He was at one time editor of the ‘Ulster Examiner’: and at the time of his death he was proprietor of the ‘ People’s Advocate’ at Monaghan. He was once sentenced to four months’ imprisonment and fined £250 by the late Judge Lawson for contempt of court, in charging the Judge with not “acting impartially” in the Belfast riot cases. “Mr Macalsese (says Mr Lucy) was a picturesque-looking old gentleman, and was widely esteemed, not least by English visitors to Ireland. One incident, and .one only, will suffice to recall the parliamentary career of Mr Macaleesc, and that was his introduction of his famous ‘Mac’ and ‘O’ Bill, the object of which was to give legal sanction to the addition of all such preike*. The humor of the whole tiling, of course, was to be found in the fact that no such legislation was required, as was pointed out by the AttorneyGeneral to a House bubbling over with merriment. Tho Bill came on quite unexpectedly towards the close of the sitting one warm Wednesday afternoon, and Mr MacaJeese. who spoke from his accustomed place on the back bench of all beneath the side gallery, got the ear of the House immediately, and, what was more, put an impatient assembly into a thoroughly good humor. It was a fact that the gentlemen on tho other side of the Chamber rarely saw more than half of Mr Macaleese at a time. Directly facing his seat was one of the pillars which give support to the gallery, and it was no uncommon thing to see the hon. member, when anxious to catch the Speaker’s eye, peering first to the right and then to the left, for fear lest the occupant of the chair should look towards him at the very moment when his face was,completely concealed from view-' ,