ON THE WATCH TOWER

Evening Star, Issue 15539, 8 July 1914, Page 2

ON THE WATCH TOWER

[By Ariel.] There was a flutter in the educational dovecote on Monday. Just at the witching hour—no. but 'just upon the stroke of 5 p.m., which ivas the closing time fm receiving nominations for the vacancies on the Otago Education Board, a lady marched into the board's office and inquired m dulcet tones whether it was permissible to nominate a woman! For a moment or two tbe official to whom the query was addressed lost the power of speech, but when he recovered from his amazement he was quitei equal to the occasion. He had read a lot, in the daily papers about tbe doings of those wicked suffragettes in England, and here was a local one eudearonng to shatter his nerves. He was not going to allow any militant of whatever degree —not if he knew it—to disturb the •.unruffled calm which generally pervades his board room, so he without the slightest suspicion of hesitation told his fair questioner that her proposition was unthinkable. For he had been brought up in the right school, and recalled the days when P.G.P. the presiding genius and adopted the methods ni Le Grande Mouarque. But the intruder was not to be passed out after that manner; she had more than a fleeting acquaintance with the procedure at local bodies’ elections, and she ventured to think that if the nomination paper were in legal form it must be received, sincei the hour of 5 of the clock had not jet struck. And. moreover, she opined that the terms of the statute being mandatory. Mr Returning Officer might invalidate the election if he refused to receive the document she was intent on giving into his possession. But though quite sure that he knew his duly, he conceded that it might be better, under the most unusual circumstances, to take legal advice on the point; and this he did later, with the result that the nomination was declared to be in due order, and was accordingly received. *******

And the ladv who ha-s thrown down the gage to so redoubtable an opponent as an ex-chairman of the board and a recognised power in the educational world has herself done good service in the teaching profession- 'She is at the moment of writing a member of the North-east Valley School Committee, who, if at all gallant, will record a block vote for her. That, howsver, will not ensure her return, which, were it to eventuate, would be little short >f an up-to-date miracle. In the first place the male members of committees will resent this attempt to rob them of then' privileges; in the next, the Hon. Thomas Fergus deserves well of the Dunedin school committees, whose " watchdog" ho undoubtedly is; and. lastly, the valiant ommitteevvoinan has tailed to. appeal for tiie suffrages of commit tees through the medium of the customary “ platform.*' All the same, there is need of the women teachers of Otago having special representation on the board, and in the hands of -'an experienced lady like Mrs Elliot, who has intimate knowledge of their necessities, these would be adequately voiced and formulated at the board table. I admire the lady’s pluck, but regard her as leading a veritable forlorn hope. But she will doubtless be the possessor of a Spartan virtue which acknowledges the truth of the familiar adage “If at first you don't succeed, try. try, try again." *#■*■****

" Thank God I have succeeded." says the pious Prinzip, assassin of the heir of the Austrian throne. The other day we read that when the police broke up a bam! of brigands in Italy they found indications that the desperadoes had been at their devotions; and one is reminded that the Thugs of India were a religions sect, and always prayed to their goddess before setting out on an expedition of wholesale murder. They regarded their victims a,s sacrifices to their deity, who delighted in blood. I suppose that there are people who feel that they are doing God sendee when they express their own hate in a bloody deed; people who brood over what they’call their wrongs till they can see and think of nothing without its taking a lurid color from the complexion of their own thoughts There are not wanting examples of men being counted patriots for striking down tyrants. There is Ehutl, in the Book of* Judges, who asked for a private interview with Eglon, the oppressive conqueror, and drove, hi.? dagger over the hilt into the fat king. There was Jael also, who drove the tent peg through the temples of Sisera. and got celebrated in patriotic song as blessed among women for her deed. In the Ajxmrypha, too. we have the grim story of Judith •worming herself into the confidence of Holofernes, commander of the besieging army, and then cutting off he: head in his sleep. She was also beatified. But times have changed, and we no longer allow private enterprise in these matters. Those who undertake them are in some sort degenerates, whose moral sense be longs to an epoch away in the twilight centuries. *******

There is this difference to bo noted between the assassination of the Grand Duke and those historical incidents just cited ; Eglon, Jaei, Judith, Brutus, and the rest all struck at- the very man, not at someone else. Like the suffragettes, the modern political assassin does not care who it is so long as he succeeds in making a sensation. This again is degeneracy. It is harking back to the moral ideas of the savage, who, in his revenge, will take any man of the offending tribe. He does not trouble himself with the question whether the victim had anything to do with his grievance. A more unoffending man than onr late king could not be imagined; yet his life was attempted by a political maniac a few years before he came to the Throne. It is sad, but true, that no community can guarantee that it does not include one such degenerate who would murder a distinguished person for the mere notoriety, it would bring him into. Of course, agitation always increases the crop of these undesirables, for it, suggests a motive and an object, and inflame? the weak mind. ******* That, there has been underground agitation of late against Austria in Servia and in all the Servian communities ruled by her goes without saying. Austria is a patchwork of nationalities, and they either all hate her or have done, so at some time or other. From the days of William Tell, whoso mythical story'epitomiees the old Swiss hatred of the oppressor, down to Garibaldi and Kossuth, Austria has been the object of the hate of some section of her subjects. Hungary rebelled in 1848, and was put down only by the help of Russia, who did not wish, to have an example of successful rebellion on her Polish frontier. In the brief struggle with Prussia in 1866 the Hungarians again took anus and secured their Home Rule. More recently the Pan-Slavic movement has rekindled the aspirations of nationhood in the breasts of half a dozen Slavic tribes within Austria's borders. The largest of these sections of the Slavic race are theServians. There is an independent -Servia, and just over the border there are several millions of Servians subject to Austria. For this very reason, in the late war Austria thwarted the aspiration of Servia in every way sho toukl. Servia was not allowed to reach the sea, though, her wish to do so was in every way reasonable- Montenegro, really a part of Servia, was repressed and bullied in a still more striking manner. When all this is remembered. no one,will wonder that there is deep-seated hatred of Austria among the Servian ra-c© just now. The visit of the Prince to the inflamed regions must therefore be regarded as a piece ol recklessness. a******-

It was ths blocdy suppression of the Hungarian rebellion m 1848 that produced the celebrated curse against the Emperor, which is naturally being quoted just now. A Hungarian lady pleaded in vam for the life of her son, who was condemned as a rebel. Finding that the Emperor would not spare him, she relieved her mind after the pattern of the 109 th Psalm: “ May Heaven and Hell West hi* happiness! May his family be exterminated! May he he smitten in th epersons of those he loves! Hl<* to ’wrrccla&cl, and may Kw cls.ildren b» brought to rum I hope iron© of bit readers believe in the potency of eilrses, however eloquent. I am assured by my

•pmtual adviser that they come home to roost, and can hurt none but the author, of them. Yft they have a tendency to fulfil themselves by the power of suggestion when they are widely known. Still, I cannot see that anv on© of the numoroue disasters that have befallen the Emjiem-'s family can be traied to suggestion, or are in any way connected with: the curse. When the -Mexicans shot the Emperor's brother they were not acting under suggestion, and had probably never heard of the curse. The cobbler who stabbed the Empress with his awl would have don© it if no curse had ever been uttered. Tire Emperor© 111-regulated sou, who died in a hunting-lodge with his mistress, was not acting under sugg-afelion. Xo doubt the fulfilment of the devilish wish will seem to many to be more than a coincidence. But then we do not know .how many other rulers have been cursed to whom nothing has happened. «»*»»**

Mr Chamberlain, who has just passed from us, was an example of the penalties that- attach to inconsistency, as it is commonly understood. Had he remained faithful to his, first love, the Radical party, he could scarcely have failed to become Premier. On the other hand, had lie changed sides ten years earlier he would probably have reached the coveted goal that way. Both Gladstone and Disraeli changed sides, but they did it so early that they had not to face half a life spent in strenuous conflict on the other side. When a man has once become conspicuous he is not supposed to change his mind.,; As it is, Chamberlain will go down to posterity as the first great’ Minister for the Colonies. Practical Imperialism dated' from his time. His war in South Africa is not'so popular now, as it was while it was going on, but it at least achieved the union of that group of young States. Affairs there do not- at present look pleasant, but I think the Heitzog spirit will slowly subside, and a- generation hence Mr Chamberlain will come to his own. He showed splendid courage by his visit to South Africa. after tbe war; and had not his party been turned out before things were properly settled, possibly the fruits of the victory would not have been dissipated as they were. ■»**##**

The transfer of Norfolk Island from New .South Wales io the Commonwealth marks the passing of an epoch and recalls a. history. The island had no indigenous inhabitants, ana, in the worst days of the

"lag” system, the most .inveterate offenders and the most sturdy a-sorters of momentary human rights ’found their St. Helena on this desolate islet. It was here that- Rufus Dawes, the hero of Marcus Clarke’s classic work 'His Natural Life,' found a term to his misery. Then agitation and reform bicathed over the dry bones, the convict system ceased, and the island reverted to its desolation. Bui away on Pitcairn Island, crowded in a still narrower spare, lived a hundred or two of the descendants of tho mutineers of the Bounty, exasperated men who had put their commander overboard in a boat, seized the ship, taken her to the Polynesian Islands, selected wives, sought out an empty piace. and finally settled—all that was left of them—on Pitcairn Island. These descendants appealed to the British Government to transplant them to some lees isolated and less crowded place. They were taken to Norfolk Island, and. though the descendants of the mutineers micht seem to be suitable successors to the desperate- characters who had preceded them, they were really one of the most innocent and" religious populations in the world succeeding one of the most outcast. The change was not to tho taste of all, and after a few years’ trial some of them netlticned to he taken back to Pitcairn. This, too,, was done, and a portion of the Bounty race is on one island and the rest on the other. Both are fruitgrowers, and the Norfolk men at least are whalers. Now the old epoch has passed finally airay. The lag and the old mother colony ot "Botany Bay” have faded from the horizon, and bofch the island and the proud State of New South Wales will feel the better for the severing of- the too suggestive tie that bound them. But what will the Commonwealth do with her colored citizens? Will she allow them to land?

* * * * * * * Let us hope that the story from the North of children having wine given them to take to school. ami of their being nractieally drunk at school, is not correct. But it is hard to imagine anything in the way of folly that some people are capable of doing with their children. Yet even this enormity from the North would be only a survival of what obtained among our forefathers. Gentlemen, and ladies, too, trained their sons to nut away a iespccUble number of bottles. Without that accomplishment they would not nave been reckoned men. any more than a iV/al-r is before he has "killed his man. Dickons shows us old Tony Weller delighting :n Sam's boy. and encouraging him to imitate his grandfather with his pipe ami pot. He takes the boy with him in his daily rounds among his friends, and not infrequently carries’the child homo drunk. Dickens tells this without the slightest indication of disapproval; a remark that is true of all the hard drinking record*<l in connection with the name of Picknucic. There could scarcely be a better illustration of the change ’Lwixt now and then. No popular writer could treat the making of a child drunk as a piece of hunter. *******

The art of being interesting, and ff telling the things that your_ hearers or your "readers wish to know, is possessed by so few that it is worth while asking wherein it consists. If you converse w,ih 50 people who have been round the world, about 49 of them will tell you the same guide-book things. They have all seen the boys dive for pennies at Colombo, the electric lights along the Suer. Canal, the donkey boys in Egypt, the dogs in (.onstaniinople, the wheel ruts in Pompeii, the cemetery in Genoa, and so forth. They all find that acres of Madonnas •./eary them, that Niagara grows on them, and that the Siberian railway has luxurious cars, but is a weariness to the flesh. Being interested in ethnology, I have heard a great manv missionaries, but I have found very few who have anything but a. superficial view of the natives or who have really studied thorn or tipur customs. The fiftieth man will have seen beneath the surface, and have inquired into the reason of things. That is one of the points in being interesting. But another point consists in detail and realism. Defoe, in ‘ Robinson Crusoe.’ excels in this, and to a lesser extent in his other novels. Boswell's fame as the greatest of all biographers rests on the, same faculty. Dickens helps you to realise his characters by the reiteration of their peculiarities. Ho does not simply tell you once for all that Rose Darta! has the mark of a. hammer, thrown at her by Steerforth, on her upper lip. but 20 times in the story he tells you of the mark changing color with her feelings. John Jarndyce, too, over and over rubs his head, and shows indications of the wind getting into the east. * * * * * * * I was struck recently by two sayings that bear on this subject of being interesting. A man. who had not long left his native Yorkshire said : “The thing that most astonished, me when I came to New Zealand was to see people drinking rain water. Where I come from it is so bitter with soot that the idea of drinking the stuff had, never occurred to me.” This is a good example of how the traveller, in order to be interesting, should know something of the life and limitation of the people whom he. is addressing. He should observe in his own -country, as well as when he is abroad. The other saying was by a lady recently from Wales. She was telling me about a concert which she had attended: in a New Zealand, village. ‘ ‘ The thing that seemed most strange to ms was to hear the -chairman say : ‘ Mr Jones will now recite.’ In my father’s church there were 400 members, and 220 of them were Joneses. We never spoke of Mr Jones, or of' Mr Henry Jones, but of Mr Henry Jones ‘ by the well,’ or ' by the bridge,’ or * of The Alders,’ giving the name of the house. It was quite startling to me to find that there was only one Mr Jones in this place. Nothing helped me to feel that I was really aw;.v from Home like that.” This lady will no doubt write her strange experience to her frieuds, and that part of her letter will be quoted all through the town. Yet if these two people stay 20 years in New Zealand and then go Home and deliver a

lectuto in their native places, neither of them will tconsider the -Tittle' facts I have mentioned worth relating, and eo they will miss really interesting items.