CURRENT TOPICS.

Globe, Volume I, Issue 34, 9 July 1874, Page 3

CURRENT TOPICS.

The vote of £BOOO to the municipality of Christchurch, awarded by the Provincial Council in its last session, appears likely to be rather productive of discord in the happy family known as the City Council. At the usual weekly meeting on Monday last, the members generally except his Worship seemed to look upon the sum as so much to be scrambled for, and it was noticeable that the councillors had each a list of works which they had now discovered were urgentlywanted, and for the completion of which this sum of £3OOO would be just the thing. It seems to me that this £3OOO will be a sort of white elephant to our civic magnates—not to spend it —that will be easy enough, but they will have such a perfect deluge of requests for footpaths, bridges, and other good things from long suffering ratepayers that twice the amount won’t meet all their demands. However, I see they are going to try the General Assembly for the taxes, &c., which seems rather ungrateful after a generous Council voting them £3OOO. All I can say is I wish they may get it.

It appears we have not heard the last of the Sunday question, though the Museum is now open on what is called the first day of the week. The usually sedate calm which pervades the classic borough of Kaiapol has been invaded by a daring proposition to open the Mechanic’s Institute on Sundays ; books and papers, versus tobacco pipes, and loafing on the bridge. A great deal of excitement appears to have been created, but the motion in favor of literatue was carried by the casting vote of the chairman. But the funniest part of the thing is this: one of the opponents of the opening announced his intention of moving that bibles and prayer-books should be placed on the table for Sunday reading ; thus, as the objection only applies to the opening of the room, and not to the reading of the contents, which might be done at the homes of the members, offering a direct temptation to those religiously inclined to do what, in his opinion, is wrong. However, leaving apart the religious portion of the question, if the opening of the Institute has the effect of inducing the crowd of persons who loaf about the streets on Sundays to employ their minds in reading, it will be a decided improvement, and the Public Library might follow the example thus set with advantage.

From opening Institutes on Sunday to Sunday trains follows as a natural sequence of ideas. I may say that the deliberately expressed opinions of our legislators in the Provincial Council fills me with wonder at its depth of wisdom—so deep that I defy any one to get to the bottom of it. Shortly put, it is this, that trains may run on Sunday to one particular part of the province without infringing the moral law ; but for trains to run on Sundays to another would be subversive of all the items of the religious and moral code. Now I confess I cannot see why, if trains are run to Lyttelton on Sunday, they should not go to Kaiapoi or Rakaia ; mind I don’t say either are right or wrong ; but I say if you run trains on Sunday at all, you break the Levitical law whether it is one or a dozen. However, the Provincial Solicitor, who states that he knows as much of Scripture as he does of law, has announced his intention of coming down next session prepared to prove from Scripture that running trains on Sunday is perfectly orthodox, and as his forensic ability is well known, we may look for an exhaustive disquisition on the subject, which will have the effect, let us hope, of setting the question at rest.

“ By the way, let me show you the ashes of the late Mrs Blank ; neat thing in vases ; the last new style.” Such, perhaps, would be dc rvjucr when a friend visits Mr Blank at his new villa and inspects his lures and ponates, under Mr Andrews’ motion for

enjoyment of cremation ; but a medical member of the Provincial Council during the discussion struck out a new line, opening up such a wide field, that it deserves publicity. That gentleman, after alluding to the process of cremation, suggested the introduction — at a very low cost by the way—of a new system, by which the bodies arc petrified into stone, pointing out liow one’s ancestors could be utilised as statues in the grounds. Now it has been suggested, as a mark of respect to John OlTivier and other patriots, who deserve so well of the province, that ‘they should have a burial plot in Cathedral square, but here is a far more enduring and economical way of doing honour to them. According to the medical M.P.’s notion, the way to do this would be to carry out the process of petrification —set them up in what has been called the people’s park, viz., the Domain and there they could remain a tribute of gratefulness. What a wide field of ambition this opens up to future Mayors and City Councillors, who, of course, would be utilised as lamp posts. I commend this to the serious consideration of Crs Ick and Jones.

Trial by jury is, I know, regarded generally as the palladium of British liberty, but I confess my belief in this theory has been very much shaken by long experience of Canterbury juries. When a sum of money is in dispute, special care is taken to obtain a jury of gentlemen of education ; but when matters probably of Hfe and death, certainly involving loss of liberty, are to be decided, the tribunal is selected by chance, and as a rule not from the most intelligent portion of the community. Only this session the sapient foreman of a jury gravely informed the Judge that the jury wished to ask rhe prisoner a few questions ! I don’t pretend to say how the evils of the system are to bo remedied, but certainly something is needed in the way of reform. H.