A COMICAL CUSTOM.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXI, Issue 6878, 6 June 1884, Page 4

A COMICAL CUSTOM.

{Timaru Herald.) Civilised races are always trying to compel or persuade savages to adopt their customs, and imagine they are performing a humane duty in doing so ; but there are many customs among savages which, in our opinion at all events, might with great advantage be adopted by races calling themselves civilised. From a recently published work ou Guiana, we learn that the Indians of that charming region have a most excellent practice. When a little stranger makes its appearance in a family, the father immediately takes a holiday, lays up, and becomes an object of the most tender solicitude on the part of the women of the establishment, the neighbors, and society generally. The Reverend Mr Brett, who, beiug a clergyman, of course would not state anything untrue, describes how " the man in robust health and excellent condition, without a single ailment, was lying in his hammock in the most provoking manner, carefully and respectfully attended by women, while the mother of the new-born infant was cooking, none apparently regarding her." The diet of the interesting invalid is specially studied, the choicrst food and the finest brands of liquor are procured for him, and every effort is made to keep him in prime condition and good spirits. " This odd custom," the Reverend Mr Brett goes on to say, "probably has ] its origin in that barbaric feeling of a common sympathy between man and everything else which is the offspring of belief in their connection, and with which is therefore related the fear of harm through bad spirits dwelling in animals. Only such crude philosophy can seemingly explain an otherwise unintelligible practice." Unintelligible practice, indeed ! We see nothing unintelligible in it. Mr Brett's explanation, we confess, is totally unintelligible. " A barbaric feeling of a common sympathy between man and everything else which is the offspring of belief in their connection '' — that is how clergymen write books of travel, but what it means, we have not the slightest idea in the world. The custom which it professes to explain, on the other hand, is perfectly clear and needs no long words or complicated sentences to disclose its origin. It originated no doubt in the admirable common sense of a people who evidently have their wits about them ; and the sooner it is introduced here the better. Here, when a birth occurs, the mother instantly knocks off housework, goes to bed, arrays herself in a pink dressing gown, and does nothing for a month bnt gossip with fifty dear friends who never used to come near her before, and who drop her as soon as the excitement about the baby is over. Though there is no one to look after the house, she must have chicken and champagne, and enormous quantities of bottled stout, and eau de cologne, and a fire in her room, and all sorts of luxuries and delicacies which she never dreams of having under ordinary circumstances. Meanwhile the unfortunate husband, the author of the whole disturbance, and by far the most important personage in the domestic drama, has to get a bite of cold mutton in the scullery, or wherever he can, and sleep on boxes in the pantry. If he dares to put his nose into a dwelling-room, he is instantly hunted out by the nurse, or the cook, or the housemaid, or else by some old cat who has just dropped in for a second to enquire after " poor dear Louisa," but who evidently means to stay all day — and whose neck he would like to wring if he thought her yells would not wake the baby. Yet, all the while it is his house, his wife, his child — and he has to work like a slave all day to pay the expense of the whole entertainment from beginning to end. And this is civilisation ! Give us, Bay we, the intelligent and humane custom of the Indians of Guiana.