SNAPSHOTS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XCIV, Issue 10787, 26 October 1895, Page 6

SNAPSHOTS.

Mark Twain, in the character of "the Tramp Abroad," is doing a lecturing tour in Australia, and may be expected in* due course to burst upon our shores. Meanwhile it ia some information to be told that he is “very bke his portrait," though not quite so ferocious-looking. Mr Clemens is sixty years of age, and may be presumed to Lave outlived his ferocity. He does not at all look like the descendant of that gentleman of whom ha has told in an apocryphal genealogy, John Morg in Twain, who about the year 1492 crossed the Atlantic with Columbus, and on landing " solde ye anchor to ye dam sauvages from ye interior, saying yt ho hadde found it, ye sonne of a ghun.” It will be with a sense of disappointment that many people will see the author of “ Koughing It" walk on to the platform attired in faultless evening dress; but, for all that, I expect that people of ail classes will crowd to see and hear him ia this colony, as they have been doing ia Melbourne and Sydney for weeks past. * * *

It ia said that Mark Twain has as keen a sense of pathos as of humour, and that he can make his audiences cry one moment and laugh the nest. Certainly there is something more than ordinarily pathetic in the circumstances under which he has undertaken to deliver a series of comic lectures. The extensive publishing firm of which he was principal* partner lately became bankrupt, and, though the failure was in no way due to any fault on the part of Mr Clemens, he has resolved not to rest until he has done his u’moat to pay the creditors in full. He knows that the law has “no mortgage on his brain," but he recognises that "honour is a harder taskmaster than the law,” and he has set out to satisfy honour at all hazards. It is an undertaking that might almost be called chivalrous in this age of commercial and dishor •'sty. *, * *

When one saw Hudson’s suggestion to the Wellington Philosophical Society, one’s first reflection was " Why has it not been thought of before?” The truth it the suggestion is so excellent a one that the only thing surprising about it is tha< it was not put into practice two or three hundred years ago. For after all, time is only a convention, and like too many conventions, it has coma to govern man without reason aud against his own-good. There can surely be no question that at things are our time is very unsatisfactorily laid out j we start life when the da) is far gone, and do not go to until long after the earth is shrouded in the dismal pall of night. The chief cy against the proposal will, of course, be, as Che cry has always been in such cases, "Impracticable!” but I confess I do not see why. If time was once put forward (or back—l am a little weak in history) a matter of nearly a foitnight, a couple of hours ought to be no great stumblingblock. I should like to see believers in Mr Hudson’s proposal gathered into groups all over the country. This would ensure its being discussed, and I am perfectly certain that it only needs to be widely, honestly and vigorously discussed to \)Q adopted.

As time goes on, the Chinese missionary question looms more and more in view. One would think that the Kucheng massacres might have exercised a slightly discouraging effect on the mission work, but, unfortunately, prospective martyrdom seems only to offer one attraction the more. At a meeting held recently in Sydney, a clergyman remarked that the year’s work in Cuina had, in spite of some “ drawbacks,” been most satisfactory. It is perhaps beside the question to point out that the speaker was not going out himself, only bidding more enterprising souh farewell; and yet, no doubt, this interesting detail accounts to some extent for hb philosophy. If he had formed one of the active fanatics, instead of being merely a sleeping partner in the concern, I am afraid “drawbacks” would not have described with quite sufficient romance the uncomfortable fate to which he might well consider himself destined.

One is always learning, and the opera* tioij, possibly more often than not is accompanied with a good deal of pain, but it is certainly an exceptional shock to learn that missionaries, when they do get to the scene of their heroic exertions, take to pigtails. It seems.to me rather a queer mode of proselytising. I don’t know whether pigtails indicate an advance in civilisation; perhaps they do, though that is not by any means, the usual idea; and one wonders how they manage it; surely it must be slow work. I suppose really it is an application of the immortal principle of give and take. “ I will wear your dress if you will worship my God.” Or, as it has been more coarsely expressed, “You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.” # * * On the 14th of next month the young Duke of Marlborough is to wed Miss Consuela Vanderbilt. It is the old story of the exchange of a title for a fortune. There is in Paris an established agency for negotiating such contracts. One of its advertisements reads thus Marriages. —Several princes, dukes, counts, viscounts wish to marry rich American young ladies. Write, in the first, instance, in all confidence, to Mme. La Baroune d’Bmily, care of the American Eegister, 2, Eue Scribe, Paris.” I wonder whether young Marlborough was on the list of dukes who wished to wed American . wealth. The members of that ducal house have always been of a mercenary turn of mind. It was the first duke, I think, who was as famous for his military skill as he was infamous for his money-grubbing. The late Duke married a rich New York widow, and Lord Eandolph Churchill got a fortune with the New York belie whom he espoused. # # #

While there is thus a fitness in the present Duke of Marlborough selling his title for the two millions sterling which he gets with the granddaughter of a Dutch valet, there need be no sense of disparity in social standing: feit by the bride. She is wedding the representative of a family, the founder of which is described by Macaulay as " a man who owed his rise to his sister’s dishonour, who had been kept by the moat profuse and shameless of harlots, and whose whole public life, to those who can look steadily through the blaze of genius and glory, will appear a prodigy of turpitude.” If hia Grace of Marlborough should ever “cast up” her lowly origin to his wife, the Duchess will be in a position to retort by quoting the above extract. I should hardly have noticed su-h a sordid affair as a mariage de convenance of this kind, only that all the world and his wile are sure to be talking about the “ splendour ” of the alliance, and I thought it well. to state a few bald facts that would help to take the gilt-edging off the event. * * *

There is, it must be confessed, a peculiar fascination about wealth, and we are all more or less prone to dwell with pleasure on the details of a millionaire’s board. There is still a supply of “millionheiresees ” in the United States, for Mr John D. Eockefeller has two unmarried daughters, each of whom will, it is computed, inherit between forty and fifty millions of dollars. A chance there for some enterprising man with a handle to his name!

It is interesting to learn that Baron Alphonse de Rothschild (the millionaire hanker whom some miscreant recently tried to assassinate by an “infernal” letter) foresees the extinction of the wealthy classes—-not by dynamite, but by tbs operation of natural law. He holds that the spread of Socialism and the shrinking of the rate of interest will forbid the existence of rich men in the future. According to a writer in London Truth he has expressed the opinion that ,£4OOO a year will soon become the maximum income. That is good news for lovers of progiesa, for when a man like B*ron Rothschild bo reads the signs of the times we may bo sure that our “cheap money " and socialistic legislation is in the tight direction. When "Tom” Bating

died, and left only four millions sterling Baron Rothschild is reported to have said: "Poor man! I thought ha was better off!” To a man with such ideas, an income of -24000 a year will seem only one remove from pauperism. The Baron is said to be a man of great practical philanthropy. What ft pity it is that he and General Booth have not been brought together. The Rothschild idea of philanthropy no doubt consists of a lavish system of distributing doles, which make the recipients greater paupers than before 5 whereas, an admixture of the Booth method would probably lead to the growth of independence and self-respect. ' PIANETJB.