CURRENT TOPICS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XCV, Issue 10920, 31 March 1896, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

Surprise is frequently expressed at the ignorance of New Zealand and its affairs that is manifested in the United States, as shown by

AS AMERICANS SEE US.

the questions put to visitors from this colony, and by letters of inquiry that occasionally reach public men and officials here; but all astonishment ceases when we discover the principal squrces of American knowledge of this country and its people. One of the latest instances of how the American public is instructed in New Zealand affairs is to be seen in a professed report of an interview with a lady aeronaut, published in a Californian newspaper. Miss Millie Viola—a lady totally unknown in New Zealand is the

subject of the journalistic sketch. “ She arrived,” ■ says the reporter, “on the last Australian steamer, and, being a globetrotting young woman in search of a new experience, is on her way to attempt in a barrel the dangerous passage of the falls and whirlpool of Niagara.” After talking on this topic. Miss Viola is reported as saying—“ I have had enough of the colonies and want to stay in America for the rest of my life.” “Peculiar ?” “Yes, indeed, the colonies are peculiar. Take New Zealand, for instance. There the women all wear bloomers and your hotel closes at ten o’clock, and if you are out after that hour you must stay out all night. Their laws are such, too, that if one does anything that attract a crowd one is arrested and fined. We, my sister and I, made several ascensions there. One time she came down among the Maoris. They thought her the angel from Heaven which, they say, will come to help them drive the British from their land, and they hurried her away into the interior. We had to get the mounted police and call out the volunteers before wo could get her back. On the way to this country we stopped at the Solomon Islands, where the cannibals are. There we had to wear thick veils, because the natives are very anxious to possess a pakeha waMna, (beautiful white woman), and will go to any lengths to secure one. I made one ascent there, coming down on the roof of a house, which gave' way and let me through.” Of course all this is pure romancing—whether on the part of Miss Viola or the interviewer it is impossible to say. It ought to be unnecessary to inform our American cousins that the Maoris never carry anyone off nowadays, that all New Zealand women do not wear “bloomers,” and that we have not yet solved the problem of how to get hotels to close their doors to customers.

PRINCELY SERVICE.

Certain recent events conspire to show that in the Old World princes of royal blood are beginning

to recognise that if they wish to be respected or rewarded, they must render some adequate service to the sovereign people. It was some such feeling that led Prince Henry of Battenberg to volunteer for military service in the deadly climate of Ashantee. “Who would not die for England P" he is reported to have said when the dangers of the undertaking were pointed out to him. This thought has been well elaborated by the Poet Laureate, who represents Prince Henry as saying:— “ It is not meet that I, whom this famed isle. This generous, mighty and mystic land Eunohled as her son, should not repay Her splendid gift of kinship. Let me go— Go where they go, her world-researching race. That slumber pillowed on the half-drawu sword, And wake, at whisper of her will, to greet Duty and Death, that evermore were twin." Since Henry of Battenberg laid down his life in this spirit we have received news of another Henry—this time a Prince of Orleans—who has received the gold medal of the French Geographical Society, and the Cross of the Legion of Honour from the French President, in recognition of his achievements, as an explorer in Yunnan, Southern China. These achievements were considerable, and were not consummated without much toil and hardship. The Prince, accompanied by two Frenchmen, one a naval officer and the other a merchant, had travelled through unknown country for eleven months, and for the seven months ending about last Christmas the party had been constantly on the march, and very scantily fed. For weeks together they had nothing but rice to eat, and sometimes were nearly starved. They could not even get salt for their rice. During this time they covered some 2200 miles, of which sixteen hundred were entirely new and unexplored. They discovered the sources of the Mekong and the Salween Rivers, and explored the eastern portion of the great Irrawaddy river. The first two rivers rise in Tibet. The eastern branch of the Irrawaddy is divided into four, and the western into five streams, and the whole eventually unite. The travellers crossed the ranges that separate the Mekong from the Salween, and the Salween from the eastern branches of the Irrawaddy. They were in a rather sorry plight as to food and dress when first heard of, but soon recovered under the hospitable treatment of an Englishman, Mr F. J. Needham, at Sadiya, in Upper Assam. The knowledge acquired by the Prince was of service to the French Government in' the recent settlement that took place with England over the Yunnan question.' Prince Henry of Orleans has claimed that he is “a devoted servant of the Republic,” and in view of the facts his claim may well be admitted as valid. If all princes would show the readiness of these two Henrys tc serve the people there might be less opposition to the monarchical idea than prevails in some quarters.

MORE LIGHT ON DR JOHNSON.

A lecture on Dr Johnson, recently delivered in Lorn don, by Mr Birrell, M.P.. is for several reasons an

event of more than ordinary significance. In the first place the lecture drew an unusually crowded house, and aa the lowest seats were priced at half a crown, the fact may be taken to show that neither the lecture as a form of entertainment nor the subject - matter has lost any of its charm for an English audience. In the second place the fact that Mr Asquith, the late Home Secretary, was associated with Mr Birrell may be regarded as another indication that ' the literary taste and culture of the average British politician have improved considerably since the days when Pox and Pitt were the chief ornaments of the House of Commons. Pew professional men of letters could have evinced more intimate knowledge of the great English man of letters or more enthusiasm for their subject than did Mr Asquith and Mr Birrell. Mr Asquith, who, by the way, was announced to take the chair merely, in his opening remarks explained the secret of Johnson’s influence on posterity. According to Mr Asquith, it was the “blending of incongruities " in Johnson’s character that made up the fascination of the whole. “ Repossessed the clearest head and the largest store of common-sense of any Englishman of his time, and yet one side, at anyrate, of his brain was cobwebbed with superstitions and with phantasies.” Mr Birrell, in the course of his address, said that hackneyed as all Johnsonian anecdotes have become he had two new ones to relate. One was of an Irish patriot who had been imprisoned, and who asked his gaoler to give him any book to read except the Bible—with which he professed to be familiar. The gaoler brought him “ Boswell’s Life of Johnson,” which, it happened, he had never read; he read it then, and became a Boswellian. He ceased to , be a patriot, bub a Boswellian he remained. The other speech was by Bonnor, the Australian cricketer, who said he had, not heard of Johnson till that day, but that from what ho had then heard, if ho were not Bonnor the cricketer he w’ould hav« wished to bo Samuel Johnson. Colonials

-prill be interested in this new light on the Australian’s character. Mr Birrell was

grieved, at Burke’s remark that Johnson was greater in Boswell than in reality. But even the greatest Johnsonian enthusiast might, one would imagine, admit this much, and be content with what remained. ____________