CURRENT TOPICS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CVI, Issue 12560, 23 July 1901, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

A SNATCHED-AT STRAW.

The knowledge of how to

construct a batter pudding seema a much weaker straw the pudding it-

self would l have been to stand between a woman and starvation. But it actually did so recently, if a story told by Clara Morris in the “New‘York Herald” is to be believed. The production of a domestic drama in which the principal love scene centred round the making of a pudding, in a characteristically Werther-and-Charlotte-like manner, nearly cams to >a standstill’ for want of an actress with the necessary knowledge. In despair, the managers advertised far and wide for an actress under thirty who could make a batter pudding. The advertisement caught the eye of a young lady who bad gone out of sight and memory of the stage as the result of a long illness. She had reached the point of poverty where suicide had come to be more than, the shadowy ghost

of a possibility, but having learned in her exile to cook a little she determined to answer the advertisement. Fearing a practical joke, she presented herself at the theatre and was at once taken to the stage. “ With light sharp blows,” writes the enthusiastic Clara, “on the bowl's edge she broke the, eggs, deftly separated yolks and whites (an. extra touch not in tie bill), beat them swiftly, keeping the golden foamy mass all the time on the inside of the bowl, where it belonged. Tien, as tie flour was added, the manager and author, looking on, fairly held their breath, but on she went ; neatly, daintily, around and around went the spoon, sweeping the white circle of flour into the yellow foam. No spurts of batter, no puffs of flour. When the mass was deftly turned into the waiting tin the two men fell into one another’s aims. “I’ll teach her to act the part!” the author cried. “ That will be easy, since she knows how to do the artistic and difficult part. I’ll teach you, Miss—sr—er—Good Lord !” For the pudding-maker had lifted her closely-dotted veil, and stood revealed a player of small parts in the past. Engaged once more, she made a batter pudding nightly for months, with a reality that was absolutely theatrical, and on this unsubstantial basis reared herself a fabric of lasting fame. Thus are the links which bind the kitchen to the stage drawn closer.

■ EOEGOTTEN PROPHECIES.

One of the most interesting of the early publications concerning New Zealand is

. v a hand-hook issued in .London just fifty years ago by Messrs W. S. Orr and Co. It is from the pen of Mr G. B. Earp, who was a member of the Legislative Council before the establishment of responsible government, and was compiled, as its title sets out, for the guidance of “ intending emigrants to the southern settlements ” of the colony. 'Mr Earp did not burden his book with ' many comments of his own, but relied mainly upon official reports and private letters, which gave a considerable amount of really useful information. The report on the Nelson and Wairau districts was written by Sir F. D. Bell, who in 1850,was Resident Agent for the New Zealand Company at Nelson, and contains two very confident prophecies which have not been justified by the course of subsequent history. The first refers to the. Native race, which even at that time was looked upon as a decadent people whose total extinction could not be long delayed. Sir Francis, who, by the way, was then only plain Mr Bell, did not share the popular idea as to the late of the Maoris. “ The fear that the aborigines of this country will he exterminated by contact with the European race is,” he wrote, “the greatest nonsense in the world. The Navy Zealand Native is a person who thoroughly understands how to take care of himself, and can laugh at those who pity him for an abject wretch, rough-ridden by the wicked -white man.” Sir Francis gave many reasons why he thought the Maoris would live and flourish alongside the 'Europeans—their appreciation of a bargain, their commercial instinct, their quality of acquisitiveness —and concluded with a statement of his belief that the race instead of being on the way to extermination was increasing everywhere. Of course 'Sir Francis was entirely wrong in his conclusion, but we may still hope that the Maoris may yet be saved from total extinction. His other prediction, that the capital of the colony would ultimately be on the shores of Queen Charlottes Sound, seems, however, to have passed beyond the possibility of, realisation. He wrote with a full knowledge of the claims of Wellington and Auckland, but insisted) that “the city of future days” would -be in “ a truly centrical position,” amidst “the unrivalled beauties” of the Wairau Sounds.

JUVENILE CRIME.

Th® statistics tabulated in available books of reference are unfortunately not in

such a form 1 as to allow us to compare New Zealand and England in the matter of crime, and we should be glad to have the figures referred to by Canon Harper at the Cathedral on Sunday morning. But we are not without information on this interesting subject. The Howard Medal of the Royal Statistical Society was this year awarded to Miss Rosa M. Barrett for a paper on “ The Treatment of Juvenile Offenders.” The essay, which 1 seems to have given a very lucid exposition of the subject, was based on the statistics so carefully collected and elaborately examined by members of the Society. Miss Barrett combated the prevailing idea that crime among juveniles is decreasing. Most countries, she said, showed a marked increase of crime in proportion to population among people from sixteen to twenty-one years of age. There was, however, a decrease in nr ny countries of juvenile prisoners, that is to say, prisoners of less than sixteen years of age, owing chiefly to the change of methods and the adoption of reformatory measures. In five countries aikme could she discover a real decrease of juvenile crime, namely, in Ireland, Canada, the United States, Australia, and New Zealand. In each of these countries, also, there had been a decrease in offences arising from drunkenness, and Miss Barrett places the excessive use of alcohol at the head of causes, of crime. Statistical comparisons showed, she said, that crime was largely due to drunkenness, to want of education and of skill, and to physical deterioration. In Ireland there had been a marked and steady decrease of juvenile criminals,, amounting to fully 39 per cent in twenty?; five years, a position which must be attributed to the spread of education and in part to the extension of industrial school methods. This applied especially to girls. In both England and Scotland, continued Miss Barrett, the statistics showed that while prisoners under sixteen years of age were decreasing as the industrial school system was extended, those from sixteen to twenty-one years were increasing. We should hesitate to apply these facts to the elucidation of the Bible in schools problem, but if they have any bearing on the subject we can only conclude that while religious education has proved better than no education, secular education is still better.