CURRENT TOPICS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CVI, Issue 12569, 2 August 1901, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

FOOD EBFOKM.

The increase in the pric« of meat leaves the -unfortunate public no other course than to turn vegetarian.

The increase may or may not be justifiable, but it undoubtedly puts meat fceyond th« means of most workers, who should consult authorities on nuts and lentils to discover how they can best make up for the lost albuminoids. Dr Mickje declared in our. correspondence columns a few weeks ago that men and women in the colonies eat far too much meat, and there is no doubt he is right; and it looks as though this evil condition of things is to be remedied by the action of the \ meat-sellers. The time is very opportune for a quickening of the vegetarian agitation, and the local 1 society might very well acquire and distribute a supply of these neat little pamphlets ' produced in such vast quantities in America. The mail brings us a copy of ao interesting tract entitled "Why I am a Vegetarian," by J. Howard Moore. If Mr Moore lived in Christchurch he would reply " Because meat has gone up a penny a pound "; but, living in Chicago, he finds other, and perhaps not such convincing reasons fox the faith that is in. him. The (basis of his belief is both physiological and humanitarian. He quotes Sir Henry Thompson's dictum that "it is a vulgar error to regard meat in any form as necessary to human life "; and he holds to Professor Owen's view that man is or should be essentially a frugivorous animal. " The anthropoids," wrote Owen, " and all lib* quadrumana derive their alimentation front fruits, grains and other succulent vegetable substances, and the strict analogy 'between the structure of these animals and that of man clearly demonstrates his frugivoroua nature." The humanitarian position is simply expressed in Goldsmith's verse j No flocks that Tango the valley free To slaughter I condemn'; Taught by the Power that pities me, I learnt to pity them. '' ' \ ■-"There are on this ball," says ■ Moore, "billions of beings. They are my/' fellow-creatures. So far as I can mak« out,' they have approximately the Earn* right to existence and to the enjoyment oi existence as I have." Therefore; he ecu*) . eludes, he is a vegetarian because, it is logical and natural to be so. The vegeU able world contains all the elements necessary to human sustenance, "and in a much more primie condition 1 thain .they are found in' the diseased tissues of pur mistreated! ' servants." None of his arguments, however, is quite as effective aa that penny in* crease. " ' ■.' / That form of, popular fib-

THE DETECTIVE STOST.

tion somewhat precariously classified as "the detective ' story," has, according tft

"The Speaker,!' a, hitherto! unsuspected value. Wei have been entertaining an.angel unawares, taking gilded' pills in-the belief that they were chocolates, and fostering vicariously the highest "of literary instincts. The substantial virtue of -the detective story, arrived at by an ingenious process of demonstration, is that as; a form of art it has, like every other form of art. down to a comic song, " the whote truth of the universe behind it." It's universal adoption makes it a valuable literary tonic, for it penetrates not only to the bright places among the democracy, but, also ia the lowest depths of the aristocracy. Uvea the common millionaire, we are told, reads the detective story, "for in that type oi narrative his own favourite crimes are never detected.", The first essential value of the detective^ ;; story, it will be satisfactory to learn/ lies in the fact that it is the earliest and only form of popular literature in which is expressed some sensa, of ths poetry oi modern life. It depicts, in nine cases out of ten, the strenuous, lonely life of the big city, aaid the poetry' of a big city is no small thing. It is" a chaos of conscious / forces, where nature'is 'but one.; "It is' good," says the apostle of the story, "that the average man should fall .into the habit of looking imaginatively at.ten men in the street, even if it is only on the chance that the eleventh might be a notorious thief. Anything which tends, even •under the fantastic .form of the minutiae of Sherlock Holmes, to assert the romance of detail in civilisation, to emphasise the unfathomable human character in flints and tiles, is a good tiling." The detective story does another good work, however. It teaches us to remember that we live in an, armed camp, making war on a chaotic world, and that the criminals, the children of chaos, are nothing but traitors within our gates. The detective who stands fatuously fearless in the thieves' kitchen' is"bufc the successful knight-, errant of a modern age. So the detective story is a sheep in wolfs- clothing, As • such its vogue will probably cease. It only remains for some genius to demonstrate that the moral and precise little storks of A.L.O.E. and Rita are undesirable, literature to make smooth the way of many a harassed parent, whose instincts are at war with his information. _ Mr John Holmes, • wlit

THE TICEBOEXE 'CASE AGAIX.

died last month at Becken ham, was the. original soli citor of the- famous Tich

borne claimant, and to hi exertions ths first "successes of that gar gantuan impostor were mainly due. H< owed his employment to a chance meetinj of one of his clients with Orton early ic 1867; Mr Leete, Continental agent foi Allsopp's, entered into conversation in i hotel at London Bridge with a gentlemaif who declared himself to be the long-lost Sir Roger Tichborne, and as about to cross to Paris to rejoin his mother, from whom > he had been separated for seventeen years.' Mr Leete suggested employing a solicitor, and gave him a card to Mr John Holmes, • whom the sci-disant Sir Roger retained. Mr Holmes knew nothing of the. ,Tiohborne family history, but decided to accompany his client to Paris. How Lady Tichborne was ushered into the bedroom :

ft at' the Hotel de Lille et <TAlbion and: there recognised the Claimant for her son, is, *ays the " Globs," a matter of history. To Sir Holmes this identification was proof positive cf the JClaimant's identity, and he was fortified in his belief by tb-o Hampthire witnesses, -who had known. Roger a 9 o boy, Hopkins, tie eld family lawyer, Rous, the innkeeper, Baugenfc, the antiquary,, and Bulpett," the Alresford banker. The obstinate incredulity of the Test of the Ticiborne family -was attributed to perverseness and to interested motives. For many months Mr Holmes' -was undeterred .by his client's extraordinary lapses of memory or the still more extraordinary way in which it was refreshed- by the old soldiers- with, whom he was brought into contact. The crash, however, was not long delayed. \ The Claimant had' sworn to Roger Tichbome's sojourn at Nelipilla, in Chili, and "it became necessary for him to go there and face., the witnesses who were. to be examined on commission. He went, much against his will, in charge of Mr Holmes's managing clerk and the'late Mr ,W. R. Hall, in September, 1868, and within a few weeks the astounded solicitor learned that Charles Orton had declared that:" Sir Roger" was none other, than his own brother Arthur. Then, Mr Holmes threw up the case in disgust. The Claimant's bankruptcy followed speedily, leaving his unfortunate solicitor £SOOO out cf pocket." Yet, in spite of this, the case eventually ca-m-e to trial and. cost the Tichborne trustees £IOO,OOO, while the criminal prosecution ccst the m-ation at least as much again. .. .