CURRENT TOPICS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXXIII, Issue 15900, 11 April 1912, Page 6

CURRENT TOPICS.

QrrcK WEDDIXGS.

A now State law

which came into operation in Now Jersey a few works ago has

caused very great tribulation. Tho law prohibits magistrates from performing the marriage ceremony, and it is said that its effect has been to deprive the State of its “most tli riving, industry.” New Jersey is situated almost within a stone’s throw of tho city of New York, and for many years it lias been tho “ Gretna-Green ” for the metropolis. It has earned a reputation for making runaway marriages, just as the “divorce mills” of Idaho and Reno havo for dissolving them. Some justices m New Jersey used to advertise their readiness to perform ceremonies “ with secrecy and despatch,” and for many years certain magistrates in Jersey City and other centres employed agents to gather in couples who looked suspiciously loving and pilot them from the riverside wharves to the marriage shops. Their staffs included policemen who wero employed about the ferry services connecting New York and Jersey City, cabdrivers and clerks, and loungers about tho town hall in Hoboken, a New Jersey suburb, wore paid to keep an eve open for wedding parties. The marrying justices secured their largest fees from midnight visitors, who often were too happy to care how much the ceremony cost. The justices did not hesitate to announce that they expected handsome pay for getting out of bed at all hours in order to marry runaway lovers. There was no fixed fee, but the bridegroom was expected to give a substantial gratuity to the magistrate. The marrying system, however, became a reproach to tho State. The runners often made themselves so objcctionablo to visitors who were not anxious to he married “with secrecy and despatch” that tho Mayor of Jersey City had to take steps to check their impetuousness, and the State Legislature was urged to prohibit marriages by magistrates, oil the ground that the public morals were being contaminated. A rival Gretna Green still exists in Stamford, Connecticut, but tin's State also probably will adopt measures to put an end to runaway marriages.

An English gentleman who recently spent a week-end at a village sclioolhouse in China has

CHIXESE SCHOOLS.

contributed to a London newspaper a remarkable account of the methods of imparting instruction that are adopted in many country districts in the new republic. The school which lie visited is a private one, but the whole villago is dependent on it, the Government making very little provision for education in the country. There were fourteen pupils, and their time was devoted entirely to learning the wonderful art of reading and writing Chinese and assimilating a little elementary arithmetic. The pupils were all boys, and the schoolmaster told his guest that girls never went to school in the country districts, their mothers teaching them all they required to know. “The scholars,” writes the Englishman, “ need no books excopt their own make of copybooks. The rest is done by the slate and blackboard. The Chinese schoolboy has a year's schooling for about soven shillings.” The fees certainly are not large. In view of the primitive nature of the syllabus the working hours form an astounding feature of the school system. The small hoy goes to school at daylignt. and returns home at dark, and he lias no regular holidays. He works at his lessons from daylight till dark on seven days of the week, Sunday being the same as any other day. In summer he enters the classroom before five o’clock in the morning. He goes home for breakfast, dinner and tea. During the shorter winter days his working hours are shorter, but one of the meais is dispensed with. There is no fixed allowance of time for the meals. When the visitor asked the schoolmaster questions concerning his system he replied simply. “He will come back when he has taken food. When the light come he will come, and when the light go he will go-’’ The schoolmaster had to provide accommodation for his guest in the schoolroom, and the boys had a holiday for three days. Occurrences of that kind are infrequent, but the Englishman says that the hoys are chubby and healthy. Apparently frugal fare and incessant work among insanitary .surroundings have no terrors for them.

A CHANGE OF flag.

A curious situation has arisen in British Columbia as a result of an in-

ternational investigation of the boundary lino between the province and the State of Washington. rp| 10 surveyors have found that the boundary is about two miles further routin' than had been supposed over a distance, and that British CohunI j a o wns a strip of territory which lias | oll g been settled under the American The authorities at Ottawa and Washington are prepared to accept the readjustment without dispute, since the fact of a mistake having occurred in the original surveys has become avpar-

out. But the towns of Blaine and Sumas are the scenes of a vigorous agitation for the restoration of the old conditions. Blaine has 5000 inhabitants and Sumas 3000. and these people have always regarded themselves as citizens of the republic. They have been governed tinder American law, have celebrated the Fourth of July in tho traditional fashion, and have rejoiced in American greatness and prosperity. Now they find that they are not Americans at all. but Canadians, at least, in the matter of residence. The situation is complicated by the licensing laws. The two towns have been administered as parts of Whatcom County, which has carried prohibition. Tho new conditions enable them to become “wet” again at once under the Provincial Hotels Act of British Columbia. The towns, moreover, have been centres of the illicit opium trade, and many smugglers who have been arrested within their borders have been sent to "Walla Walla, the chief prison of the State of Washington. Presumably, the prisoners will bo released, since it is apparent that technically they are innocent of smuggling. They had not carried the opium out of Canadian territory when they were seized. It has been suggested that the Americans should buy the strip of territory that they have governed, but probably British Columbia would not consent to any proposal of that kind. Blaine and Sumas will have to reconcile themselves to the altered conditions, unless the citizens decide to move the towns bodily to the southward, until they arc • once more unde.r tho American flag.