Notes and Comments.

Mataura Ensign, Issue 165, 21 July 1896, Page 4

Notes and Comments.

* — ■-■■- [COSTBIBUTED.] Gathering from tho pavement's crevice, as a flowret ot the soil, The nobility of honor, the long pedigree o( toil. Though the hand is now cold and the voice for ever silent, Carlyle still lives on n the works he has left behind. "In t\bor is all things made perfect," wis Carlyle's dictum. How different is the dictum of our latter day saints! Nowadays, we live to eat and make laws, not to toil for our daily, bread. The man or woman who is fool enough to toil and slave is considered to belong to the past— not to the present. The latest exumple comes from the Cathedral City. The followers of Clampett and Worthington are going to approach the Premier. They want the hours of labor made shorter. One would imagine from the noise made ' by the workless in this part some time ago that work was in urgent demand, but that sejems to have been a wrong impression—it is not work that is wanted, it is the money. Word comes from the same wonderful " city that a bran new organisation is to be founded, with the avowed object of protecting the, liberty of the people 1 Men and women who have run, among other things, the "Temple of Truth." have surely plenty of liberty. ■ Liberty 1 What -. a fine tap-room phrase ; but how hollow it sounds. This particular league, or society, or whatever tho founders are likely to dub it, is going to be dead against all faddiists and extremists. No Prohibitionists may apply ; in fact, it in turn. is -going to turn faddist and extremist to push on its members' views. Such is v life, of course.; my views are not wrong but the other fellow's are. Curious thing how easily people become corrupt. The Ntw Zealander is quite a young animal, but he is tasting of the fruit that is forbidden. Whenever, or however v or wherever a fow grumbling men or nagging women make out that they have a grievance, straightway they make either for their member or the Premier, and set about laying down the laW— metaphorically ,of course. The women of Wellington lately cornered off the Hon. B. J.S., and at once proceeded to give that gentleman a bit of then: mind on the Undesirable John Chinaman Bill. Now, what is a Premier to do when set upon by half-a-dozen political he-women, bent on reform, but to go with them ? Wellington ladies don't want the Chinamen, but they buy his cabbages all the same. Christchurch, on the other hand, wants both Chinamen and cabbages, and Christchurch is a city that must be nobbled. From one end of the colony to the other the cry has gone forth " Down with drink I Down with vice," and once again is the wise man in Chronicles, correct in his estimate of human nature: "AU things have I seen in the days of my vanity ; the just man perisheth in his righteousness, and the wicked man's is life prolonged." It is the same now as then ; the same folly and sin are abroad, only they aro practised-by a later edition of the human animal. One might well ask "Is there any good in human nature ?" did we not know by past experience on a thousand bloodstained fields, that there is something that is Godlike and noble, something that contemns sin and strives after virtue in humanity after all. The newspapers, however, have taken up the trumpet, and are going to thunder the vices of our blood and the sins of our flesh into our ears until something is done to check the overrunning course of colonial juvenile depravity. Don't you think it high time ' too, reader ? If we can believe the great German strategist, Von Moltke, it is war and the sight of human suffering that keeps the race from running headlong into godless materialism, with its cold, unfeeling moral platitudes. It does seem horrible, when one thinks of it, that out of all the horrors of war and rapine should spring those noble and prrifyingvirtues that separate the human race from the brute creation. From the lurid pages of history ; from the dim vista of the past, or from the more recent doings of onr fellow-countrymen in different parts of the world, we gather this consolation . — that pain and suffering, or danger and death, does bring out some of those nobler qualities that shine like glowing stars above the sun-parched plains of India, fixed there by the brave deeds and noble actions of our fellow countrymen. It is in moments of ex- . treme peril when heroic deeds are done ; it is when pain and sorrow rend the brow that we see vice fall away from the shoulders of its victims like mists from off the mountain top— great storms destroy, but storms purify. May it not be so with the passions, evil and otherwise, of humanity ? But humanity is a compound of many passions — good and bad. Take the English soldier who, on the dreary plains of Russia, swept by the guns from the '. heights of Alma, crossed the plain in the face of almost certain death to secure a miserable peasant child from the storm of ledan hail that rained around it. He saved the child but received his own death wound in doing so. Of course it was only a common soldier who thus gave his life, but what recompense did he receive ? Not glory surely ! What constitutes nobility of life or purity of action ? As an illustration, by way of converse, take the case of the man Caldwell who was dangerously hurt the other week (he is now lying at death's door in the Invercargill Hospital) between Waikaka and Wendon Valley school. To enable the reader to gauge tho case intelligently, I will mention a few facts. The night is clear ; there is a moon', and the evening is still young. The road is a good gravel one, and there is a dance in the -Wendon Valley schoolshed. Mr Roberts is jogging along the road on his way to school with the mail (Mr Roberts is tho Waikaka mailman) in a four-wheel trap, while behind, and going in the same direction, aro tearing along two or three horsemen, Caldwell among the number. By some means — only the gods can explain such things — Caldwell's horse rushed full tilt into the back portion of Robert's trap. Result: Caldwell receives a terrible fall, and concussion of the brain. The reader at this point would do well to remember that Roberts is conveying Her Majesty's mail to the Wendon Valley school, and also that there is a danco at the schoolshed. The injured man is lying as one dead on the roadside. The night is cold _ Roberts is asked to convey the man baok to the Waikaka, but, being the Wailwan, he is bound to deliver the post bags at a certain time, and cannot turn ! Think of the man lying there in the cold night, his mates do not, know whether dead ox alive, and then think of the necessity of that post bag arriving at the Wendon Valley at a given time! No, Roberts cannot . turn. Duty is duty ! Fancy those men and their" feelings as they stand there in the cold moonlight and watch the mail-cart disappear in the surrounding gloom, a fellow creature in desperate straits at their feet. By some means the man Caldwell is conveyed to the house of a farmer (Mr McKenzie) and is watched till the doctor arrives from Gore. The doctor is one of those kind-hearted souls, who knows his duties also. " Cildwell is in a bad way," he says,-- "he may live and he may die." But here again comes into play those fine Christian feelings, stamped with j those nasty red-paper or red-tape rules that fools call laws — the injured man's material comforts are sought to be attended to" by the kind-hearted, but, " No," sry i the doctor, " we must not touch the things 1 The police must see him I Ho may die 1 Just leave him as he is !" Caldwell, poor fellow, is conveyed to Goro '■ next day, and is chucked down in one of Mr Knight's outhouses. The poor fellow ' is in such a dirty condition that Christian men look on and shudder. The police have seen him, and are in charge. The case is a beautiful one, and brings

out in . scarlet those finer feelings pf. our, | boasted humanity' that wo hear yelled! from the pulpit and' groaned out at tbe the street corners. Is it tiot about high time that some active steps were taken to have, some kind of shelter erected 'in Gore to wbich unfortunate sufferer* could bo taken, if not for treatment, then, for d little human attention to the personal comforts of the unfortunates ? Accidents, are always happening, and will cdritinife' to happen, and it says very little for otti' feelings to see unfortunate human, . beings treated little better, if any, thaii brutes. Tbis is a_ matter that calls loudly, yea, that cries and groans, for attention. Years ago some foolish up-country people, thinking the matter of importance, got some money together for the purpose of assisting towards a Cottage Hospital, the money I have no doubt is still in one of tho banks and the Cottage Hospital in tbo . But why mention where it is, unfortunates, seemingly, are doomed to suffer on and die or live as their hurts decree. We do nothing to alleviate or lighten thoir suffering. We would be a nice lot of asses to help our own fellow residents ! If it's a Queensland fund that's not required, we stump out. You bet, we are liberal then. Or if it is some foreign mission that wants a few pounds, wo are there ; but when it comes to seeing to onr own wants, we have not tho money to spare, bless you I How long, oh I how long are thoy to cry and sutler at -our door ? J.G.