“ON TEMPORE! OH MORES!!”

Marlborough Express, Volume III, Issue 136, 19 September 1868, Page 4

“ON TEMPORE! OH MORES!!”

To the Editor of the Marlborough Express. Sik, —It the depravity of■ Home astonished the ancient philosopher, the moral state of modern society, alter more than a thousand years of Christrian teaching, is tar more surprising. One ot your correspondents last week, in commenting on certain proceedings, says:—“The age must be out of tune, and the people fearfully demoralised,” and I thluk the recent exhibition ol hard swearing ” In the Resident Magistrate’s Court, and the admission on the part of a witness that he appropriated certain goods to his own use, even though he thought possible they were not his, and that he did not consider that stealing ; also that it was customary in the way ol business to tell direct falsehoods, and, as Shakespeare says ‘ not meaning any harm,” are additional proofs of our depravity, and the discordant state of the social world. What strange thoughts must these facts awaken in the reflective mind I is not the cause of all this vice and duplicity worthy ol the earnest consideration of every enquirer alter tiuthT How is it that truth and honesty are lauded to the very echo, and yet so little practised ? is the winning of our daily bread so arduous that we cannot achieve it without chicanery and fraud ? These are questions that our friends in the Mutual Improvemeut Society might perhaps unravel. The ■ events on which your correspondent, “ Cum ludignutio” has expatiated, are also of a nature to awaken the astonishment of tho-e w ho view us from a distance, through the medium of the public press; but to me they are more to be regretted than wondered at —not because they have disturbed our ‘‘ peaceful solemnity,” but because they show how little men are disposed to ** bear and forbear j” how the fierce spirit of competition engenders “ hatred, malice, and all unchaniableness:” But us Ido not wish to inflict a homily on your readers, 1 will conclude with the hope that the time will come when meu will learn to respect each other and themselves, and to fulfil the poet’s ideal, — “ W lien man and m.m th-* world ail o’er, Uliall brothers be. aa’ a’ Chat.'* Voure, Str., ■ U. Blenheim, September 18th, 1868.