CURRENT TOPICS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLI, Issue 9608, 6 September 1911, Page 2

CURRENT TOPICS.

(By Frank Mohton.) Mattors aro going on much as usual, Parliament a triflo livelier since tho Primo Minister's roturn. In town business is still somowhat (lull and sluggish, and monoy is about as tight as an orthodox Soot on Now Year's morning. MUSIC, We h&vo an excellent organisrtion in Wellington in the shape of a municipal orchestra. Tho players aro nearly all amateurs, who give their services at the oall of pure onthusiasm and love of musio,' Tho orchestra idocs genuinely good work. Thero was a ooncort last night, for instanoo—mostly Tscliaikevrskj and Schubert, with tho _ delicious and popular proiudo .of Roineclco—at all points genuinely enjoyable and good, The oonductor, Mr Maughan Barnott, is also solo organist, a tower of strength. I mention this matter as indicating a. field of municipal activity genorally neglected. Music is it nocossity to the highest communal lifo, and tho civic authorities should boo to it, just as they sco to matters such as ventilation, drainago, and (moro or less) tho public health,

HAIR Certain foolish young mon in Auckland aro greatly perturbed and outragod in their simple silly feelings because when they have attended parado under the ncn military training regulations, a bluff sergeant has bidden thorn got their hair cut. I am glad of thafc If anything I have written has in iho slightest dogree helped on tho military training scheme, and if that soheme makes tho wild and woolly maudlin manikins of Auckland got their hair clippod, I shall not have lived all in vain. The way many of the Auckland fellows wear their hair has always given me much pain. It is tho modorn way, wherovor modernity had assorted itself most wholesomely, to woar the hair short, if you happen also to woar trousers. Even some of tliu women who aro not after tho brooks go cropped. _ But Auckland lies woll outsido tho fashionable belt, and tho towsled trosnos of Auckland hobbledehoys etill flutter foolishly in tho broczo, Some young men up thoro oven groaso .their locks, although that hideous habit'went out ovoryfrlioro olse bofore 1880, A military contingent with long hair variously unkompt would look as much out of pl&co as a mastodon in bloomors. Let us abandon tho more thought of any possibility so preposterous. POWELKA.

Powelka h'ng escaped again, and this time there is at. least a possibility that ho has escaped for good. Tho position is romarkable in many ways, Tho manner of tho man's osoapo from gaol was remarkable. All proparationi had been made for him by somebody wook a or months boforo He merely romoved what was supposed to bo a strongly-fixed grat- . ing, opened a door and walkod out. No sign of him—literally no sign—has beon seen since. A further romarkable fact. In Wollington there is not ono man in a hundred who mako3 any conoealmont ot his hope that tho man Powolka will get cleaii away, Mcantimo, it is to bo hoped that Powolka will commit no further foolish violence, Ho is at largo in a country that is full of his sympathisers. I don't suppose that any prisoner with so many well-wishers ever got away boforo. No sane man or woman can blamo this young fellow for escaping, However you look at it, in eacapo lies his only hope, unless ho is to be content to live out his lifo in ignominy and bonds. Ho hag nothing to hopo from a Govornmont which is composed ol men who, with ono exception, seems to havo adopted a 9 its watchword, "Our Judges, right or wrong." He must know that if ho is recaptured now, his lot will bo harder and more hopeless than over. HATS. Reform is very resolute in Germany. A police edict in Berlin absolutely prohibits women from wearing hats or bonnets in theatres, and provides a penalty of iivo pounds for any proved' breach of the regulation. That is a good law. Woman is sweet and delightful, and whatever you say yourself; but sho is the most obstinate and illogical little creature under the canopy of Heaven. I have hoard ladies grumblo volubly when compelled to remove their obstructing hats in Wellington theatres. They havo an idea that theatres are designed and intended for the display of startling millinery, and that, any man whoso view of Iho stago is blotted out by such preposterous headgear has no grievance. It wouldn't bo so bad if the women would sit still, and enable a man to .settle to somo contorted n-ttirudo that would give him an occasional glimpse of the stago over a delicate pink car. But a woman in a theatre couldn't sit still if her lifo depended on it. Sho will oxposo an offending hat at cloven different angles in as many minutes. Managers do their bost, but nothing short of the polico can coerce a woman in an effective or elaborate hat.

Women's hats arc a groat and grievous mysterr to mo, A woman of taste and somo knowledge will make a hat for herself at a cost of a few shillings that would bo priced at guineas in the shops, but when a man spends twentyfive shillings on a Bilk top-piece, hiswifo will wail aloud over tho shocking extravagance. I know men who swear they can't afford a dross-suit, which mayoost ten pounds and wear ton years, though their wives and daughters think littlo of spending as much on a summer frock that may be ruined by a chance shower, Corset*;, too, While yoii'ro single, corsets seem a small and trifling item, But when you marry, you'll bo shuddering over corsets in a month, maybe. I am not blaming the woman at all. _ A woman of good feeling must keep in lino, and with all my hoarfc I do detest a dowd. The woman who starts a hatlesfl brigade or a corsefclcss society will straightway win the everlasting gratitude of ail tho world of men. Many a

young man who regards a corset as a dainty hiddon thing that ho is permitted to pass a fond arm around in good moments, marries. Then ho finds tho corset a cash-devouring monster that haunts his anguished dreams and half biota out tho blessed sun at noonday. Why • those insensate corsots, dear my hearts? Evo wore none. Semiramis never so much as dreamt of one: tho idea would not liavo appealed to her at all. You can't imagine Cleopatra in a corset, nor Campaspe, nor Hebe, nor a sleek soft gentle fieroo priestess if Isis. Why, then, this wild expenditure of guineas, dear dames and daniozels? Let us away with them. It i 6 a matter in regard to which absence would suroly make tho heart grow fonder, leaving tho signal benefit to tho diaphragm altogethor out of tho question, When fashion, decreed that woman should look as much as possible like egg-boilers, corsets wore ; a sort of diro necessity, and they are almost compulsory again now that the gentler half of tho creation (if you will have it so) must seem hipless, But tho moment wo return to sanity, corsots will bo no longer necessary, and lots of good men will bo ablo to afford an occasional cigars. KELLY.

With heartfelt, sorrow I read the cable tho othor morning that convoyed tho nows of the accidental death in Ilobarf. of Frederick Kelly. In the old Tasmanian days, Kelly was a staunch associate, blunt adviser, and truo friend of mine. In his quaint and whimsical way, lie had a singularly charming personality, and I never knew a man straighter in his dealings or cleaner in his thoughts. Ho- was the finest Remington typist I over knew. I havo dictated thousands of pages to stuff to him, and never known- tlioso flying hands at fault. In those days I did most of tho Government shorthand work, and Kelly was invaluable relief and refreshment to mo. His appealing humour was original and unforced. Ho was a man who stood habitually aside from the world and himself, and had so devoloped Iho pleasant knack of seeing tho happier element jn things. Years ago Kelly was delicate and narrow cheated, and peoplo talked of consumption, as foolish people will. Then he took to the open air, a generous diet, a moderate enjoyment of good beer, and the Sandow system. Ho broadened out amazingly, and became a sort of unprofessod athlete. Wo fished together a good deal, and mountaineered, and squabbled like brothers, and had a brotherly regard for each othor. Kelly had a diminutive dog named Woofat, On tho mountain, among tho snow-drifts, Woofat rodo mostly in Kelly's pockets. On the river Woofat swallowed fish-hooks, and otherwise made an unparalleled nuisanoo of himself. But thero was a queer and genuine sympathy between tho very largo man and tho very small dog. Never was a man more honestly tolerant than Kelly, moro unaffectedly kind and brave. _ Those wore good days, those distant days in Tasmania, before I had settled into respectability, and tho averago outlqok, before Nicliolls had donned tho ermine and Guosdon had ceased to waltz in the moonlight with Mylitta and dodgo Thisbe with Pyramus. Kelly is indissociablo from my thoughts of that period, thst period which, despito niy own blotches and erasures, must always shine as a gold pago in my mind. Tho world and I have aged since then. And now Kolly has gone back to tho gods, and I find some solace in tho thought that tho gods will give him good greeting and a cordial welcome home.

It is the constant tragedy of ono's sombre ago: this slipping away of good fellows one has so loved and trusted. These passings are 60 many nails in one s collin, and ono hates to feel them drivon. And still they strangely stir in ono the indomitable hope that thero may bo something—later. I can't think of Kolly as a man entirely dead and done. That a man departed should livo in tho hands of his friends: that is a good thing, but that is not enough; for the friends, too, must die, and at tho end. in a world whore the loved .winds keep on whispering and tlie stars of God shino on, these men aro as mon who havo never been. I am a hiunblo doubter in many matters, but I think thafc I am getting back ipy grip of tho hopo of a hereafter, of* a state whore old perplexities will bo determined and old griefs stilled. And becauso that good hope is returning to me I cannot sorrow

for Kelly quite as despondently as I othor* wiso should havo dono. I don't think wo fear death much, wo modern fellows; but to that anciont and revivifying hopo despite ourselves we cling. Wo don't want to dio just as we think tho rats and the moths die. Wo love lifo as tho end of life, but we dream when wo are happy of a lifo oxtonded in full perfectness. I lovo and dare to think that my friend Kelly has only gono a stago onw ■ ;'d toward that true lite now. With that hope glowing- in .mo, I do not. grudge tin earth my mother this good brother's bones.