HE THRASHED THE BULLIES.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXVII, Issue 100, 29 April 1893, Page 3

HE THRASHED THE BULLIES.

I was speaking the other day of old school days, when King Cane reigned supreme There was another, and perhaps a more dismal, side to school life, because boys very soon get to mind a few whacks veiy little. This was the playground side, and here the bully had his own way. We had no monitors or prefects, for it was only a email grammar Kchool as yet untouched by Arnold. The bully— or the bullies, for there were more than one -kicked, cuffed, and thraßhed the smaller boy 3 in quite a roj al fashion. I suppose it could not have been very bad, for I retain no special memory of cruelty and injustice. Now. nothing rankles i&e the memory of cruelty and injustice. One may forgive, but one can never forget Well, here is the case of a boy who could neither forgive nor forget. When he was at school, there were three bullies. They bullied him. They made his life a burden, When they left the school he began to breathe —to hold up his head —to fed streng; but not till then. School days ended, this boy went abroad to New Zealand, where he did something. Whatever it was, he wes always rather a glum and broody person ; he would s't in a corner and scowl. However, he got on so well rica^cially that at thirty he returned home on a holiday. What do you think he did the very firet day of arrival 1 He found out what bad become of those three bullies, whom he had never forgotten. They were all id London ; one was a stockbroker, one a solicitor, and one a Roman Catholio pritst. He found the stockbroker in his office. He said (being now a bearded giant, fearful of aspect), "Years ago, ab Sohool, you bullied me and made my life a misery. I swore then that some day I would cowhide you, and now I am come to do it." He did, with an unlawful implement, long and lissom, yet thickerisb, thi.t curled round soft places, and was red-hot, and was swift, anel was pitiless ; and took an active interest in its work, and was loath, very loath, to discontinue. When he went away the unhappy stockbroker lay on the floor one mass of fiery bruises. Then this avenger sought the solicitor, and, after carefully locking the door, he treated him in similar fashion, leaving, him, as Euclid says similarly situated. Finally, he called upon the priest and told him wbat he hsd done, adding a few words of plain speech for his friends — who were present -to consider, and for himself to rembember. All this accomplished, the New Zealander, a great weight removed from his mind, went home, and was seen at the theatre that very night, laughing as if he had never seen a funny piece before. And when he went back to his colony all his glum looks had vanished. He had thrashed his bullies handsomely, and now he cordially forgave them, whioh is a Bweetly reasotable way of obeying a Christian precept. — Walter Btsant

A flavour of Old World heartiness and grace (says a writer in the Saturday Review") Btill lingers over the entertainments and dances given in country houses -a charm which is lacking to the more s;ught-after amusements of the same character in London. Many a watchful eye has of late been directed against the Booial sins of the capital, but hitherto these critics have not proclaimed that country-house life and its dissipations are eating into our social system. That the dances are more enjoyable than London balls is true j for very simple rensons. The success lies in a willingness to be amUßed, sufficient leisure to enjoy the amuse« ment, and a due allowance of space and air in which to dance. We are apt to" forget that, though society may submit at times to stand packed tightly together like herrings in a barrel, and is willing to try to think it amusing for an hour or two, we cannot expect to see a dance going with spirit unless so many cubic feet of air are allowed for breathing and so much space on the floor allotted to the dancers. Supper to be enjoyed must he earned by a process which the tiller of the soil is supposed to know, anel this can only be done wnen the dance has opened at ten, and has possibly included a reel lasting not less than twenty minutes, while the Kitchen Lancers " have been executed in a style becoming their name. How the sight of such travesties on the figures they invented and executed with such measured and stately repose would pain our worthy ancestors ! In these matters it is well to admit that fashion has no right or wrong, but there is little doubt that the square or country dance is best when danced as originally intended, with dignity and repose, and that when the romping element is introduced into the figures fun may he the faster, but the dancers do not show to BU3h advantage, But, with or without the kitchen element, it is good to see these old friends, and it is only in country houses that they are really allowed to survive. They suit the surrouadiugs in which they ore executed, and it is eosy for the imagination to people the galleries and halls with a bygone generation, and to hear the sound of their feet " dancing in tune." Many congratulations from both sides of the House have greeted Sir George BadenPowell, the popular member for the Kirkdale division of Liverpool, on the announcement of his approaching marriage with Miss Frances Wilson, of Cheltenham. Sir George, a eon of the late Sivilian Professor at Oxford, whose contributions to Essays aud Reviews startled the orthodox nearly forty years ago, affords another irstance of tbe Bucceaß of Balliol as a Oraining-plaoe for future statesmen, judges, and diplomatists. As a young man he travelled extensively in Australia, Africa, and India, and wrota a very remarkable book on our colonial system. Fd began his official experiences in 1878, a,3 private seoretary to Sir George Bowen in Victoria, and since then has hardly been out of harness for moro thai a month at a time. In the West Indies,South Africa, Canada, Malta, and British Columbia he hns done admirable work, and the records of his labours fill a fair-sized library. He won his K.C M Cf. for services in Bechuanalanel under Sir Charles Warren. Sir George looks none the worse for his exertions in rough countries and varying climates. Though he must he forty-five he might well pass as ten years younger. A correspondent in Western Shantung tends to a Shanghai journal an account of the triennial examination just held for the civil or military degree of hsiu ts'ai. The event was an occasion of great rejoicing. The parents of three successful candidates in one village " were presented with a theatrical exhibition by the village, all the numerous incidental expenses being paid by the parents, aa well as a feast to all the donors. The joy and pride of the successful families in cases of this sort are scarcely comparable to anything of which Westerners have any experience." Among the successful candidates in that district were a boy of fourteen —probably eighteen or nineteen in reality — and an old man of seventy-six, who had been trying for the degree ever tiiice he was twenty, and only got it now through the leniency of the literary chancellor. The examinations this year, the writer sayp, are noteworthy as the first in which mathematical questions on the European plan have been asked Apparently only two problems were set for solution. The first was — given a globe ISin in diameter to find the superficial area. The second reads thus: If 8,000 piculs of rice are carried at 13 tael cents perpicul, and if the freight is paid in rice at taels 2J per picul. how much rice is expended for the freight ? Of 10,000 Btudents in Tungch'ang pref- c'.ure, enly one atempted to answer the question, ai.d he was snubbed by tbe chancellor as an ignormt pretender. The result h-;.s been n great increase in the number e>f applications to the foreign residents fur formula; which will evolve cornet answers, A " fci-.ture " at an eutcrtaimnci t given in a town in Maine lately was a " boot contest "' by seven boy?, who tried to see who could put on find lace up their shces in the quickest time.