NOTES BY A QUIET MAN.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIX, Issue 190, 13 August 1895, Page 2

NOTES BY A QUIET MAN.

Vegetarianism is with certain people a matter of faith. They believe that it is utterly fatal to the human constitution and character to cat liesh, and they have an illustrated paper in which a butcher is invariably represented so as to make him quite as repulsive a creature as the inkeeper in Prohibitionist magazines, and the meat eater as objectionable as the drunkard in similar literature, According to this school man was intended to eat the fruits of the earth only, and the fact is disregarded that his teeth show that he is a carnivorous animal by nature. It is said that all the fierce anil brutal parts of humanity are due to ineateatiug, and that perfeot health and perfeet piorals are impossible so long as tho race departs from a strictly vegetable diet. The last assertion is, lam afrad, perfectly true, but then, unfortunately, perfection is not to be looked for in mankind, whatever its food may be. The I conduct ot the vegetarians in China must be sadly discouraging to those of thesamo habit of life among our own race. Abstention from meat has evidently not tended to mitigate ferocity The murder of missionaries, accompauied by the most horrible barbarities, is an exceedingly bad advertisement for the system. Ordinary meat-eaters have no desire to butcher missionaries, and it appears that those self-sacrificing men and women who went to China to convert the he.tthen were reasonably safe till a sect of vegetarians arose. A bull is a strict vegetarian, and yet he can be quite as savage as a dog or any other carnivorous animal. As a matter of tact a (jreat part of mankind is vegetarian, mainly hecau-e meat is somewhat scarce. The Chinese, from poverty, chiefly live upon rioe. They are pretty cruel in their ways, but it cannot be maintained that abstention from puppies and rats as food adds to their humanity. It is a pity that good morals and good manners cannot be produced by judicious diet, but evidently they cannot. We should soon have a perfeot race, but even a long course of haricot beans does not secure immunity from human failings.

A man whom I knew in New Zealand told me that once he went back to England after his father had married a third time, and that he created domestic .discord by an indiscreet allusion to Bhiobeard. This of course was vtu-y unoivil, and did not tend to cordial relations between father and son. His Grace the Duke of Argyll, who has now reaohed the matureage of seventy-throe, has lately taken for his third wife a young lady of twenty-one years of age, who by the way is the daughter of a gentleman who onoe lived in New Zealand. I wonder how the Duke's ohildren look on tho matoh, and how it is regarded by Her Majesty, in whose household the young Duchess held office. The Queen and the Duke are conueoted by marriage, and things now are a little mixed. The Duchess at twenty-one is now in the position of mother to tho Mur<juis of Lome, and of ooqrso also to his wife the Princess Louise, But the Queen is really mother to tho Princess, and counts as tho same lo her husband. Lord Lome is somewbora approaching fifty years of age, and as for his wife I do not like to talk about a lady's ago, but in tho oase of a royal personage it can be soon in all tho almanacs, Their new mamma might very well so fai' as age is concerned be tbeir daughter. Curiously enough, she is a grandnlece by marriage of tho Duke's sister. The pedigrees and family connections of great nobles aro exceedingly interesting to many thousands of people, as is shown by tbe populurity of the Peerages published annuallv. Noblesse obliijc, and it should oblige a man of the Duke of Argyll's rank and fame not to mako Jhis family connections too complicated. To make a girl of twonty-one mother-in-law to a daughter of the Queen is too muoh altogether. Her Majesty is over seventy-six years of age, and tbe contrast is too great. I believe that oven Bluebeard or King Henry tho Eighth would have had more respect for public opinion.

A favourable term of reproach among New Zealand politicians is the word " Tury." Sir ltobert Stout was once ve:y fond of it, but since he has allied himself to thoso to whom he used to apply it lie lias given it up. Dr Johnson in his dictionary defined tbo word as meaniug " a friend of Government in Church aud State," and if he was right tho title was surely one of honour. At least an enemy of government iu Church and State is not an admirable character. For a considerable period of English history the Tories were not particularly friendly to the existing Covermneut. The word liko most nicknames, changed its meaning greatly from time to time, and at the time when it was last in common use meant, not an upholder of royal prerogatives, but of class privileges. In my younger days I have seen Toryism can ied theoretically to the utmost e.\ tremo by exceedingly worthy people. It was not found so muoli among tlioo of great wealth who had the opportunity of travelling and mixing among their fellow creatures, as among the small landowners who seldom left their own estates and were immensely proud of their bfrtb. Any new-comer who purchased land in the neighbourhood, however rich he might be, was held at arms' length, unless it was clearly shown that lie had sprung from the landed class. But with all tl|is absurdity there was a great, cleal

of kiniuess. The family knew every man, woman, and child on the estate, and its members were so secure in their position that they could afford to be friendly 'with all. The state of society was picturesque, but would have been hateful to the fort of a modern radical. Jack was not held to be so good as his roaster, and this was so fully admitted that the master did not require to assert his superiority to Jack, and the two very often contrived to be very good friends. Indeed an old servant often tyrannised over master and mistress in a way which would not be tolerated in a household where more modern vic^y3 prevail. Perhaps things are better as they are now, but the old order had some merits.

I wonder what bas become of Mr R. J. Smythe, who used to visit Nelson occasionally with celebrated lecturers and singers. He passed us by at all events twice, when be brought Dr Talmage and Mrs Besant to New Zealand, and possibly he did so out of compliment to the intelligence and good taste of tbe place Dr Talmage had greai fame in the United States, but from the iew extracts which I saw in newspapers from his lectures in the colonies he seemed to be given to using up rather poor and old jokes. ki for Mrs Besant her Bubjeot was not in the least interesting to me. I never could wade throuah a book on theosophy, and if my lifo depended on it I could not tell what it means, or the process by which its followers profess to attain to the divine wisdom. Tho most interesting person ever brought round by Mr Smythe was undoubtedly Mr Stanley, A good many people regard his methods in Africa with disfavour, but it cannot ba denied that he is a man of great note, who bas done more to make the interior o£ Africa known than almost any one else who ever lived. After having suoh a star Mr Smythe must have found himself in the difficuty that he could not bope to beat his previous performance, He is under the difficulty that his lecturers must all be able to speak English, and therefore the greater number of foreign notabilities are useless to him. It has been suggested that he should run himself and give lectures on his ow'n experiences in searob of and in oharge of celebrated personages. I believe 1 he would be about as interesting as any of t them.