CALAMO CURRENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIV, Issue 8020, 6 August 1887, Page 1 (Supplement)

CALAMO CURRENTS.

Bishop Neville has ore this learned the e ril of zea l without discretion. He has opened bia mouth, and, if one m»y eo Irreverently speak about a Right Reverend ■"relate, ho hos put hia foot in It. He Is a !aring nun ttiat would challenge to combat t i, o womanhood of a colony ; and if tho Rieht Reverend gentleman has nnt the udouce to withdraw or covor over bis "rords w ith what ie euphemistically called B n expl a « ation of a mUappreheneiou, ho has a ff arm time :in store for him. For, [a saying that tho girls taught in tho S'ate schools acquire thoro a practical 1-nowledge of forbiddon things, and speak an j oven write what they ought not, he moat bo accepted as speaking not merely of the present pupils but of their sisters who have reached the years of maturity, and •enerally of their mothero too, who have drunk at tho same fountain of knowledge. That he spoke from hearsay will be accepted M but a flimsy covering for so grave a charge and in disseminating tbe slauder with the episcopal imprimatur on it, ho cannot avoid toing held t0 h,a responsibility. Hβ was »not speaking of bis own knowledge," ho sv ;d but "on testimony which ho could not but'admit," and " whero ho heard each things bo was bound to believo them "—a position from which ho will find it somewhat difficult to retreat.

And what was tho charge ? That there wa?, among the girls of tho State schools, "n knowledge of evil and an allowance of evil that exhibited itself in ways the moat disputing." This is, probably, ae near an approach to plain speaking as the dignity of his position would allow a bishop to make ; but tho veil is so thin that there is no mistaking tho meaning. And wo have here the picture of the occupant of the very hicheat scat in religious circles, authoritatively besmearing the fair fame of all the ' and voting women of New Zealand, A more atrocious offence than this it is hardly possible to conceive. A few veara eco, with similar recklessness, a young clergyman in Sydney atlixed such £,ti*n>» to the whole girlhood of the metropolis of New South \\ .-»!.•*, but ho promptly bowed before the storm, or he would have teen almost torn limb from limb by the infuriated fathers and brothers, and with the most abject repudiation and apology bo barely escaped with a sound skin > 1 here, there was the rashness end inexperience of vouth to partially condone the offence, but i)r Neville has reached the maturity of years that should bring maturity of wisdom, and if he cannot substantiate tho charges which he has made on hie personal belief, he ebc'ald be branded with infamy a3 a moral assassin. That isolated instances of such evil as he insinuates could bo found, there will be no cne to deny. Unhappily there aro black sheep in every fbek, even tho most saintly, and the sanctity of the atmosphere of even clerical circles ia not potent to repress the exhibition of the evils that are inner entin onr natnro. Bat such a sweeping charge a* this against the whole maidenhood of jN ew Zealand, in the nitre prompting of the malignant spirit of unscrupulous controversy; gad the bolt has been huried against a system of which he does not approve, with a reckless disregard of consequences, and merely with the object of damaging it ia public estimation. As has beau well said by a writer in the South, such a maiiciou3 and baseles3 charge has thrown back the cause of the Bible in schools (or veara, for infidels and sceptics may legitimately say—and the friends of tho Bible mast silently hang their heads in reply — that it the spirit of malignaut slander ia the chosen weapon used by the most prominent of the exponents of Bible principles, tho farther the schools are kept from such unscrupulous hands the better will it be for the civil and religious liberty of the people. It is thus that in every cause, even tho best, there are thoae whose intemperate zeal tears down what the wise and the prudent have been patiently building, and thu world unjustly judges of a cause by the doings of its foolish defenders.

What a bomb has bnrst in temperance circles in Wellington. "Greedy, scltiab Auckland" was the cause of it, and the incident adds another to the wrongs of Port Kick. It was a case of liquor—oound ternpsrance stud it professed to be —transmitted from Auckland to the chiefs of tlio teetotal cause «t lac metropolis. Evidently to their unsophisticated palates it tasted good, ami felt.nice, for they drack of it, and one of them was drunken, and another of them won!:! have been, bat that ho was restrained in his indulgence by the prudence of those who had stronger h>-ada and bore this tipple, and they must nave got generally jolly, and then it may be assumed the inevitable headache came, and they scorned the stuif and sent it b:ck to Auckland, and then they sued for damages. .Now, here's a pretty go, and Burely one ol the most interestingly camples kind that ever engaged the lawyers. Sued for damages ! What possible <iam;c;c could the tipple bare done them? To the:r principles it could not be ; because, according to thuir showing, they wero unconscious siaacrii, and there can be no moral culpability when the oDence was not » wilful one. .No doubt their condition of jollity may Lave baen a cause of reproach to their friends, who to ail their a3?uranccß of innocence may have answered with the smilo of incredulity. But, toiustain the caae for damages they must prove first that thoy were not aware, until taught by experience, of the exhilirat'.ng influenced latent in the liquor, and the very proof of this will destroy the plea of their being injured in the estimation of their friend.", for it will establish their absolute ignorauco of guile. It may bo that, when in their hilarious mood, thoy may havo damaged the furniture, or made a breakage of the crystal. S3 is only too frequent with others who have got into that state of physical and mental excitation wittingly. In such case there would be a clear case for specific injury, hut this special pica does not seem to have been advanced. Neither is there specific mention of the morning headache, which to those unaccustomed to 3uc'.i an afti ctioa, »nd unacquainted with the simple ttiioauy of B. and S. and pick-me-upa as ready remedies, may nave indnced an intolerable amount of prolonged suffering, which might be justly assessed an a specific injury. But in the absence of such iturns of particulars, and speaking in a general way, it sterna to me that tho amount of damage arising from their having had the enjoyiiifcut of a purely innocent " burst" must ho absolutely Kifiniteaimal. The eensatioc, by all testimony and experience, ia a pluasurable one. Under it a man for the time dijen not feel the depression of the times, ami docs not care a dump for any man. I have little doubt that under the unwonted influence felt that tho world wao full or Bun«hine, and tntt life was a genial thing and friendships everlasting, and while vowing eternal fealty to one another they experienced that appreciation of prolonged enjoyment which expressed itself in declaring with musical honours that they won't go homo till uorciutj.

Now that they should have had all this unwont«i!l enjoyment—absolutely innocent enjoyment in their case—without grounds for cither upbraiding or regret; that they should have had this littlo buret of sunshine in the Sombre life which they had conscientiously imposed on ih<!mHelveH ; that they should have had this little oasis in the wilderness, this rioting as it were in the shade of tho palm trees, before taking up their journey again through tho dry parched deHert; that 'bey should have had iho dormant energies or their inner nature stirred to life and buoyaQcy, and departed and nearly forgotten aentlmeDte and sympathies and genialities revived in all their pristine eweetnesa ; that •Oβ? should have the aroma of that elixir «we lingering arouud their UYula, and the recollections of that jolly burat remaining in their memory as a thing ol HWeetneaa and a joy forever ; that they Won Id hare all this pleasure without any th l^ V ' D 8 a '* unooriHciously wandered into JDB tiysian Fields, is surely a condition of Ib <Ggi /or which no judge or jury should award any damages ; ami'if not to the man wno was wholly drunk, at leant to those who ™re merely tm-il.Mv, -.-.., incident should ™n* as on,. c- ■!,,„. JMicioua momenta of Unexpected 1,1- --j- ~...:, which the lot of life « i but rarely K i ; .<!,!,„,<!; and instead of puniemui; tue other tellow with damages, *«y ah&ula tell bjai to do it β^ain*

The refinement of French chivalry is hardly understood by our grosser n&turo. Jean Boule i* a thiok«headed, unßontiinental animal, who, if his temper is reused, takes either the prosy way r.f seeking prouoinry reparation for hin wounded feelings through , tho law oourts, or hits out with his fis'?, and generally demeans himself as a gross creature, unamenable to that finer sense of what is duo to honour, which actuates his gallant allies. In that land where lidee reign*, and where consequently everything is ideal, it is only consonant with the genius of society that the Bonsf of honour should ho of an \;\a\\ nature, and that all its requirements should necessarily bo ideal too. When one man offends another, Uio offended hero breathes lightning and fury ; snd nothing will satisfy him but the blood of tho foo. With our dull wit wo take that to mean righting ; and we hold our breath in expectation of one, if not two, distinguished names disappearing from the page of contemporaneous history. That is just like Jean Boule, the stupid. Why, the honour is ideal, the wound is ideal, an;l the reparation must necessarily be ideal too. It tnny lead to a meeting in the Bois do Boulogne, if tho seconds can come to an agreement »s to whether the pistols ave to be loaded with soap or butter. But should preliminaries bn satisfactorily arranged so as to make it safe for both, the heroes meet, the shots aro exchanged, but, j of course, nobody is hurt; honour is satisfied, and the two heroes, having vindicated the chivalry of Fracoe, are covered with immortal glory. The day when Frenchmen throw away their lives for glory passed about the time of Waterloo. At that epoch all the heroic blood of France was on tho tontod field, and was generally shed there ; leaving, it would appear, but the stay-at-homca and the decrepit to propagate the race. From such progenitors tho modern gasconading Frenchman appears to h*7e sprung, and ideal honour and ideal chivalry aro worshipped, ordinarily, by ideal sacrifices, and generally, in ideal ways. Neither M. Buulangcr nor M. Ferry baa ahed his blood, and tho world breathes again. The seconds of the former demanded " severe conditions," which those of the latter would not sanction. Tho former wanted to charge the pistols with raw potatoes, the latter wished them boiled ; and, differing so, they parted ; the claims of chivalry have been fully satisfied, and wounded honour has been amply avenged. It has been just as tragic as the fate of thj distinguished itinerant greengrocer, who "cut his throat with a bar oi soap, end stabbed hid donkey after." I'OLLEX.