NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 9788, 8 April 1895, Page 4

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Whbh the Duke of Lianoourt brought to Louis XVI. tidings of the capture of the Bastille by the Parisian mob that unfortunate monarch exclaimed, "It is a revolt." "Sire," replied the Duke, "it is a revolution." We do not know what the' Hon. W. P. Reeves would have thought had he .been present in Newton on Saturday night, and seen the brilliantly lighted shops, the thousands perambulating the thoroughfares, and heard the olang of martial music in celebration of the " recovery of the lost Saturday evening." Whether the action of the retail dealers amounts to a revolt or a revolution we will not venture to decide; but neither the Minister nor his Inspector can be blind to its real significance. This is not a case of a handful of cantankeroue tradesmen, through • "pure cussednees," worrying an unfortunate Government inspector, but of well nigh a whole community rcbellingagainstultra-Socialistiolegislation, and the pergonal dictum of a Minister of Labour. Personal liberty i 3 more than a current phrase, it is the grandest watchword of a nation's life, and, at least among English-speaking people, something very different from the mendacious cry begotten of i the French Revolution—" Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity." The heritage of personal freedom is a personal privilege, as well as a public benefit, and he has failed to appreciate its value who does nob hold that "an hour of freedom is better than an eternity of bondage." For nearly two centuries the English Army Act has been annually passed with this quaint preamble that "no man can be forejudged of life and limb or subjected to any kind of punishment in time of peace," except according to law, and nearly a century and a-halt ago the Parliament emphasised that preamble by a resolution in which it declared that " they who have no other property, havo a property in their liberty." But true liberty will never degenerate into, or be confounded with license, for those who are jealous of their own personal liberty will most scrupulously respect the rights of others, not merely as prescribed by an Act of Parliament, but as defined by that greater tribunal and that Higher Law "enthroned In the domed chamber of the soul.' Now that Socialistic and tyrannical legislation, with all its bitter fruits, has been brought home to the hearts, hearths, and pockets of hundreds of our citizens they are not called upon to bow down and grovel before the fetish of an Act of Assembly. They will, if we do not misjudge their temper, resist such edicts by all lawful and constitutional methods in the courts and at the ballotbox, acting under the supreme belief that No home is here for peace while evil breeds ; While error governs—none !

The Wilde-Queensberry libel caae has had a sensational termination. The plaintiffs counsel withdrew from the case on the grounds, apparently, that he could not defend his client against the serious charges of immorality which the other side had brought forward ; the jury returned a verdict for the defendant, amid the cheers of a crowded Court, holding that the letters he had written to the plaintiff, and on which the action was based, were in the interests of public morality ; and lastly, a warrant was issued against Oscar Wilde, who was arrested, and who will now be prosecuted on one of the most odious and degrading charges of which a man can be guilty. Id ia a complete and terrible turning of the tables. But yesterday Oscar Wilde was regarded as the apostle of culture and nineteenth century oeetheticisra ; to-day he stands accused of bestial , and unnameable practices.. Wilde was born in 1856, his father being Sir William R. Wills Wilde, M.D., surgeon-oculist to Her Majesty, and man of letters, while his mother, Lady Wilde, is known as a poetess of no mean ability. He was educated at Portora Royal School, Enniskillen, afterwards proceeding to Trinity College, Dublin, of which he was a Scholar, and, on obtaining the Berkeley gold medal for Greek, he went to Oxford in 1874. He obtained first Demyship at Magdalen College ; a First-class in Moderations, 1876; and a First-class in Greats, and the Nowdigate prize for English poetry 1878. He went to London the following year and was the originator of the Aesthetic movement. He published a volume of poems in 1880, and in 1881 he proceeded to America where he delivered over 200 lectures on Art. His drama of " Vera" was produced in New York in 1882; " The Happy Prince and other Fairy Tales" was published in 1888. He is also the author of " Dorian Gray "} " The Duchess of Padua,'' a five-act tragedy produced at the Star Theatre, New York, lin 1891; " Lady Windermere's Fan," a ' successful comedy produced at the St. James's Theatre, London, in 1892 ; " Salome," a play written in French for Sara Bernhardt; " A Woman of No Importance," a comedy produced ao the Haymarket Theatre in 1893; and a farcical piece entitled "The Importance of being Earnest," which was produced afc the St. James's Theatre, London, last February. He has also contributed many clever articles to the loading magazines. In 1884 he married Constance, daughter of Mr. Horace Lloyd, Q.C., and has a son and daughter aged respectively 10 and 9 years.

The question of the employment of boy labour, which is at present exercising the Boilermakers' Trades Union in Wellington is, curiously enough, not unknown in China, where the unions have a characteristically oriental method of enforcing their decrees. The Gold Beaters' Union of Souchow—the Athens of China—some time ago wreaked a terrible vengeance on one of their craft. Gold leaf was needed to an unusual amount for the Emperor. One of the crafb represented to the magistrate that if he were allowed to take a number of apprentices the work would be greatly expedited, and having obtained permission, he proceeded to engage a great many apprentices, violating thereby a law of the trade which disallowed an employer to take mora than one apprentice at a time. His conduct infuriated the craft, and the word passed round, " Biting to death is nob a capital offence." One hundred and twenty-three of them rushed on the miserable man, each taking a bite. Death soon relieved the victim of fiendish rancour. To make sure that none shirked duty on that occasion, no one was allows 1 to quit the shop whose bloody lips and gums did not attest to his fidelity. The murderer who took the first bite was discovered and beheaded. ; v v.' •

In noticing the Art Exhibition the other day in this column we drew attention to the large number of landscapes in the collection. According to Sir John Lubbock it is to art in no small degree that we owe the appreciation of nature which characterises the present century, the intense love of scenery, which adds so much to the happiness and to the purity of life. And yet, as he reminds us, even in art the appreciation of landscape is but recent. Ibis remarkable (he says) that while artists have long recognised the necessity of studying anatomy, and there has been from the

commencement a professor of anatomy in the Royal Academy, it is only of late years that any knowledge of botany or geology has been considered desirable, and even now their importance is by no means gene*

rally recognfjed, Even in the case of ib 9 greatest masters before Turner the land. scapes seem singularly inferior 'to the figures. Sir Joshua Reynolds toils us that Gainsborough framed a kind of model of a landscape on his table, composed of broken stones, dried herbs, and pieces of looking, glass, which he magnified and improved into rocks, trees, and water, and gj,. Joshua solemnly discusses the wisdom of such a proceeding. "How far it maybe useful In giving hints," he says, " the profeasors of landscape can best determine," but he does not recommend it, and is disposed to think on the whole the practice may be more likely to do harm than good. In the picture of " Ceyxand Alcyone," by Wilson of whom Cunningham said that with Gainsborough he laid the foundation of our school of landscape, the castle is said to have been painted from a pot of porter, and the rock from a Stilton cheese. There is indeed, another version of the story, that) the picture was sold for a pot of porter and a cheese, which, however, does not give a higher idea of the appreciation of the art of landscape at that date.

The most important news from the theatre of war in the East to-day is that Li Hung Chang is reported to have broken off the negotiations for peace owing to Japan insist ing on retaining Port Arthur. The rumour lacks confirmation, but the fact that ever since the armistice China has been strenuously employed in perfecting het military preparations, and concentrating troops at points most likely to be attacked, soems to imply that from the first Li wag not over sanguine of peace being restored. The attitude of the French Government in reference to the Niger and Upper Nile is regarded by the English press as unsatisfactory and defiant. The Paris press is supporting the Government, and predict ing that, by showing a firm front, they will be as successful in Africa as they have been in Slam. Such are the fruit* of England's pusillanimous foreign policy ! News has been received that Dr. Robertson, the British agent in Chicral, and his garrison are safe, and are not short of supplies. A blinding snowstorm frustrated the efforts of the British to force the Mustij Pass. An explosion in a drinking saloon in New Orleans killed fifteen persons. It is believed to have been the work of the Mafia, a secret society, in revenge for the lynching of a number of Sicilians some years ago. The death is announced of Bishop Hale, formerly of Perth, West Australia, and Brisbane. He was 84. He came to the colonies in 1847, landing at Adelaide, where he remained until appointed first Bishop oi Perth in 1856. In 1875 he was translated to the bishopric of Brisbane, and ten years later resigned and returned to England. In the Bishop's life the decennial period plays a singularly striking part. He graduated in 1835; he resigned his first incumbency in 1845 ; he was ten years archdeacon of Adelaide, ten years bishop of Brisbane, and died after being at home ten years. The rich shoots of gold in the Londonderry mine, at Coolgardie, have become exhausted, an announcement which has caused not a little sensation in the mining market in London, where most of the shares are held Colonel North, one of the principal vendors, has made an offer, i which the press regards as very fair under : the circumstances.