ON THINGS IN GENERAL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 9832, 29 May 1895, Page 3

ON THINGS IN GENERAL.

MISSING FRIENDS. ';' Nothing more pathetic ever appears in the papers than the home country inquiries for missing friends in the colonies. People come away from the surroundings of affection to the colonies, and, carried along in the whirl of life, and absorbed in their selfish earnestness to carve out a way for themselves, they seem never to give a thought to those with whose anxieties and hopes and fears and loves they were once associated, and in whose memory they are still embalmed, despite the seas and the years that have rolled between. One came away 29 years ago, and " sister Phyllis" asks for him. Another " anxiously inquires " about a daughter, supposed to be in South Australia, and a son, supposed to be in New Zealand. No tidings have ever come of the wanderers, who, if not dead, have probably formed new ties and friends that have shut out the thought of the still loving at Home. Another lett twenty years ago, and now after so many years of waiting, "Sister Emma seeks him." But of all the touching appeals, the most pathetic surely are those of a mother anxious after long years ol silence, if not to hear the voice of her child, at least to know it he is still among the living. One left for the colonies ten' years ago, and he is told that " mother is anxious." Another has been equally long away, and he and the world are told that "mother asks." Another, who has been a quarter of a century away, is told thab father and brothers and sisters seek him, and in brief words but lull of meaning it is added, " mother is dead." In such a case as this, it is hardly too much to say that; whoever may have forgotten him, mother never did, and in that slow and weary lapse of years there had been never a day in which that wanderer has been wholly absent from her thoughts. Bub neither remembrance of the care bestowed on him in the years of childhood and helplessness, nor a thought of the yearning tenderness that had followed him all the time since then, has made him feel it worth his while to drop one word by mail to his mother, to tell her he was well or ill, prosperous or unfortunate, or that he cherished a solitary thought of his old home. She is now beyond the reach of his sympathy or regrets ; but if the man is nob utterly callous he may fairly shed a tear ad the thought that during all those five and twenty years there was probably never a day in which the burthen of that loving heart found not expression in the words " Where is my boy to-night ?" THE COLONIAL CLERGY. The Bishop of Salisbury was pained at the "commercial spirit of the clergy" in the colonies?. They compete against one another, he says, like the hotels. And he charges it all to disestablishment. If the colonial clergy had the rich benefices, and the ancient endowments which their brethren in England enjoy, they could have taken their ease and put on adipose while placidly cultivating a spirit of abstention from the: hard struggle for existence. But as a share in these is not likely to fall to their lob, unless the rich holders of them are willing to part for the benefit of their poorer brethren, in the spirit of that Christian communism that actuated the Primitive Church, ib is surely the part of true servants to accept their position even though ib be thab of hewers of wood and drawers of water. The clergy in the colonies are rearing up the organisations and the buildings that will be enjoyed by generations alter they are gone. And it seems a nobler and more unselfish service than thab of those who have quietly entered on the labours, of others, and seem to look with complacency on their hands unsmeared by toil, as evidence of some superiority over those who have had to bear the burthen and heat of the day.

THE NORTH POLE AT LAST. The North Pole has been found. The discovery has been announced by the German and Australian Post, and the newspapers have started another exploring expedition to find the whereabouts of the German and Australian Post. This, however, does nob lessen in the least the importance of the fact that the Pole has been found, and a few particulars nob given in the telegram, may be interesting to many who have been watching with concern the many and dangerous expeditions that have for generations past been sent forth to find the North Pole. It was found by l)r. Nansen sticking out of a chain of mountains in the latitude and longitude of aero, though the temperature was a good, deal below that, the pole and the remains ol a _ yardarm on it being festooned with icicles, and generally showing signs o£ having been battered a good deal by the weather of that boisterous clime. There was a bib of bunting fluttering at the top, the evident remains of a flag that once floated there, and as the initial N was carved on the base of the pole, aboub six feet from the bottom, it is thought it was last visited by Noah on his famous voyage with his cargo of live stock; and that just like any English Johnnie of the nineteenth century, ha carved the letter of his name with a jackknife ; and made Japheb, or Ham or Shem, scale the stick and unfurl a bib of bunting from the top to maintain his prior possession of the country he had discovered.

THE STORY OF ITS WOBBLE. The expected Scotchman was not there, which shows the folly of prophesying unless one is sure. For ib was said that if ever the North Pole was discovered, a Scotchman would be found astride of it. He was not there. He had left, if ever be had been there at all, finding, perhaps, that ib was too cold, or thab ib did nob pay to waib. The last we heard of the Pole was, thab ib had been wobbling, and that in consequence of high jinks between it and the magnetic pole, the border line at one place between Canada and the United States was varying every year, so that a man occupying a strip of the country, found himself one time a Yankee and ab another time a Bluenose. The story came from America, but then the Pole itself is in America, and though the man thab said it, did nob say that he had really seen the Pole, or its wobbling, ib was jusb as true as if he had. Now, Dr. Nansen had nob seen the other Pole at latest dates in the German and Australian Post, so could say nothing of its wobble. Bub he found this one perfectly rigid, and if he can only drop across the other, and lash the two together, he will be the happy medium of averting the international border difficulty stated a year or two ago to be likely sooner or later to embroil the British and American nations.

DANGER! Now ib is pleasant to know thab the Pole is found ab last, and Dr. Nansen has run up the Norwegian flag on it as sign of possession. Bub more than this must be done, if the world is to be spared the mischief of any tampering with the North pole. For the next thing we shall hear now that the route has been markedwill be that Cook's tourists will be, personally conducted there, and they will begin whittling the thing or ■ mementoes, till there will not be a bit of ib left. Or soma miscreant may organise an expedition for carrying ib off and exhibiting it at some museum of curiosities in America. And let anyone for a moment contemplate the disastrous fate of humanity if this should occur. Everybody knows that the Pole is just the end of the earth's axis sticking oub; and scientists have no doubt whatever thab if the earth's rotation were altered to any considerable degree, by the shifting of the Pole, the whole world would be involved in the cataclysm. If the Pole therefore were removed to the latitude of New York or Boston, the oceans would sweep over the continents and leave not a wrack behind. This is a simple scientific fact, and it shows what a dreadful thing ib would be if Dr. Nansen'a curiosity should lead to the Pole being raided. The German and Australian Post does nob state what, if any, precautions the daring discoverer has taken to guard his prize from molestation except that he has «* floated out the Norwegian flag." '■: But if the consequences above narrated took place, we should have reason to regreb that ever he discovered the North Pole. Tub General.