ON THINGS IN GENERAL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 10416, 14 April 1897, Page 3

ON THINGS IN GENERAL.

IXJUSTICE TO WOMAN. In the Heeald the other day it was stated that" an order has been issued making five feet two inches the minimum height of lady clerks in the post-office." It is difficult to imagine the grounds on which such a curious regulation has been made. If it is on the supposition that talent is measured by bodily bulk, it would be more rational to weigh the girls, and refuse the right to any of those to sell stamps that did nob turn the scalo at ten stone. There is an unfairness as well as unreason in taking mere length as a measure of capacity, and the regulation seems defective in not defining the minimum number of inches round the waist, below which a girl would be incapacitated tor making out a post-office order or registering a letter. The number . of the glove a girl wears, and what is the size of her boot, should with like reason be a subject of concorn to the postal authorities; and, indeed, it is difficult) to see any less importance attaching to the colour of her eyes, or how she puts up her back hair. Merc size is a very rudimentary way of measuring character, for itii a matter of experience that the most valuable goods are generally done up in the smallest parcels, and a compact little nugget of five feet nothing may have more " go" in her than a great straggling girl of five feet ten. If mere longitude, however, is the only requirement, the girls should be left to repair the defects of nature by feminine ingenuity, and though it is truo that no man can by taking thought add a cubit unto his stature, a woman has the advantage there, and can go a good way in that direction. The postal examiners will surely not be so ungallant as to call on a candidate to draw back her skirts and show her foot, and if a girl has the chance, rest assured of it, she will make up the deficiency with her high-heeled boots. THE PARSEES. No doubt to many a 0110 it comes as something of a shook to read the recent description in these columns of the manner in which the Parsees dispose of their dead. Placing them on the lofty enclosed roof of their Tower of Silence they leave the bodies to be consumed by vultures, and in a few hours nothing remains but the cleaned bones, which are left to crumble into dust. To anyone capable of rising over the oppressive restraints of conventionalism, there is nothing in this that should shock the mind in comparison with our own methods of disposing of the dead, for between the vultures and the worms, the advantage is entirely on the side of the Parses. In either case' the body becomes the food of living creatures, and though there is nothing particularly attractive in the birds, there is certainly still less appealing to sentiment in the worms that for weeks and months perform the dismal function of returning man to the earth as he was. As between the two situations in which the dead are placed, surely the sentiment should bo on the side of that in which under the puro winds of heaven and tho warm light of day, the wearied body is laid to its last sleep, rather than on that of the glooui and imprisonment of the cold earth, with tho awful possibility of awakening from a trance. As between the two who would not personally prefer for himself the short swift) work of the birds of the air, rather than the slow and noisome work of the worms, " which in itself would be an infinite boon in comparison with the awful contingency to which sepulture in the grave so' readily lends itself. Bub how far transcending both in sentiment as well as effectiveness, is the idea of the body being instantly etherealised by the pure agency of fire, and like the spirit itself soaring away toward < the distant empyrean ? THK BIKE AGAIN. , Like everything else that is an innovation on conventional usage, the bicycle has had to fight for its life. The latest thing we have heard among the remnants ol primeval prejudice comes from the Waitaki County Council, which has not only imposed a tax on every bicycle travelling on a county road, but has communicated with other County Councils, inviting them to join it in a similar crusade against the wheels. The people of that part of tho country are more familiar with the timehonoured bullock dray than with the | modern means of locomotion, and to the chaw-bacons of the district there is some* thing weird in a machine without shafts or poles or yokes spinning along at a pace that startles the bullocks and consumes the drivers with envy. The amount of injury done to the county roads by the pneumatic tyres must cause a serious drain on the county purse, ana in imposing merely a rate of a pound, the councillors ought to.be surprised at their own moderation. As the cycle has come to stay, and the cyclists all over the colony are no longer "a feeble flock," it is tim« that they should turn on their persecutors and "carry the war into Africa,"and the demand of the coming time should be for a cycle path on every highway, whether it be a city street or a country road, which should be as securely the domain of the cyclist as the footpath is of the pedestrian. It is simply a matter of organisation, and if the cyclists only bring their efforts to bear on the ballot-box, aspirants to municipal and local Government honours will be found with cap in hand ready to listen to their claim of rights. There are, of course, lawless anfl reckless cyclists as there are lawless and reckless horsemen, and a3 there are boisterous and turbulent pedestrians for the matter of that. These will be called to order as others have been, when the exhilaration of the first start on wheels will be sobered by reason and fines. But as cyclists are as helpless as pedestrians against the risks of vehicular traffic, they' are just as deserving of protection and should have a section -of the roadway tc themselves. GOLD AND THE GOSPEL. The zeal of the man who, on his own independent hook, wants to show " the plan of salvation" to the Maori in the King Country, seems only to bo equalled by his consuming desire to get money. After flouting all the missionaries that had gone before him, and shown that all the churches are mere money-grubbers and selfseekers, he presents himself as tho only one of all that is actuated by high principles of self-sacrifice, and contempt for the gold that perislieth. Still, if anybody wants to send hftn the filthy dross he tells where he can bo found by a remittance, " if the Lord wills." Not that he likes money, not at all. He pours contempt on the " many who worship the gold instead of God," and to him "it is wonderful how some will try to evade the truth because it costs money." But his exposition of " the plan of salvation " seems to want money ; and if anybody has any of this abominable golden dross to spare, then he is all there to receive it, "if the Lord wills." There are many ways of raising ®oney: company promoting, pegging out, flying kites, highway robbery, but this is the funniest way of all, to make little of gold, pour contempt on the value of it, and then express a readiness to receive all that is thrown to him 11 if the Lord wills." So far as one might judge from the appeal it does not matter particularly whether the "Lord wills " it or not, if the money only comes his way, that he may spend it in expounding this " plan of salvation" that he has got, and which seems to differ in many main particulars from the plans of salvation expounded by other people and churches, which are not actuated by the elevated gold-despising principles that are characteristic of his mission. If with such transcendental principles, why does he not live on dried shark as the Maoris do ? instead of sending these insinuating suggestions to " any one wishing to communicate " with him "if the Lord wills." Thk General.