ON THINGS IN GENERAL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 11869, 22 January 1902, Page 3

ON THINGS IN GENERAL.

• _ •; ACCESSION DAY. To-day is the first anniversary of the commencement of King Edward VII. reign, and I cannot let it pass without a word. We can hardly expect) January 22 to be honoured as Accession Day for so many years as June 20, the day on which Queen Victoria ascended the tin-one of her ancestors, but we hope it will enjoy a good innings. The new service is no doubt an improvement from a liturgical point of view, but it seems to have lost much of its old-time vigour. For instance, that plain-speaking, old collect is gone that calls on the Almighty to hide the King " from the gathering together of the froward, and from the insurrection of wicked doers. Do Thou weaken the hands, blast the designs, and defeat the enterprises of all his enemies, that no secret conspiracies, nor open violences, may disquiet his reign." But such vehement words sound" shocking in these namby-pamby days, when we almost feel called upon to apologise for each Boer we kill in battle, > and actually offer to appoint the leaders of our enemies inspectors of our concentration camps. Judging by what was occasionally done in the good old days when all was fair in love and war, the commanders of the opposing hosts in those stirring times might indeed have been invited to come and have a look at the concentration camps if they went ins for such things, but the probabilities are that the visitors would never have gone back again. W hen one thinks of the consideration which has been shown to our enemies by Kitchener, who has the reputation of being an austere man, it is hard to imagine what would happen under a more gentle British Commander-in-Chief. I suppose we would inform our enemies as to the time and place of each attack, and give them at least a week's notice so that they might be prepared.

LONG LIVE THE KING. But I am wandering away from the subject —Accession Day. The King's harshest critics must admit that he has behaved splendidly during his first year of Kingship. Edward VII. has proved himself every inch a. King. He has his imperfections. Who has not ? But he also has many of what Shakespere calls the King-becoming virtues— As justice, verity temperance, stableness, Bounty, perseverance, mercy, lowliness, Devotion, patience, courage, fortitude.

That all these virtues should be combined in one man, even though' he be a King, is too much to expect; but take King- Edward and his gracious lady, our Queen Alexandra, together, and I verily believe that without exaggeration I may say that everyone of Shakespere's Iving-becoming virtues will be accounted for between them. Every loyal subject will hope that it may be the lot of our King and Queen in health and wealth long to live, and it is interesting to find that the tendency to live long among European Sovereigns is increasing. In the year 1849 there were no fewer than 51 sovereigns on the Continent; but of these there was only one who was over 70 years of age. King Ernst August, a son of George 111. of England, who died in the same year. At the present time there are no fewer than 40 members of reigning houses who are oyer 70 years of age, the senior of whom is the Grand Duke of Luxemburg, who is in his 85th year. The sovereigns over 70 are the King'of Denmark (aged 83), the Duke of Anhalt (in his 71st year), the Grand Duke of Baden (aged 75), the Prince Regent of Bavaria (aged 80), the Grand Duke of Meck-lenburg-Strelitz (aged 82). the Emperor of j Austria (who is in his 71st year), Prince George of Prussia, the Duke of Saxe-Meinin-gen, and the Duke of Saxe-Altenburg (aged 75). the King of Saxony (who is in his 74th year), the Prince of Schwarzburg-Sonder-hausen (who is 70), and the King of Norway (who is 72).

THE HANDY. MAN. It is wonderful how the hearts of the people go out to the handy man who is just now a familiar figure in the streets of Auckland; but in his case there is no truth in the old saving that familiarity breeds contempt. We like, to see the win-ships in our harbour, and the man-o'-warsmen in our streets. The handy man is not quite an angel, but we love him as much as if be were. He always, looks his part, and looks equally at home in his smart and clean church parade attire, or in his working costumeat times without boots and socks, and with coat sleeves up to the elbows. There is no doubt he can behave well. He can be grave as well as gay when the occasion fits. I saw the church parade on Sunday, and it did my eyes good. Seat-holders without a murmur gave up their accustomed places so that our sailor boys should have the front seats. And so they ought. Those seats were never occupied by better behaved rows of worshippers, who themselves were neaily worshipped, for the congregation, outside the church at any rate, especially the ladies, made no attempt to conceal their glances of pride and admiration at the Jack taTs. Some people would be spoilt by so much praise and admiration, but the handy man is not built of stuff that spoils in any weather, fair or foul. The romance that attaches itself to the sailor never seems to die.

Sailor tales to sailor tunes, ■ Storm and adventure, heat and cola, . Schooners, islands, and maroons, And Buccaneers and buried Gold, And all the old romance, retold.

EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. The call for the Ninth Contingent was a bit sudden, and almost took our breath away for a moment, but the colony, from Premier to schoolboy, rose to the occasion, and without a murmur decided that the men must go. Some of us might have been inclined to ask one or two questions, but thanks to the Germans, we kept our questionings to ourselves. By the wav, those foreign slanders have been a great help to Mr. Chamberlain, coming jis they did when we were in danger of falling into p. " let things rip " spirit. Now, all the patriotic fervour which characterised the opening days of the war and the sending of our First Contingent has been renewed, and Mr. Chamberlain is receiving testimonials and votes of confidence from all parts of the Empire, with which to confound slanderers abroad and pro-Boers at Home. These proBoers and slanderers have played into Mr. Chamberlain's hands in a way that must be galling to them. There is every indication that a supreme effort is now to be made in South Africa, and is it too extravagant to hope that the war will be over before the coronation? The present war has given the world a striking reply to the poet's question / Who shall nerve heroic boys To hazard all in Freedom's fig at? So nigh. is grandeur to our dust. So near is God to man. When Duty whispers low, Thou must. The youth, replies, I can.

GEOGRAPHY. I notice that Mr. Alpers, M.A. of Christchurch, examiner of the New Plymouth High School, states, in the course of his report in referring to the geography papers that: " A question in which the pupils were asked to refer to recent mention in the newspapers of places like Omdurman, Simonstown, St. Helena, Manchuria, and Buffalo, gave somewhat disappointing results. If political geography has any educational value—other than a useful form of memory-gymnastics— seems to me to consist chiefly in enabling us to read our newspapers and study contemporary history with intelligent comprehension." lam afraid that in spite of universal education, and a lot of rote knowledge, many of our young people have about ad hazy an idea of real up-to-date useful geography as their great-great-great-grandfathers. It is said that the earliest ideas of geography were derived from the ancient ' world's great navigators and traders, the Phoenicians; and the I Phoenicians knew more of the world than they cared to divulge. Geography, then as now, meant commerce; and commerce as far as possible meant monopolies. To these traders we are indebted for the earliest historic mention of Britain; it is supposed that they found their way to Cornwall, attracted by Cornish tin, as 'far back as the days of Ezekiel. •: But, they were hot likely to call others to share a traffic that was so profitable. Homer/ who imagined the world to be a flat surface surrounded by the river Oceanus, knew nothing whatever of northern > Europe,' beyond certain vague ideas of a • Cimmerian land, part of which had no day and part of which had no night. If we may credit some reports the Homeric conception of the earth as flat is not yet extinct, even among civilised persons; while with savages it is, -of course, the most natural fancy. The earliest relic that can in any sense be called a map belongs to a date about eight conturies before Christ. It is'found on a Babylonian cuneiform inscription, and represents the plain, of Mesopo?

tamia encircled by sea, and traversed by the river Euphrates. : It was conceptions sucn as this that filtered into the Grecian nunc!, and took form in the myths crystallised Dy, Homer. : The Greeks were a colonising nation, spreading themselves along boi. sides of the Mediterranean. We, '"'ho gather our geography from books, can hardly realise how it was acquired piecemeal by slow travel and the force of practical observation, at a time when even the discovery of the gnomon or sun-dial was an important step towards the knowledge 01 navigation as well as towards time-measure-ment. By the time of Herodotus, about four centuries 8.C., little had been done to render geography in any way an c . Xt science; and much of that great historian s own know,'"idge was derived from actual travel. It is true that he also necessarily gathered a good deal from hearsay, and that some of this was absurdly incorrect; but it was not- so absurd when we remember the man's era and resources. The GENERAL.