ON THINGS IN GENERAL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 11953, 30 April 1902, Page 3

ON THINGS IN GENERAL.

| PING-PONG. Ping-pong has "caught on" la Auckland, there is no mistake about it. . The game has now passed from the home -to the hall, and .ho public or tournament'''stage has arrived. Auckland is merely following a world-wide fashion. I read the other day that a thousand ping-pong sets have lately gone- to- West Africa, where, presumably by tho Congo or the Niger, tho dark inhabitants watch the rallies of their white conquerors instead of penetrating the rW. fin?- find the lion "a-lashing of his fl, ■■U??\ 8 * mo writ er (a correspondent ot the Pilot) assures us that "pink-ponk" is being recommended by German doctors at trie Continental hydros as not less efficaciouaahan sulphur waters for the reduction '.'. e i IK i lt- !"?' Christmas presents one Lnfelish firm sold over 10,000 sets, and young ladies 110 longer carry to parties a roll of music, but instead a ping-pong racquet. The committee of a church building fund found a tournament more profitable than a bazaar. I he. game has dealt the coup do grace to port. Men no longer sit over their wine, but have tho table cleared with all celerity for the fray. Respectable connoisseurs of vintages take off their coats and shout in tho excitement ot the rallies at tho same board .where once they talked politics or friendship over tho walnuts or tho wine. Girls found that dances disappeared in the last Christmas holidays; their place was taken by the old game parties, but in these ping-pong absorbed all the interest. A trench paper has pointed with much display of historic parallels to this last sign of English decadence. Nero riddled while Rome was in flames, and the rabble went to tho circus when tho enemy were at the walls. England not only plays ping-pong while her soldiers fight, but has sent out numerous sets to the very seat of war.

ANGLO-SAXON FIDGETINESS. Novel before has a game produced ■so sudden and absolute a mania, but tho causes are of old standing (says the above-quoted writer). Tho "conditional cause," Bacon would have said, lies in tho valuable quality of fidgetiness which is an especial mark of the Anglo Saxon. It is not a dignified word, but it has caused many national developments, for which many larger sounding qualities have been made accountable. The normal Englishman, and perhaps Englishwoman, cannot keep his fingers off a good round ball. It has an attraction for him, which he . sees no reason for resisting; so it has happened always that the invention of a new hall has brought With it a new popular game. Golf, though old, and royal and ancient, did not appeal to Englishmen till the gutta-percha hall was perfected ; then no one could resist it. Football came with the new rubber bladder. A fidgety man, like a kitten, requires a ball that moves almost by itself. Lawn tennis, again, did not take root till the happy days when Mr. Heathcote, the most famous of real tennis players, caused the rubber ball to be covered with flannel. Then at once everyone took to lawn tennis. But the celluloid ball excels all these in attractiveness. It is dainty, light, resilient. It looks so fragile and is so tough; it is tempting to feel, to fidget with, like tho trigger of a gun. Fortunately, we have plenty of room in Now Zealand, "but it is not so in some parts of old England, and we are told that in fiats and places where walls arc thin the " ping-pong-ping" is worse for neighbours than "the one and two and three and

—" of a beginner's first tune. One is sorry, especially for those whose youth came when " parlour tricks" were - not. They can understand-the " pitiful patballers" as little as Mr. Kipling the " muddied oaf." One poor old lady, so the tale goes, had a succession of workmen to repair her flue, which piped oddly in its sound. They could do nothing, and the old lady would have left her home had not a visitor ; explained that the curious and uncanny noise in the flue was the sound of ping-pong travelling from the neighbouring fiat.

TIMELY WORDS. -V The Rev.' T. H. Sprott, of St. Paul's proCathedral, Wellington, is one of the fewNew Zealand clergymen who are known outside of their own districts. Mr. Sprott is well known in Auckland, having been for some years in charge of St. Barnabas' church, Mount Eden. He is a scholar and a thinker, and takes a deep interest in all social and religions questions. Therefore when he makes a special pronouncement on any question I always know it will bo well worthy of attention, whether I may agree with it or not. His weighty utterance, which was published in the Herald the other day, on church ifttniimmee, Is certainty Born ttmety and interesting. Most of the community, including those who are not very regular churchgoers, recognise the good work that the clergy are doing, and they are few indeed that would deliberately say. "for all we > care the churches may ,be closed forthwith." When so much in our surroundings tends to drag us down to a state of selfish materialism, the constant witness of tho Christian Church for the higher life and the holding up of a great spiritual ideal is above all things necessary. The Church has, it is true, fallen short of her own ideal, but that is not failure. If one would estimate the great part Christianity has played in European civilisation let him try and think what the history of Europe would have been if that "appeal to those fundamental spiritual instincts of men to which" (to use the words of a modern writer* Christianity "supremely corresponds" were wanting.

AN ACE OF TRANSITION. We live, as Mr. Sprott truly says, in an age of transition, but do tho signs of the times point to the triumph of materialism? Mr. Benjamin Kidd, in his latest philosophical work on the " Principles of Western Civilisation," based on the most modern developments of the theory of evolution, comes to the conclusion that " the winning qualities must be those bv which the interests of the existing individuals have been most effectively subordinated to those of the generations yet to be born." Natural selection docs not. work solely for the good of each being, but in order in the long run to produce the most effective results. The laV of progress in none other than the Christian law of selfsacrifice. Western civilisation, a.? a "reviewer of the book points out. was created by the ideals of self-sacrifice which the New Testament has made our common possession, and to those ideals it must return if it would ad vance. "The nuestioninow is." says the reviewer, "whether he (Mr. Kidd) has not .shown that ideals inconsistent with materialism, and with all systems ot present utility, are involved in the cosmic, process itself and therefore that they must be eternal and indestructible. If he has even come within sight ot success, he may be congratulated on a work that vindicates a" future to religion, while justifying its essential motives and ordinances in the past." Mr. Sprott therefore is supported by the very latest philosophical pronouncement when he says the present 'difficulties of the Church are temporary, and that a happier day is at hand, which will enable *hcr to advance victoriously.

CORONATION FESTIVITIES. . A correspondent writes to me as follows: — "To it) much respected friend, 'The General.' You ask for suggestions re celebration of Coronation Day in Auckland, so here is one from 'H.C.,' Matlkti: I have my mind on Cornwall Park for a general people's demonstration, and if the trustees could see their way to open it to the public on that tlav I cm conceive nothing better or more grand than town and country people meeting there, sports and amusements being got up for tho occasion, ami a largo fancy fair; and as the noble donor, Dr. Campbell, banded it over to the now Prince of Wales as a people's Park, during his recent visit, what more fitting day to open it to the public than on the Coronation of his father as King of the Empire. 1. as a 50-year colonist, humbly offer tho suggestion, and should truly .love to see it carried out if it were possible." Another correspondent suggests: "An exhibition of old relics, say, 50 years old or more, and the money to be devoted to the families of those from the Auckland province who have lost their lives in the South African war." • A FINISHED WORK.

When I look upon the lino picture in the Wkkki.y Nkws of St. Matthew's now stone church, with its handsome spire, I cannot help hoping with the Primate that the building i." not going to bo handed down to posterity in an unfinished state. I believe the citizens of Auckland generally heartily agree with Bishop Cowie, when he said at the stone-laying ceremony, that " a beautiful design has been provided for the permanent church, and the people of the diocese, and I believe of the city, will bo much disappointed if it is rot carried out in its entirety. .Should the funds now available not be sufficient for this purpose, the present parishioners will no doubt exert themselves to make up the deficiency. Our gratitude to those who have done bo much for at. Matthew's in the past will be shown best by our following their example in this matter." The present generation of St. Matthews parishioners ire so greatly indebted to the generosity of a generation that has almost passed away that it does not seem too muoh to ask them, fo. the sake of their Ohurch, their parish, and the city, to make a ; grout effort to provide additional funds, it the money in hand is not sufficient, to enable the edifico to be completed, spire and'all. Such a building would bo a real ornament to the city, and a work of which every citizen would be proud. The Genebaz..