NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XL, Issue 12240, 8 April 1903, Page 4

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

MUNICIPALITIES AND CTJXTTJBE. Municipal trading is very much in evidence in these times iii the Old Country, but Professor Bryce thinks that the efforts it local authorities do not go far enough. He considers that the time has arrived when they need not confine themselves to functions of administration and the promotion of health, but might turn to the adornments and the charms of life, and might discharge other duties in the field of taste and of instruction. " Five needs," which he emphasised in a recent very interesting discourse, were as follows : —"First, the city ought to have its library, its archives, in which the local records were stored,. . In the second place 4 it

ought to have its natural history museum, in which everything appertaining to the geology, the botany, and the zoology of the district was represented ; in the third place, its historical museum, in which might be traced the history of the city or district from prehistoric times; 'fourthly, its. commercial museum, containing specimens of all the industries prosecuted in the neighbourhood and the natural products used; fifthly -md lastly, it. ought to have its art galleri<~ All these five sections ought to be in an organic relation to each other, and in nation also 'o two central authorities, one th» municipality and the other the University. The provision of all that appealed to the taste and intelligence of the people need not cost any great sum of money. He believed that all these things might be done at a very small cost indeed, compared to the total expenditure of such cities as Manchester and Liverpool, and that to a great extent they need not come upon the ratepayers at all, because when once the municipality set an example of what ought to be done, set before it a high ideal of what the city required, it became comparatively easy to get from subscriptions and bequests such funds as were necessary."

THE FUTURE OF MOBMO.VISM. The London Morning Post, in commenting on a message from its Washington correspondent, stating that Mr. Jenkins, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, has introduced into Congress a Bill providing foi an amendment to the United States Constitution which shall make polygamy an offence under the Federal Law (says the announcement), "leads one to believe that the long meditated attack on the Mormon Principalitystill a community which is in, rather than of, the Republic— to be delivered at last. If such an amendment should be passed by Congress, and ratified by the requisite number of States, then it will become evident that the ruling ideal of Mormonismthe cherished hope that the time will come when polygamy may be practised in the light of day and the Mormon Church shall regain the ground that has been lost can never be realised. All the energies of Mormonism will be directed to prevent the ratification of the constitutional amendment proposed by Mr. Jenkins, and the hoarded political armaments of the Mormon Church, which is not only paramount in Utah, but also has great political influence in Idaho, California, and other of the Western States, will be used without hesitation. For years past the posterity of the Latter Day Saints has prepared for this struggle with a secretiveness and intensity of purpose which may be described as Krugerian in the best, or rather worst, sense of the term. The Cooperative Institution—a trust controlled by the Church officers lost no opportunity of securing a hold on the Eastern firms from which it purchases goods, and every commercial traveller who has had dealings with the merchants of Utah knows that both he amd his firm will be rewarded for every good word in favour of Mormonism. All the many large corporations, including the Union Pacific Railway Company,, which are organised under the laws of Utah, are in some way indebted to the Mormon Legislature, and will, no doubt, find it advantageous to oppose the threatened enactment against the practice 01 polygamy* In some respects the policy devised and carried out by this oligarchy of dissenters from a fundamental principle of Westers civilisation, was wiser and more far-sighted than that of Mr. Kruger. Except, perhaps, in the twilight of their grandiose Tabernacle the principle of polygamy has never been mentioned aloud of late years, and all action that might irritate public opinion among the ' Gentiles' —Outbidders of Brigham Young's Land of Promise been sedulously avoided. . . . If, as every right-minded person must hope, Mr. Jenkins succeeds in his attempt, and polygamy most odious form of slavery and none the lest, loathly because it is now practised in secretbecomes an offence within the jurisdiction of the Federal courts, it is certain that the Mormon Church will eventually be destroyed and a scandal to American civilisation removed. The trial of a prominent Mormon for murder and the appearance of the Apostle Smoots— utterance of the man's name and style is a tax on one's temper lately turned public ouinion in the direction of Utah, and we trust that Mr. Jenkins and President Roosevelt, who is no friend to this survival of the tmfittest among modern sects, will have the support of both historio parties in the R-e----public. The sooner the day comes when Mormonism is merely a matter of interest to the historian, a dead instance of humanity's capacity for self-deception, the better for the United States and the better for the whole world of clean-minded people."

PROTECTION OF WILD BIRDS. A movement is on foot at Home for the protection of wild birds which are threatened with extinction by the demands of murderous millinery. Every lover of nature and nature's beauties, says the London Times, will sympathise with the movement. The matter must be looked at in the light of common sense as well as sentiment. It is not true that, if not shot, all those whose plumage is in demand would live happy lives in the greenwood and wolds. Many of them would be waylaid and devoured by some of the many pirates and bandits of the air, or they would perish in the first wet season or severe winter. What is most needed is hat which may in some degree be brought about by a society seeking to disseminate a wholesome, unaffected love of nature and a reverence for things now really in danger. In a little time there may grow up, thanks to such a society, a public opinion which the bird-catcher will dread more than any battery of penalties directed against him. A society which will stiffen public opinion in its reprobation of the gangs that ravage and empty our fields will do solid work. It is true, the present Acts as to wild birds are defective, and that they should be recast and superseded by one simple enactment. But, to do very much, we must go deeper than legislation can reach. The average boy at a public school knows little of the birds of his own country. The School Board boy is, if possible, still more ignorant. He never, perhaps, bird-nested or collected eggs. He has not the rudiments of natural history which come to everyone who has shot or fished. He cannot distinguish one bird from another by its note or call; to him alike are, to use Richard Jefferies' terminology, ' the blackbird's whistle, the chiff-chaff's ' chip-chip/ the willow wren's pleading voice." He has no notion of what a favoured land ours is, and how many sweet voices are to be heard, and what sweet and varied music there is for those who have learnt from boyhood to pause' unconsciously to listen to every new utterance coming from wood, orchard, or meadow. He walks as if deaf,- or as if in a tuneless, silent country, when he might in hours of toil, no less than in others, have blithe, unseen, communicative companions. Rarely is it realised how different life might be in the country to multitudes of persons who how find it dull and vacuous, if from earliest years they had been accustomed to listen to and mark the ways of birds around them in gardens or fields, and to distinguish with nicety "their clear airs and sweet descants." [The,

Legislature of iidia is doing somettin, ta oppose the clans of" murderous nullfaJLj, Several States legislatures in Amen bestirring thems<tves as to this. R°* *** our colonies—fo! example, ' New °^ °* . wick and Manitoba lately v -"? 5v Acts intended to prevent the ' i; struction of a font of • wealth that ° U be replaced. Even in countries ; ]&> \H ' "our feathered friends" are apparently V- ! less, it is coming home to the best that the thriftlissness of the past c t, , ~. .""Past,cannot ' continue. But Ordinances will be of liUi 1' avail unless theri is a real liking 0r jfl? tures that are tiW too much regarded *" solely articles of 'Commerce, and unless th* sight of brilliant plumage recalls rt' lives, their haliits, their songs tout! abodes. j .•."•.■* * OUR CABLE NEWS. • / The British, Bussian, and Austrian Aim bassadors in Constantinople have intern i the Sultan with regard to the outbreak Albania, and impressed upon him the heW sity for the milijary occupation of the chJ '§, centres in that cWtry. Though the Suit promised compliance, it is suspected that he will temporise bid rely on persuasion and money to pacifj- the districts. Austria ' said to have warned the Sultan that she will occupy Mitroviik unless the Albanians ate coerced. .The Hug's visit to Paris is i)M«i anticipated by tje French press in. a cordial spirit. The strike of railway servants in Holland is likely to prove serious, as there appears a probability of its spreading to the shipping. The lailways and quays M being guarded by ttoops, and the foreign e x . press trains run under police protection. The Mullah's army', in Somaliland is stated to be suffering grettly. The garrison, at Puerto Cortez, in Honduras, mutinied and murdered seven of their officers. A hundred tlibusand workmen in the buildup trades in America are said to be on strike A severe earthquake shock was experienced in Victoria yesterday. At Warrnambool the inhabitants were greitly alarmed and rushed into the streets, vhile the school ' children fled in terror. Some damage was done. The shock was actompanied by a loud rumbling noise.