NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 12859, 6 May 1905, Page 4

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

WHAT'S IX A NAME?

Inquests are never very lively functions at the best of times, remarks a writer in the Pall Mali Gazette, but early in 1902 the proceedings at Shorediteh were tr a modest extent enlivened by the appearance in the box of i. man named "Soda," who followed a witness called "Beet;" while something approaching a sensation was created in 1900 when it transpired that r. platelayer named Hunt was killed when evading one train at Bethnal Green Junction by tax express driven' by Charles Death, a name that recalls .~ tennis match played at Teignmouth some years ago between Mr. Pine-Coffin, Mr. Tombs, Mr. Sexton, and Mr. Parson. At an inquest held at Stepney Workhouse, in 1902, by the way, the name of the deceased was Dust, the first witness called was named Sand, and the third Grittey; while on June 3, 1903, the jurv empanelled for an inquest at the London Hospital had as its foreman a Mr. Peacock, three jurymen each answering to the name of Bird, while in addition their ranks included a' Mr. Caige and a Mr Perch—a veritable aviary I This incident recalls the fact that at Westminster County ,3ourt; in the. summer of 1902, there appeared in one day's list of cases a Crow, a Swan, a Pigeon, a Bat, a Fox, and three Fowlers. A Midland train, it was stated a few years ago, was

driven by a man named Sharpe, and had as its guards officials respectively named Quick and Swift; it is not recalled that the combination broke any railway records; vhil: in 1901 a Great Eastern train was driven by a man named Drake, the first guard was called Goose, the second guard Gander, and on one occasion an official travelling in the van rejoiced in the cognomen of Duck. Th, train proceeded swimmingly. In a Berkshii« village church early last winter something like a titter was heard when a bride and bridegroom, the latter boasting the Christian name of Ernest, attended the first Sunday after their wedding, and the vicar gave out as the text of his sermon, " Be earnest, behold the bridegroom cometh." Early in January last the Times announced in two consecutive paragraphs of the births column the advent, of sons to gentlemen whose honoure--" names were respectively Box and Cox, and some few years ago in. the marriage announcements a paragraph appeared headed " Ported—Brick.

I 111; RUSSIAN WOEKJIAN

M. Paul Louis, writing with first-hand j knowledge of Hi - facts, declares (hat the lot j of the Russian woikmau is incredibly hard. What is going on.. .villi him he declares, is the divorce from the soil which has been j peaceably accomplished in England, but with what heartburnings and wrenchings readers ,of Lord Deaemisfield's "Sybil" should know. Thank; to the legal system of domicile still enforced in Russia, a weekend is 0:. most that r -Russian factory hand can spend with his wife and family, and at plate-; like Vladimir, Toula, and Ekaferiuoslav this is religiously done, the workman returning to ids native commune on Saturday night to leave it again on Monday morning. But the employers, with their characteristic negligence, have forgotten to provide him with barrack or bothy accommodation in the meantime, and the consequence is that he sleeps in slum's that would be tolerated in no civilised country. In centres too distant from the villages for these week-ends tc lie taken, the condition of the workman is in no respect different from that of r. slave. "Why do you ask ii'.. to give my workmen the eight-hours day?" the director of the Putiloff Works' iii St. Petersburg i* reported to have said. "What wouhl they do with their leisure? Where would they go, since their lodgings a're uninhabitable?" When one adds that, the average wage of the adult workman in Russia is Is 7d a day. we have a state of tilings that cannot possibly last. | I'OPI'LAR NOVELS. In the Pall Mall Magazine, Mr. James • Douglas deals with th- popular novels of the day. " Whatever education has done," he writes, " it has not raised the standard o: taste in literature. It has lowered it. Popularity in our time does not mean what it meant when ' Waverley' was published. It means more and it means less, for what it has gained in quantity it has lost in quality. The Board schools and the newspapers have dragged the people up to literature, but they have also dragged literature down to the people. No artist can now afford to be popular, tor the path of popularity, is no longet the path ot art. Our write)s keep one eye on their ideal and the other on the mob. Grant Allen killed his talent by trying to serve these two masters. This sordid conflict between art and popularity may be seen in the work of many living authors. Most of our novelists make the right hand of the mart wash the left hand of the muse. This debasement of the artistic conscience has gone far since the death of Rossetti. Literary simony is no longer regarded with horror. Mr, Kipling humbly alters the unhappy ending of "The Light That Failed 1 to please the happyenders. Mr. John Davidson and Mr. Stephen Phillips forsake the green slopes of Parnassus for the barren beards of the stage. Mr. Barrie stifles his subtle humour and de- : licate sentiment in the. sunless atmosphere of the theatre. And this debasement of art deepens the*debasement of popular taste. Even the artist who works with a conscience and an aim dues not escape from the prevailing pestilence. Chilled by a sense of alienation. Mr. Henry .James darkens the windows of hi.- soul with ff.my arabesques of frosty ambiguity, while Mr. Maurice Hewlett wanders in labyrinthine preciosity, and Mr. Francis Coutts scornfully devotes his genius to dignified self-dissection. Popularity is a deity which slays both those win; seek it and those who shun it. Even the comic irony of Mr. George Meredith is not invincible against its cruel blandishments." PARLIAMENTARY KKI'OHHNU I.N" ENGLAND, 'the decline in the value and the practice of Parliamentary reporting is said by Mr. A. Kinnear, in the Contemporary Review. to have steadily increased since attention was called to the fact in the Contemporary live years ago. To-day the public is more and more showing its preference for accidents by flood and field, for big railway smashes, murders, and wars —for lively and sensational news in general—and utterances in Parliament or outside of it are less and less cared for by the newspapers, which necessarily have to follow the public taste. Five years ago Lord Rosebery was worth what is known professionally as a full report. He is now saleable by the news agencies at from half to three-parts of a column. Mr. Chamberlain, worth at the outset of his political propaganda two columns out of three he uttered, has suffered a severe depreciation. The. entire corps d'elite of Parliamentary speakers, Premier, Leader of the Opposition, Chancelloi of the Exehoquei, Secretary tor Foreign Affairs, are U. lie ranked together as one-column men. The tendency of the day is for the. English, papers to rely on the press agencies that have sprung up tor their gallery report, these associations turning out the same " copy," in "flimsy" form, to as many subscribers as they can obtain. Some ot them undertake to hilly report " scenes in the House," while others win furnish a lively sketch, with verbatim passages of particular speeches given here and there, and the latter form is likely to prevail. A six months' session used to cost a daily paper more than £1500 in reporters' salaries alone, and now 'he needed j report is obtained from an agency for £120. ! YV ithin the past two years no fewer than ! tour first-class London morning papers have I discharged their Parliamentary, reporters, j and turned over the work to the agencies; so - that there are now only three papers retaini ing special staffs of their own in the gallery -the Times, the Daily Telegraph, and the Morning Post. Provincial dailies who still support private reporting staffs' in the gallery are this Scotsman, the Glasgow Herald, the Freeman's Journal, and the Manchester" Guardian. The process of cutting Parliament" is likely to go on as the demand for general news is increasing, ami the competiI lion to obtain this news by the various ) agencies, and to supply it at cheap rates, is described as intense. The conclusion drawn by the writer is not that Parliament is no longer a powerful element in public life, but that, as regards news, the taste of the reader i has changed for better or for worse.

Mr. Arthur M. Myers, Mayor of Auckland, will open the Epiphany fancy fair on Thursday next, ,at three p.m. The object of the fair is to pay off tho debt still owing, on this church; and great preparations have been made in all the usual lines of sale, particular attention has been paid to the woodcarving stall, which was so successful last year. Competitors for all the usual lines of cooking, doll-dressing, etc., are asked to apply to Sirs. McKean, Grange Road, Mount Roskill.