THINGS IN GENERAL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 13482, 8 May 1907, Page 9

THINGS IN GENERAL.

! THE FOOTBALL SEASON. 1 Thf. Rugby football season having been \ duly opened, the '.popular winter pastime I and the respective clubs' chances of secur- i in" the coveted position of.honour in the championship competitions once more form • the principal topic of discussion in athletic circles. The remark has often been made that too much time and attention is given to football and kindred sports by the youth of the present generation, but the votaries of the " leather" and their champions very reasonably combat this assertion by point- ■ ing out the important part which football serves in building up a vigorous manhood, and thus assisting to maintain the physical characteristics that are so closely , associated with the best traditions of the ; , British race. The statement said to have '■;■•■ been made by the Duke of Wellington , that the battle of Waterloo was. won on . the playground of Eton was a striking tri- . ; bute to what may be termed the utilitarian j i side of our national sports. What was true in the days of' the "Iron Duke" still holds good. The Mayor /of Auckland : :; (himself ; an' old footballer) has, amongst others, lately defended the followers of the ,: game from the reproach that football forms too important an element in their affairs of life; By indulging in this healthy pas- j time footballers; he said, "were every day : * doing their duty to themselves, to their .dub," their teum, their colony,' and probably to their Empire." With the present paramount position of football, and the greatly improved standard of play which has been brought about* as-.-"com-pared "with football of the past, there is but little need to defend the game from any attack mode upon it. „ The popularity now enjoyed by the sport has been earned by sheer merit. In the old days, when football was a rough and tumble contest, played without rules or regulations, things were different. , In the middle ages laws were passed in England to '■. prohibit the game, as witness the following proclamation issued by Edward 11. in the year 2314: —"Forasmuch as.there is great noise in the city caused by hustling over large balls, from which many evils might arise, ■which God forbid; wo command and for-, bid, on pain of imprisonment, such game to be used in : the city in future." Another ground of objection taken to football (both in England and Scotland) was that, owing to it, archery was becoming much neglected. In 1608 the Town Council of Manchester imposed a fine of twelve pence on any person using a football within the town. • - But in spite of these and many more restrictions, .football continued to live v and flourish even in the streets of the 1 towns. In 1815 a traveller journeying to ■ Hampton Court by coach " was amused to j seethe inhabitants of Teddington securing j their front windows by placing hurdles and nailing laths across the frames. At several, other towns the citizens were also en- | gaged in the same way, as a safeguard against The possible consequences of illdireetecTkickss by the knights of the oval." Later on in the last*'century the English public schools did good service in -placing the gam© on a more ,i popular footing by converting it into a .better regulated and ' more " scientific pastime. .: THE MODERN -PRIZE ESSAYIST. Those who hold that our present system of education in New Zealand savours too much of : the " cram" method will doubtless be interested in a recently-published report on the Empire Day essay competition for Lord Meath champion cup, in which some striking sidelights are thrown on the methods adopted by Australian teachers, whose pupils compete for prize essays. The report seems to afford some justification for the. ■-'•. ,-•;,i #tt*t#itiettt "of Secretary.. for j Public Instruction that " the . essays as a ] V rule do hot show so much the child's study as the teacher's, and are more a memorised cram;; of matter than a test of the child's reading apprehension ; and power of expression." Last year the Empire prize was won by a schoolgirl at .Charters Towers, and the headmaster of the school has submitted a charmingly naive report to the Department. The subject 'of the essay was the "History of British India," and he says:—-"It would be useless to put before a child under 14 ". books such -'■ as Mill's "History of British India," or works * on the . story of the Indian Mutiny. A child has not the intellectual sagacity to sort the grain from the chaff. For several weeks, therefore, the head teacher was engaged in reading all the __•■ standard works that could be procured in ~ Charters Towers, and in making notes from them, intended to serve in, the preparation of! a summary of the history of■■' British India, Two summaries were compiled, one to give a general view of the■ course of . events in the history of India, the other, muchfmore concise, to be studied before writing the essay. * These; summaries were studied at home by the child. In school the head teacher taught the child the sub- .' " : stance of the -: summaries before the map. Particular attention was. devoted to the form_ of expression. After an hour of study and,instruction. the child was sent to play for.,a while.- Then the child was brought ; into;the school, and under the supervision of two teachers, or pupil-teachers, was directed to write the substance of what she had been ;'- taught. While the child was writing she had r no books or notes from which she could obtainl assistance." : From this, as a Sydney paper remarks, it would appear that a comi bination gramaphone and typewriter would * be an effective. stock-in-trade for the prize essay writer. *■ ',/';//'■.'■? ~.'. ...'.'::... .JACK SHEPPARD UP TO DATE., Residents -of Auckland have **• lately been warned of 'presence': in their midst of : a class of thieves who'' prowl.' around in a .-.'.- mysterious way. snapping up any ill-con- '[ . sidered trifles that householders may "be thoughtless. enough to leave within their reach. The light-fingered gentry, as we know them here, are modest and quite content to ply their nefarious calling by stealth. This is not the case with some of-.their : Australian confreres, who appear to have more than an average share of impudence. , A case in point has lately occurred in Mel- ":':■.; bourne, where two enterprising individuals ,':- have been arrested by the detectives on the unique charge of roof-robbing. Their me- ■ thod of procedure was simple and effective. /- One lady tells how they called at the house, • and told her they were going'to fix up the roof, as the wet weather was corning on.' ~: ''Take away those ''children,' commanded the Cromwell of the enterprise; we'll be ' throwing down old lead and stuff directly, and the kids might get hurt." They climbed on to the roof, and soon filled the air with old lead, bricks, and piping until the spectators thought the roof was about all off. They then came down, put' the " lead V and stuff" into a cart, and departed, remarking that it would be a fine night, and .- .' that they would return .and -fix the roof up ; in the morning. They returned not, how- '-• ever, and as a result the room of the de- ; tective office set. apart for stolen goods was ; a day or two later piled with sheet lead, load pipes, and metal fittings of all descriptions, being only a small proportion of the recovered plunder of these ingenious and barefaced thieves. • ~LOOTED INSTRUMENTS.. r "| Some, of the instruments used to produce the effects achieved by the Exhibition orchestra are of great historic interest. The great brass cymbals that play such a prominent part in some of the music— • m the Wagner numbers—are said to be Chinese instruments 380 years old. . Mr. , Alfred Hill, the owner of the cymbals, states that they were " looted" from the Llama temple at Pekin at the time of the ,i allied; forces' advance on Pekin. They bear A- the saw 1 crest cf the temple to this. day. The person who secured the cymbals was ';. connected . with the ' commissariat depart- ■'-.;' mont, and when loot was the order of the day, he turned his attention to musical instruments. He secured several Chinese 1 flutes and oboes, and three quaint drums, "• the whole of which he presented to Mr. - pill in Australia some time ago, when Mr. , - Bill threatened to write some music especially adapted tc the peculiar sorted scale FfidutCj - : , : 'V hte l -';?.-.v,- -j ■ ■■■ .-■:.■.. ■ ■ ■>. ■■ ■• ■■.. - •-,■■■■■. J"g;.;j3S:-;.:'.;.. ■ >•■. -. . ' "." ,' ■■..-■', , '' .

NATIVES OF INDIA AND THE,. RAILWAYS. A recent cable referred. to .the unrest ; . in India, and the native opinion of the British is interesting indeed at this juncture. We are told, says a recent number of the Bengalee, that the Government of India is pledged to spend so many crores of rupees per annum for the construction of railways. There may be famine in the land,' entailing a.vast outlay and necessitating the postponement of urgent reforms and the starvation of public works, but .railway construction, like the poet's brook, goes on for ever. We know the construction of railways is justified on the ground that it is a kind of famine insurance. Educated Indians, however, assign a very different and less philanthropic reason for the provision under the head of railway construction, which appears year after year with the unfailing regularity of a recurring decimal. Railway materials and rolling stock come from England, and a very large proportion of the expenditure incurred under this head goes to fill the pockets of English iron magnates. Our incomparable rulers are, of course, above everything else, a nation of shopkeepers. The General.