THINGS IN GENERAL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 13796, 8 July 1908, Page 10

THINGS IN GENERAL.

A BONUS FOB BABIES.

The proposal that the Government shou d encourage the propagation of the white population, by means of a bonus, or some ? other system, has my full sympathy; I w rite feelingly, as i the father of Twelve, What we want is a country full of white children, :-and if a healthy spirit of rivalry can: be created by means of a subsidy it will do a great deal of good. We have our baby shows occasionally, and the mothers turn out proudly with their youngsters to have: them judged for weight. If it's a good j thing to give prizes ; for fat. surely it s a j good thing to give prizes for number. It's i better to have . two children, even though they may be a little bit on the lean .side, than one fat child. I know that if I were Prime Minister I'd rather have a million and a-half medium-sized people in my country than a million fat people. No doubt the cost of living has gone up, and a working man finds ho hasn't too much left over when the bills are paid at the end of the ■week, but after all every child born into a family is an added asset, and: ; gradually j increases the vrage-earnir.g capacity of the l family. It ought not to be necessary to] give bonuses,—ordinary patriotism ought to | people our land for us—but if encourage- i ment, by way of a bonus, will help it ■'along, by all means let us give it. New j Zealand has already shown the world a; thing or two in the way of legislation; j let us go one more, and encourage the birth- j rate bv Act of '■■■ Parliament. I have got up'at two a.m., and trod the floor with No 1 ; I have got up and luliaby-ed to No. 2; I have played " piggy" with No. 3's toes at three a.m.; I have said "here we are again" to No. 4 at all hours of the night and meriting; and now I get no sleep with No. 12. The plain fact of the matter is that a man can't do his work properly without sleep, and I'm not going to attempt it anv longer, unless I get some encouragement. What I would suggest.is a sliding scale-sliding upward; say, £5 per annum forth© first baby— to be double and triplets treble that amount-£lO for the second £20 for the third £40 .for the S and so on. Men wouldn't be afraid to get married then. And then wo would sing:: ,1• _ v , ' "" : ; Baby mine. I love you from the bottom of my heart, " , <- "■ , • i-i*..---. ~■-:■■-. • v„-ir will my love- grow coin. .-v.,me. I will You are worth your weight m gold. Baby mine, you needn't worry .over me. Thnntrh von cry. I will not scold; _~,.„ Ton may ride to I*ndon on your daddy « Foryou're worth your weight in gold'. Baby mine, you mustn't trouble what you Am I not repaid tenfold? -. rd have If I did not, hare you, tninK wnai, j-u "» Yon l< your weight in gold! Daddy need to keep you. now you keep your v«,nave brought me wealth untoldl! Money couldn't buy you-up-ardaisy, lad. ; M Tol aw worth your weight in gold. '- SAVING DAYLIGHT.

I don't quite understand what it means, but I notice that the Daylight /a™® continues to make progress in th*» House SSunons. How anybody is ; going ,to f the dock is a mystery to but tow the dock is a mystery to me, hut I have got bo used to. modern **»£ Various methods hy the cognoscenti, Sne Sag togive the clock a twist one S?rrcentime of the S> fa the opposite direction at another S advise having but one SSuroT 1 » »J* & the natural order $&** the Times and the Chromclj shorld disapprove of the Bill. ™ limes would indeed be out of joint rf it could sit Sy by and see the clock interfered with fa W way-there would be so many den ferent time! going on at the same tune that wouldn't know where we were; whde, SteffiChronicle, it is directiydesosried from old CThronos, and it, of course, re«nta:ah' attempt to interfere with,, Is Stof- The whole trouble, of course, S from the fact that time waits for no wan,; and in order to get even with it these daylight-savers (I had almost said flight robbers) want to take an hour off here and put an hour on there: Its like - Sing" i bird's wing on the one ade, putting the feathers on to the other win/ The end of it will be that we 11 havf a wobbly, lop-sided sort of Time that will cet more erratic every year. sou can't chip a bit off daylight at oneend and . tack it on to the other end. When its night it's night, and when daylight its davlight, whatever the politicians .do* with ■ their clocks. Time of /indiarubber: you can't daylight so that it will still be going:strong; an hour after dark. "We may. as well m. quest of the Absolute at once. An Englishman and a Scotchman had an argument about the sun. The Englishman declared emphatically that ' it wis the sun, but the Scotchman (possibly he had had a touch of the sun that day, <«id was not so canny .'as usual) swore it was the" moon. To settle the argument they agreed to put f it to an Irishman, who just then happened along—and he said, >• s " Be iabers, I,couldn't tell phwat it is ; Im - a stranger in these parts!" , And so if ':." this daylight-saving business gets through ' there'll be - similar complications. Ine golfer will get his . sticks together, and go out playing in the moonlight, and complaining that the day is dull, and # peopis will go to moonlight fetes 'in the middle of the day and mistake. the sun for an electric arc lamp. Englishman, , Scotchman, or Irishman, will be quite certain \ /-■ what time it <is.- It seems to me- that Joshua is responsible for all the trouble; if be hadn't i made the sun stand still that ■■■i day ' tl»re -would:have' been'no complaints about the changes of Time in these days.

WOMAN'S DOMAIN. " Let the women have the spirits, I say," ""' «aid His Nibs " men don't want 'em—not , - :■ that sort." i'.-; : ' :■■■ .;.''. " ■ . , -■ Spiritualism and mental science, ;: it • seems; were responsible for the appearance ; ■-.'■;' in the Wellington Magistrate's Court of a ! man. and his wife. The wife desired summary separation from her husband on the ground that;he had neglected her. The magistrate remarked that the whole trouble , arc>e because the defendant forsook his employment as a carter and took; up the studies mentioned., i The ■ new venture did not turn out as good as the old one, for, after the husband had spent 18 months , in England, \ and £248 in cash, he made next to nothing at it. And this was the :•' burden of His Nibs' song. ; "Why men want to busy themselves over things .that don't concern 'em, I don't know," he went on "but it seems to me no ' man has a right to be dabbling in Bpooks ana such-like airy nothings. It's all right for women, v but when men start to go in for reading your palms, and seeing your past and future in a few minutes of trance, it's time for the women to , get • up and make a noise about it. Men clamour about -women invading their domain in the shorthand and : typewriting line, - and in dentistry and medicine and other things, and yet they "want to invade the women's domain and call up spirits from the murky mist and consult with Madame Planchette. Why, there'll soon be no family life left / if things go on this way. The fact; is. s tfaere'6 l too much jealousy between men and women; every woman wants to be a man, and every man wants to be a woman— and a good many of them are, I warrant. Now, lock at those suffragettes in England —did you ever hear of such a to-do? I was rea*lin' about a . party of ; these ladies touring. Surrey with a .van, and distribut- - ing pamphlets and booklets and all sorts ~ , of \ information. \ One ' night - they ? had■ [ . an ;; 0 ?, time at i Guildford, :, where : they, had /left the van for the purpose of epeatang in the hall. The audience • ■were clanging;^^ blowing trmnpeta, and making no,end of * disturbance, and eggs __of the class which -we call.« ffoo d . in paiSs' __-were thrown about in. all directions. -W A wonder the meew,b r *k6 up in COutn< *»«•«»■' Then. ; the real excitement' ,'"•••■ - ■ ' -. : ':'-l i-iiL J u >-s.' " "...... ~ >> .;. :

yard, they all had to climb over a barbedwire fence skirting some . pasture land. Ihe time was 11 p.m., and the night was very dark, and the farmer objected to the night intruders on his farmyard; : so he possessed himself of a .whip, which he brandished * all round, ,to drive ; off the crowd. But the mob surged forward. Then a lot of frightened bullocks raced .towards them and the end o' the world came. More barbed- had: to be scrambled over in a hurry—and then the lightning played, and the thunder rolled like mad. Serve 'em right for wantin' votes! Votes is men's domain!" _,' . ■ ' "THE PLAY'S THE THING." "'All the world's a stage, and . alll- the men and women merely players,'" said His Nibs, sententiouslv. But ...there are plays and plays, players and players, stages .and stages. ''We are all adepts in our own particular line. There never was a man yet who could not play his own part better than any other man could do it.. Bad acting begins when : vou try to play another fellow's .part and 'he tries to play yours. It's like exchanging trousers. If I put touts on they'd bust at the seams, an' the gods 'd clap* and whistle the roof off, and If yon put mine on you'd feel like a man in a balloon, an' wonder where your legs were. It would be » misfit. It the same with hats. The old brown hat looks all right on one man, and the" chimney-top is all right on. another; if they ; change places, both men may be run into" the lockup on suspicion. It takes a deal o' tryin' to take the other fellow's part, an' when you do it so as nobody knows the difference you become a professional. ■-;. It takes a long time, and you've got to study, stagecraft. v if you play burglar you must have a jemmy your hand an' not a walkin' stick. If you are a dude you must put a cigarette in your mouth an' not a pipe. There's laws that govern these thingsnatural laws, I reckon. Now, the other night I went to see a play, an' 'T saw a waterfall that stopped fallin' half-way. That won't do. It was a most beautiful cascade, an' I thought they must have got it up at Hurrua; ; but then I found it was a new kind, for it used to get tired, and take a rest every now and then. -Sometimes it would come down like the water at Lodore, and then it would slacken off, and only a bit would fall at a time, while at other times it would stop altogether, as if it was waitin' for more rain to come. 1 L The most remarkable;thing of all was that a big lump of water, representing about 20 tons, stopped in mid-air, and hung there, a thing; I never saw before. That sort o' thing's disconcertiu', and ; apt to give our boys notions: that the* law of gravity's all bunkum. It reminds me of a snow* scene I saw once: it was done beautifully, till all of a'-" sudden something ( happened up above, and a man foil dpwn on. the stage, bringing the snow with him in a big basket ! —and ; then we saw the snow was only a l lotto' white ; paper chips. It takes the | heart out of a man.";' -.;.. . '.' : : The General.