ECHOES OF THE WEEK.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1189, 14 December 1894, Page 20

ECHOES OF THE WEEK.

Satire’s mv weapop, but I’m too discreet To run amuck ami tilt at all I meet. Porn.

BY SCRUTATOR.

A LAD who is bound to get on in this life if self-confidence and push count for anything, is a youth who with 52 others answered an adfeitisernent for tf a boy for a warehouse ” the other day. His letter of application, by no means badly written and with not one word misspelt, read as follows . Wellington, 25/11/94; Dear Sir,— When looking down the Wanted Column of to-night’s paper I read an ad. wanting a lad for warehouse.. I think that yon could not do better than accept my application. I have had a good board school education, aud am not badlooking. I think 10s a week would be the lowest I could accept for my service. lam 7 years old and know the Town well. An early answer would oblige, as I have something else ill view. I ani, Yoiir obedient servant,

THE above I think, will take some beating as an example of precocity. The writing is unmistakeably that of a* juvenile, but I fancy an older hand must have drafted the letter. The 25/11/94 ‘is too distipctly business-like in its brevity to be .the work of a boy, and again a youngster of seven would hardly be likely to use the' expression board school education, The reference- to personal appearance is i delightful, so too is the unconscious cheek of " I think 10s. A week would be the lowest I could accent for my services.” And he'“ knqws the Town well.” Bless the lad —to “know the-Town well ”at seven! Probably his knowledge of the "Town” is like unto that which. Mr Samuel Weller possessed of London—"extensive and peculiar.” More peculiar tfian extensive I should say, :• Biit for s&Velb take him all rottnd, he’s a wonder.

JUDGING by some recent, utterances of Mrs Besant. which have been cabled over from Australia, it appears that she does not think much of New Zealanders. As New Zealanders didn’t thih'ff tfiucff of Mrs Besant, at least not in the practical way of filling the halls where she gave her discourses, honours are about easy.' Tho goo<|, woman says various nasty things about us in that long-winded and long-worded style of her own. We are not/£ receptive ” enough, we are too " material and have not the " intellectuality ” of the Australians. This lack of "receptivity” is no doubt urged against us because Now 'Zealanders have not as yet betrayed any frantic enthusiasm to embrace .the mysterious doctrines of Theosophy. This, to Mrs Besent, may imply lack of " receptivity” on, our part. To other minds, like my own, for instance, it implies the possession of much commonsense and a very wholesome aversion to swallow any and every, jimcrackery which the inventors of New Religions may amuse themselves by bringing forward. As to any intellectual inferiority of. New Zealanders, compared with. Australians, it, does not exist. Judging by such Australians as I have. met, the average New Zealander is far better educated, better read and much less gross, less "material” to' use Mrs Besant’s word, in his tastes and.amusements than his cousins on "the other side.” The good'woman .is, I see, going, to write the inevitable book on hey colonial experiences. Heaven help ns, she . was about three weeks in New. Zealand, and yet is quite prepared, seemingly-to .pass judgment upon our institutions and .©nr habits. What have we done'to- deserve the threatened infliction? We have been trounced by Trollope, slobbered over by Sala, chaffed —and sneered, at—-by Max O’Rell, and greasily gushed over by Lalmage. And yet this is not enough—Mrs Besant is to write a book on. Australia and New Zealand. Again, I ask, what crimes have we committed that we should be so cruelly misused. ; ' ' .

THE extraordinary effusion .signed “ Ritualist,” which appeared- m this column last week, has occasioned the following remarks, sent me by a correspondent signing himself “ Lutheran” He writes Deak “ Scrutator,”—Will y o n.kindly ; . 3 .... permit me to say that, having-read'yqur well meant remarks in last weeK S issue anent the improved services that were being introduced in St. Paul s Church by its popular clergyman, Mr Sprott, I . am quite astonished to read in: this day s issue the impertinent effusion of your critic “Ritualist”? His poor attempt sneer at Low Church thinkers and Wesleyans proves distinctly that he understands not the true tenets of the Christian religion. St. Paul's Church ! What mockery-! If he had made himself acquainted with St, Paul s expressed methods he would have known that his church’s patron saint hath said, A make myself all things to all men, that I may win souls to Christ.” But our operatic nineteenth century Christians, wish us to believe that the worship of the Deity must be in accordance with up-to-date ritualistic performance. To the evangelical they cry, £ odi Profanum Vulgus!" but the evangelical in return stays away or wanders fnto other folds, where he at receives Christian brotherhood. Does this help th® Episcopal Church? I trow not. Old tunes are always dear to those who have been in the habit of worshipping m spirit, and because they have thought out the moaning of religion. They synchronise with the plain and earnest worship of . other days, when the worshippers entered into the true religious spirit of the performance, while these up-to-date methods savour too much of au operatic performance, and are distasteful to those who attend from a purely religious standpoint. I wonder whether Mr ‘‘Ritualist” ever read John Wesleys sermon on “Free Grace.” If not, he should do so, and learn a lesson. Fierce democrat!” he cries, while his uncharitable letter is that of a fierce autocrat. T wonder does he pose as being the mouthpiece of those “ upper class of which 1 says that the congregation of St. Faiii s l “ principally composed. I can hardly h * i . lievo that he is correct in saying we resent » Side interference.” I W really repxe-.

those favoured fdlks, j&en small Wonder that wo havo “fierce democrats,iind We are likely to have more. Hoping that you will excuse tliiS trespass on your space—l am, &c., Lutheran. . “ Lutheran ” may make his mind easy as to “ Ritualist” having any right to speak on behalf of the majority of worshippers at St. Paul’s. So far from the incumbent s “ new departure ” being unpopular, I am infox’med, on excellent authority, that it is exactly the reverse. The discussion must now close/so far this column is concerned.

THE Napier News attributes to Mr Luke, the new mayor of Wellington * some extraordinary remarks made by the ex* mayor Mr Braildon with reference ; to oUr meat and milk supply: Outside this little slip I heartily commend the femal : ks of the News , which considers the ex-mayoral utterances “ Bumbledom out Bumbled. bo do I. Mr Brandon pooh-poohed, apparently upon the authority of Mr Gilruth, the idea that cancer is never communicated from a beast to a human being. I beg to differ with the Brandon-cum-Gilruth opinion. In a week or two f think 1 shall secure excellent evidence in support of ttiy thedty that the eating of diseased meat does cause cancer in the human being, evidence which will roughly shake the optimism of our ox-major on this subject.

T/lOUND, a New Zealander who openly it " avows he is ashamed of his country 1 I clip the following paragraph from the London correspondence of the New Zealand tteYaldi—" Mr F. de O. Malet, of Christehttrdb, is in toWn, but is leaving this Week for Jersey. He seenis to take a l-ather pessimistic view of New Zealand' affairs, and declares he always carefully conceals, for motives of policy, the fact that he hails from New Zealand, because, he says, ‘ the very name of New Zealand stinks in English nostrils since all these -financial exposures have taken place.’ ” ■ Poor . man, ashamed of his country ! I should like to know what the Christchurch papers think of thi3 extraordinary statement of Mr Malet’s. Will the Lyttelton Times, in particular, give us its opinion ?

-ifTrrHEN David Copperfield went up to Yl London on the Canterbury coach the driver, it will be remembered, was a distinctly “'ossy” persouago. ’Orses and dogs," said that worthy Jehu, “is some men’s fancy. They’re wittles and drink to me, lodgings, wife and children, - reading, writing, and ’rithmetic, snuff, tobacker, and sleep.” Ooppcrfield’s “ coachie ’’ has a good many prototypes in New Zealand, and especially in Hawke's Bay, where the conversation seems everlastingly to be based upon the assumption that horses arid racing are the only topics worth serious discussion. The liev L. M. Isitt, who has been endeavouring to. “ wake up ” the Napierites on the subject of drink, has also. I notice, been running a tilt against the local “ hippomama," In the course of a sermon delivered at a local church he is reported to have said t—- “ Their conversation Was horse, hoise, horse, from Sunday morning until Saturday night, and in the street you saw that many of them aped the * horsey ’ style from the colour of their tie down to their clothes. Take one of these young people so degraded in mind, and place him for. a while in. the company of men of mental culture, so that he might benefit from the intercourse with intellectual men: One might suppose he would be fired with enthusiasm at listening to the conversation that must naturally follow. . But, on the contrary, this ‘ horsey ’ young man would be like a salmon on a gravel walk, as miserable as he possibly could be, and would not be happy until he got back to his stable companions. The preacher appealed to them to have a.higher and nobler ideal in life.”

I WISH Mr Isitt success in his new cru- / sade, but I am afraid that he will find he has a very long row to when he attemps. to convert the “ ossy " men amongst us to the beauties of the “ higher life.” .... It will be along time, I fear, before the average young New Zealander abjures the delights of discussing “weights”and “acceptances/’and similar subjects of, to him, engrossing interest, such as to whether Rum .ti Foo was out of Geeuppetty, by Kaf oosalem, or as to who won Jericho Handicap in ’B4—-to find joy in the “ mental culture ” to be derived from reading Plato s“ Republic” (a translation, of course), or even the Prohibitionist. The Reverend gentleman had better stick to his first love, prohibition. To cure us of a love of horse-racing is, I fear, a hopeless task.

GAN it be that the young Czar Nicholas is to break away from past traditions in the governing of his vast empire l It looks like it, with concessions made to the Poles, with the Rothschilds (the persecution of the Jews to cease), floating a new loan, and, best sign of all, the forced resignation of that unmitigated tyrant, General Gourko. In him the Poles have had the most brutal ruler they have ever known. A inan of unbounded personal courage, as he proved both in Asiatic and European campaigns. Gourko, from all oue has read of his conduct at Warsaw, appears to have been the very incarnation of tyranny. Tyvice or thrice his life has been, attempted but in vain, and he has lived to find himself rebuked by his Imperial Master for religious persecution and to be forced into resigning his office. The Poles will rejoice exceedingly, and so too will all who are hoping for a new regime in Russia, a regime under which a reasonable degree of political and religious freedom w'll be the birthright of every Russian,, from the poorest moujilc to the haughtiest noble. There is evidently a new departure, but will it last ?

x>oor old 1)0 Lesse P s! It,s a pfty he Jj.. didn’t die before the Panama scandal came to light; still greater pity, perhaps that he had ever devised the ill-fated scheme at all. He was one of the greatest of engineers in an age of engineering* marvels. We English people are apt to imagine that ail the engineers of fame hay© been John Bull’s sons, and when a

PfGnctiiiiaU dared to advocate the Shiez Canal scheme,- a chords of jealous disbelief went up in England. But the Frenchman persevered, and it must, and, indeed, it hasbeen;.most galling to many Englishmen, to thiflk that it was to a Frenchman that John Bull owes rapid stcdm communication with India. Boor old De Lessees l Feted,for years as one of the greatest of his cotiiitrymen, he lived to hear himself hooted as the author of a ghastly failure a failure which brought ruin and misery into thousands of homes in the land he loved so well. As years roll by, however, Panama and all its unsavoury associations will be forgotten, and De Lesseps will alone be rememberod as the mm who join id the Mediterranean and tho Red Seas, and opened Up a Waterway which has enormously increased maritime commerce, and worked untold good to the trade of the world;

A WELL-MEANING! but unconsciously J\ amusing person, who signs himSclf “ Natural Depravity." has sent me a longoli, a very long letter--on the subject of smoking and the evils arising therefrom. He commences with pleasant humour by calling me “ An Old Idolator,’ and proceeds to fill five closely-written pages with various Biblical and other quotations and alleged arguments that smoking ia a form of “ Natural Depravity/ I am sorry I.cannot spare the space to insert the letter in full, a few sentences, however, I may quote : I make bold to say one-fourth or more of the educational vote is wasted through the tobaooo habit. It commences with the parents and teachers, and having to obey a natural law goes on to the children. Keep your eyes about and notice the asre of many of the cigarette-smokers, from 9 to 10 years and upwards, and you know your dear goddess is blasting the physical, mental, moral and religious life Of those children. I had to take my children from One school, bscause the master smelt so unpleasant While attending to them, and to use the words of one of them, took more interest in his “pipe than in them. I know you believe _in the elevating influence of education, sir, the tobacco habit is in the way, sapping the vitality of-the nation, for the spread of sunder With th<3 Cigarettes, for lowering the vitality and consequently _ Causing increase of consumption, for the increase of rheumatism, for the wrecking of the ncrvoUS system, for the increase of man s selfishness, for the general disinclination to work, and many other things, nothing boats the use of tobacco.

A HASTINGS correspondent sends me the following Dear ‘ Scrutator/ A rather amusing fiasco occurred ill a Hawke's Bay church not long since, showing the difference .in thought pervading the old generation and the new, and. proving also that there is still a little of the old Puritan spirit left amongst the seniors, whilst the younger folk are pretty well up to date. It was a Presbyterian church, and as a rule the work in all departments is carried on with the utmost harmony, and there is a very good choir. The latter had learned an anthem which Contained one or two solos, and intended performing it--on, the following ‘ Saw bath/ but some of /the kirk elders getting to hear of it held a special session and forbid the singing of the anthem on the ground that the service was becoming too lively. The choir being all young people, and having selected the item from a book used in: the church, were naturally a little piqued; but said nothing. On the following Sunday, however, the lady organist came to the conclusion that if it was wrong I o sing solos it must be oqually wicked to play an off irtory piece, and so when the collcctoi s started on their march they had no accompaniment. This, however, did not seem to disconcert them —they being staid gentlemen of the old school. H may here be noted that while the young folk do a great part of the church work the patriarchs always keep an eye on the ‘ squeeze.’ Well, as T have already said, the plate-holders did hot seem to mind- the lack of music, but when the congregation heard their coppers and bent threepennies jingling in the plate and breaking the awful silence, which allowed everyone to distinguish wbat his neighbour put in from the sound it made, they also thought it time to call a meeting and make further inquiries. I understand that on the following Sunday not only was the usual offertory piece played, but the anthem and its. solos were also given. And the church walls still stand upright 1” ,

THE latest number of the Wellingtonian, the capital little magazine issued in connection with Wellington College, shows a great improvement on its predecessors. There is an excellent record of the school's sports, etc., but personally I turn first to the Odds and Ends Column, wherein I can always find what a journalist colloquially entitles “ quotable stuff.” The following paragraphs come under such designation :

This term the reading of Tennyson’s poems seems to have produced a wonderful effect on the Sixth and Fifth. The vagueness of their knowledge about the subject may be gathered from the following answers on “ Morte D’Arthur ” :

“ Tennyson drew a lot of his stories from the works of Maloney (doubtless Sir Thomas Malory).” “ The ‘ Siege Perilous ’ was reserved for the * Holy Grail.’ ” Miastor (to boy writing out the principal parts of the French verbs Valoir, Faire, Venn-, Ouvrir, Pouvoir) : “ Anyone not finished?” Soveral hands up. “ Where are you, Spiffkins?” “ Over ’ere, sir.” Meaning of words : “ Give me a sentence showing the meaning of the word Menagerie.” “ When you get a menagerie into your brain, it causes trbuble and you generally try to get it out ag dii.” “ What becomes of a “bee in your bonnet” after this ?

Geography : “ How did you like the geography paper to-day?” “Not very well, sir.” “How much did you do?” “Very little, sir ! I made up my mind that I should put down only what I was quite certain of, so I answered only one question.” “ What was it ?” “ Where is Mauritius and what is it noted for ?” “ Well, what did you say ?” “Oh, of course I knew that!” “ Well?” “ South of Franco, sir; noted for gambling.” Write an essay on any one of the following subjects (here follows a list). Brown chose “A White Elephant.” After he had

fried for a feW imitates lie stood up. “ Well?” , from tho master. “ Please, sir, I can’t think of anything.” “Try.” Ho did, but he did not kick a goal from that try; In his essay there appeared—“ The Natives of India, mutinied because they had to bite the ends of cartridges that had been smeared in white elephant’s fat.”

AND, apropos to schools and school examinations, a very good story, admirably illustrative of the caution which is so strong a feature in the Scotch character is now going the rounds of the Home press. It appeared originally in a Dundee paper : A class of children were being prepared to perform “Who killed Cock Robin?” at the school examination, and the boy who impersonated the hero was taught to fall on the floor at the right moment. But when the crisis was reached on the examination day ho did not fall. The verse was repeated, but still he remained upright. Being accordingly asked his reason, he replied,- “ My mither said I wasna to fa, for I’ve got on my Sunday Claes/'

WHAT'S in a name 7 During a recent sitting of New South Wales Supreme Court (Divorce), two of the petitions were headed “ Loveless v. Loveless ; ’ and “ Lush v. Lu&h." Some fews months ago two other divorce cases in the same court were those of u Love v. Love” and “ Bliss v. Bliss.’ And, in this connection, I note, in London Sporting Times the following :—“We hear that a marriage will shortly take place at Monkstown, co. Dublin. The contracting parties are both Crows, the parson a Peacock, and the organist a Rook. Clearly a case of rooking, say we. Fowl play is evident. The pedigree of all concerned is unnecessary, as there should be no difficulty in discovering a family tree.”