HERE AND THERE.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1191, 28 December 1894, Page 23

HERE AND THERE.

CLIPPINGS, CONDENSATIONS, AND

COMMENTS

A noticeable article in the Nineteenth Century is '."" The Chinaman Abroad," by Mr Edmund Mitchell, who for some time was a journalist in Sydney. He makes a strong plea in favour of John, whom, he says, is hated vices, but for virtue. He says :

My plea for the Chinaman in new countries such as California or Queensland amounts ■• to ■ this —that for the development of these regions his presence in certain force cannot but prove one of Ibhe grandest factors conducing to success. His total exclusion is a most >short-sighted and mistaken line of policy; his' deportation is little less than a national crime, for it puts back the clock of progress and renders useless a large amount of necessary and arduous pioneer work. F urthermore, I say unhesitatingly that both the Australian colonies and the Western States of America could take thousands more Chinamen than they at present have, to the advantage of 3ihw whole community in each and every case. :

Not to the "advantage of the whole community!" We quarrel with that sweeping statement. Also, when Mr Mitchell says that " many ah hotel has bean burned to the ground for no other reason than that the owner employed a Chinese cook/' one asks for proofs !

In an articie in the North American Review for September, entitled " English Workmen and their Political Friends," Sir John Gorst makes the following remarks on the. subject of "Industrial Arbitration" : /■

.- First of all, there is the question, which a Royal Commission has been considering for three years, how to settle trade disputes between employer and employed without a labour war. Every one admits that it is desirable to have some method more rational and less costly than a strike or a lock-but. Where is a political force to be found that will compel the. /Government and Legislature to take this matter, in hand, and think out a scheme for the rational settlement ■ of trade disputes ? The fiversixths of the workers,. who, being; defenceless in a trade dispute, would gain by the estab- :: lishjnent of any power to stand between them/and ah unreasonable employer, are dumb, ignorant, and unrepresented in the ■ Hoiise of Commons. ; There is no force at present-to overcome: the inertia of Government and Parliament, and the estab- . lishment of tribunals of conciliation and arbitration is not yet within the sphere of practical politics. :,- Pardon usj Sir John, the establishment of such tribunals is V Within the sphere of practical politics." In New Zealand, thanks to the .Minister of this problem has been solved.. .;

Lord Rosebery is-a irany.sided man, and in the Nineteenth Century for October a Mr Strachey questions whether the real Lord Rosebery is sincere about anything! Mr Strachey finds in the present English Prime Minister no less than seven separate personalities.

1. The Home Rule Lord Rosebery. 2. The Unionist Lord Rosebery. 3.The Democratic, Socialist, LabourRadical Lord Rosebery. 4. Lord Rosebery the Political Bos3. 5. Lord Rdsebery the man above party.,* 6. Lord Rosebery the Sphinx. /

7. The Newmarket Lord Rosebery.

He continues : Thackeray, in his Georges, describes a Royal Prince who wore a . wilderness of waistcoats one over the other. These, in fact, made up His Royal Highness. You stripped one off, and theie was another below; but if yOu persisted until the very end, you found that beneath the last waistcoat there was nothing. The Prince was an affair of waistcoats. Possibly, Lord'Rosebery is an affair of aliases and atmospheres," and no real Lord Rosebery exists. No doubt, it is also possible that there is an irreducible element, an archetypal Lord Rosebery, though.fone not discoverable by the .imperfect analytical apparatus at our command'. In any case, I have no option . but to treat Lord Rosebery as if he were nothing but a bundle of seven aliases, fpr that is all ,1 can find in him. "Whatever else he is, Lord Rosebery ia certainly the English Prime Minister, the Liberal Priihe Minister, and a popular Prime Minister —my latter consideration is precisely what so much annoys the capticus Tory critics of the Strachey stamp. .

In the Young Man lor October the Eev Hugh Price Hughes tells how he preached his first sermon at a.Swansea boarding school. He was then only 14 ! As to his " call" to the Methodist ministry, he says:—

When that call came I wrote to my

• father a letter as brief and direct as schoolboy letters of ten are, stating that I was convinced it was the will of God that I should become a Methodist preacher. To this my father replied in terms equally laconic, that he would rather that I should be a Methodist preacher than Lord Chancellor of England. That reference arose from the"-fact-that I was then intended for the legal profession. . & s '

In Sfcribner's Magazine Dr Boosevelt describes " Life in a New York Hospital," in the course of which he tells the following capital story of "Dan the Hospital Dog." Speaking of the Ambulance Service, he says:— There always is a crowd, except late at night, and were it not for the efficient and willing aid of the police, it would be impossible to do much for the patient. For ■ some time the officers, had an able and enthusiastic volunteer assistant in keeping the ground clear, and our ambulance had no trouble from delays due to the failure of other vehicles to make room for it. My dog, Dan, an animal of great intelligence, originality, and determination of character, came to the hospital on a visit. He evidently came to the conclusion, after a few days of thought, that duty called him to take charge of the ambulance and everything connected with the service. He made friends with the horse, watched over the stable, and always " personally conducted " the surgeon on calls. He ran ahead barking furiously at any wagon which did not promptly turn aside, and giving tongue like a deerhound even when the street was clear. He saw to it that persons who had no business to crowd around the surgeon kept at a respectful distance. None but police or firemen in uniform could approach within four or five yards, without receiving a decided hint from Dan that it would, be safer for them to stop. He would walk slowly and with much dignity up to the intruder, looking steadily at his face, and speak to him in a low, halF-whispered growl, at the same time ruffling the fur between his shoulders. As our driver said, " Dat dog never had to bite no one; dey got on to what he meant without it." If the surgeon called anyone to his side, Dan ab once regarded the latter as privileged to remain iniside the forbidden ground, and took him under his protection.

Most people are apt to think that the artist and "the practical man" are seldom found in one and the same person. Mr Allen, in an article in the Engineering Magazine, says this idea is a fallacy :■ — We find that the profession of painting has contributed a larger proportional number of the great inventors of the current era than any other pursuit. Notwithstanding the comparatively small number of professional painters extant, we find, indeed, that they have contributed, either directly or. indirectly, nearly all the inventions that have given distinctive features to modern civilisation. Robert Fulton, the first person to make a commercial success of the various devices for steam navigation that had been conceived, was a. portrait-painter, and, as the' frontispiece to Webster's " Unabridged Dictionary" testifies, a very good one> too. But his invention not only. covered the oceans; rivers, and lakes with steam- vessels, but it suggested

the locomotive, and covered the continents with railways. Morse, the inventor, who sent the first telegraphic message over a long line of wire, was a landscapei paiflterV and was elected and re-elected president of the National Academy of Design during the entire twenty years while • he was incubating his idea, mainly to strengthen his resources. Bub. Morse, aarain, was the parent of still other inventions. The telephone is the direct offspring of the telegraph, and even the electric light, when we, consider its appliances for distribution, seems remarkably like a first : cousin. Daguerre,. the magician who set the sun at work as a journeyman and opened the way for all the refinements of photography, was another landscape painter, and the man. . . compelling the great luminary to work on metallic sunfaces in photo-lithography was still a fourth man among the painters who have been making a mechanical and almost a social revolution. We see, therefore, that there seems to be a very intimate relation

between invention and the fine arts. In the Humanitarian for October Sir Benjamin Ward Richardson pleads for the "painless extinction of life in the lower animals." This is how he would like to see sheep killed :

The process is very simple and most effective. The operator carries on his back a light impervious bag, which is charged with the vapour of chloroform and ordinary coal gas. The gas is commingled with the vapour of chloroform from an entrance tube afc the upper part. From the bag there proceeds at tbe lower part another tube three feet long, at the end of which there is a funnel, which passes over the nostrils of the sheep, and which is armed with a tap. After having caught the sheep, the operator p isses the mask over its mouth, holds it there firmly, and, turning the tap, the animal inhales the narcotic mixture freely, and can be rendered quite unconscious to the knife in twenty seconds. The lethal method may be aoplied to lambs, calves and pigs, though for the latter I doubt whether it would be better than the French method of stun, performed by means of the mallet. Wouldn't do for a colonial stock-yard, we fear.

Great Britain and the United States having apparently came to a satisfactory agreement as to the control of tbe Nicaragua Canal when completed, some particulars concerning that little known work may be of interest. In the Engineering Magazine for September, Mr Oscar Saabye says that the. total amount to be excavated is 157,200,000 cubic yards. He continues : Of this total excavation I judged that aJbout from three-eighths t 9 9W~k&%T?X

about 70,000,000 cubic yards—has been done. Of the total length of the canal, about one-half, including about 15 miles on the Atlantic side, has been finished, or very nearly so, and there is water in this portion on both sides, its depth varying from 18 to 23 feet. The finished part is in comparatively good condition. Besides the work already done, the canal company has on hand, distributed at both terminals and at convenient points along the canal route, an immense stock of machinery, tools, dredgers, barges, steamers, tugboats, and materials for continued construction. At Panama, La Boca and Colon, as well as along the canal, are numerous buildings, large and small, for offices, workshops, storehouses and warehouses, and for lodging and boarding the men who were employed on the work. The finished work, as well as all the machinery, tools, materials, buildings, &c, are well taken care of and looked after. The canal company employs 100 uniformed policemen, besides numerous watchmen, machinists and others, whose sole duty, consists in watching the canal and looking after needed repairs of plant, and care of materials. In fact, the work and the .rhole plant is in such a condition, so far as I could ascertain, that renewed construction could be taken up and carried to a finish at any time it is desired to do so, after the company's finances will permit.

In the North American Revieiv a Mr Sanborn, who has charge of a library in New York, tells what sort of literature the.children of the poorer classes in that city particularly affect. He says :

Stories of school and home life, manuals of games and sports, funny books, ballads and narrative poems, and adaptations of natural and applied science are received with some degree of interest. The old favourites, " Robinson Crusoe," " Swiss Family Robinson," "Arabian Nights," " Tom Brown," " Uncle Tom's Cabin," and " Mother Goose " charm here as every where. Of.the standard novelists, Cooper, Scott, and Dickens are read, but with no great degree of: ardour. Calls for special books may often be traced to changes of programme at the theatres. Thus a temporary demand was created for "Oliver Twist," "Rip Van Winkle," the "Merchant of Venice,' the " Three Musketeers," and even for Tennyson's " Becket." The reason for such other special calls as Erckmann - Cbatrian's " Citizen Bonaparte," Hawthorne's " House of the Peven Gables," Scott's " Marmion," the " Lives of Havelock, Clive, Grattan, and Sir Francis Drake," George Eliot's " Daniel Deronda," and Tom Moore's "History of Ireland,' can only be surmised.

One of the last articles written by the late Professor Froude appears in the Cosmopolitan Magazine, and tells the story of Antony and Cleopatra. Mr Froude thus sketches the famous pair:— He was a typical Roman soldier of the later period. The moral severity of the age of the Scipios was gone. The courage, the discipline, the robust strength remained. But these qualities could not resist the temptations to which the conquest of the world exposed the victors. The animal vigour of their frames made them easy victims to sensual indulgence. Cleopatra. . . was then nearly twenty-eight years old, in the bloom of her beauty; but behind her bodily charms was the spirit of a bold, self-possessed, and scheming woman, skilful to fish in troubled waters, and meaning to try whether she could not so enchant her judge as not only to make him lenient to her faults, but to use him as an instrument to further her own fortunes. To what high place her imagination might then have led her to aspire can only be conjectured. But Antony was the second person —perhaps the first—in the world. If she could conquer Antony, she might conquer Rome itself, and- avenge the wrongs of Asia:

The stories of wonderful " finds " —in the Tibetan monasteries—by Theosophist travellers are dismissed by Professor Max Muller in the Nineteenth Century as purely bogus. He quotes the following extract from the letter of a lady who writes from Leh, in Ladak : Did you hear of a Russian who could not gain admittance to the monastery in any way, but at last broke his leg outside, and was taken in ? His object was to copy a Buddhist "Life of Christ" which is there. He says he got it, and has published it since in French. There is not a single word of truth in the whole story! There has been no Russian there. No one has been taken into the

Seminary for the past fifty years with a

broken leg! There is no " Life of Christ" there at all! It is dawning on me that people who in England profess to have been living in Buddhist monasteries in Tibet and. to have learnt there the mysteries of Esoteric Buddhism are frauds. The monasteries one and all are the most filthy places. The Lamas are the dirtiest of a very dirty race. They are fearfully ignorant, Mid idolaters pur et simple ; no—neither pure nor simple. I have asked many travellers whom I have met, and they all tell the same

story. Believers in Mrs. Besant's verbose rubbish about Buddhism will please note the above sentence ; " People who in England profess to have been living in Buddhist monasteries in Tibet, and to have learnt there the mysteries of Esoteric Buddhism, are frauds.'*

In the Fortnightly Review a Dr Thomas Qliyer, who ~ writes on " The Piet of the

Working Glasses," has a specially good word to say for sugar. Sugar ought to be included, to a lager extent than it is, in the dietary of the working classes. There is always a small quantity of sugar present in human blood, viz., "1 per cent. When muscle is in a state of activity there is a disappearance of sugar from the blood> four times greater than occurs in. the blood issuing from muscle in a condition of rest, clearly indicating, therefore, that during activity sugar is used up. In his experiments to demonstrate whether sugar is a muscular nutriment, Harley abstained from all food, except 500 grammes of sugar daily, i.e., a little over one pound by weight, and he found that there was not only an increase in the amount of work accomplished, compared with that done during fasting, by 70 per cent., but that muscular fatigue was decidedly retarded. It is recognised that when sugar is added to food, a man is capable of doing more muscular work with than without it, and that this occurs about two hours after it is taken. With Harley's experiments before us, it is interesting to observe that what physiology is now teaching has, apparently, long been known to the Northumberland coal miner and to the English navvy.

By all means buy the children plenty of lollies for Christmas. It will please them, and, according to Dr Oliver, the " sweeties " will be good for their muscle.

Even among Scotchmen, Aberdonians are noted for being jcke-proof. Here is a sample of unconscious humour on the part of the Aberdeen Journal, which fairly takes the bannock:—

Mr James Wylie, a United Presbyterian missionary at Liao Yank, has been murdered by Chinese soldiers marching to Corea. He is recovering from his injuries.

Clever satire from Napier Netvs on the intensity of " party" feeling in the Hawke's Bay capital:— An incident not wholly devoid of a certain amount of pathos occurred in the vicinity of Shakespeare and Brewster streets this morning l . A pet animal of the canine species, owned by the proprietor of a local Conservative journal, was proceeding homewards, when-it. was suddenly attacked by convulsions close to the business premises of the Liberal member for Napier. The latter, on perceiving the agony of the dog, rushed out with some water, but the animal, which was reared on strictly Conservative principles, recoiled in horror from the attentions of our Liberal friend, and as the innocent beverage touched its nozzle the animal maintained, its political consistency by expiring immediately.

' l Gems from the examination papers " is quite a recognised headline in the English papers. Here is a late sample or two of children's blunders : One young physiologist, being asked to name the functions of the skin, replied that one of its uses was "to make us look better, for if we had no skin we should be red all over." " Where and what is Cleopatra's needle?" caused at least one child to beat about the bush. " Cleopatra," he said, "is in the Isl 3of Wight. Sue. makes needles different from those generally used ; the thread has to go through the top."

" What is a ' toff ? ' " says the London Globe ••

Police Magistrates are frequently called upon to decide on queer subjects, but it is as authorities on the hidden meaning of the English language that they especially shine. At Southampton the other .day a music-hall manager complained that he had been insulted by being called a "toff," a word which he took to be synonymous with " cad." The Magistrate took exactly an opposite viewi and thought it meant " gentleman," but the clerk struck the difference, and said it meant a "would-be gentleman." There is a fine choice here, but the only thing certain seems to be that the legal price of the word is ten shillings, the amount of the fine inflicted on the defendants.

Mr A. Brodriek, a British citizen and a Transvaal burger,; tells in an interview in the South African Umpire an authentic story of the marriage of President Pretorious :

The good, sturdy old man at 75 thought of marriage, and wrote to a buxom widow at some distance, notifying that he would call on her with a license. So one day he spanned-in his mules, paid £7 10s for his license, and leisurely trekked to the widow's homestead. He had lingered too long. " Jij es toe laat," sail the widow, "I was married last week." Pretorious shook hands, lit his pipe, and returned to Pretoria. "Mr Bok,' he said, "I want you to scratch out that name and put in Widow . I think she'll have me." " I

can't do that, Mr Pretorious —the license is i annulled ; but gc down to Oom Paul and see what he can do.'' The ex-President gravely went down to his suceessor aud stated his case. " No, no; I can't do as you wish ; but here is £7 10s for a new license." Off then went the old man to the registrar, secured his new license, and the widow as . well.