HERE AND THERE.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1199, 22 February 1895, Page 10

HERE AND THERE.

CLIPPINGS, CONDENSATIONS AND

COMMENTS.

Mb Edward Harrison Baker, in "Two Summers in Guyenne" (Bentley), asserts that the habits of the rural population of Southern France show very little progress. " One June morning, soon after sunrise, twenty-seven mowers came to the chateau to cut the grass in the great meadow lying between the river under the cliffs and the moat. Each mower brought with him his scythe, an implement of husbandry which in France is in no danger of being classed with agricultural curiosities of the past. Some of the mowers were men of sixty, others were youths of eighteen ; all were contented at the prospect of earning nothing, but of being treated with high good - cheer.; They were themselves all landowners or sons of landowner?. Had wages been given, two francs for the- day would have been considered very high pay, and the food would have been very rough. At 10 o'clock the big bell that hangs outside the chateau is rung, and the mowers troop into the great kitchen, Which has changed little for centuries. The pots and pans hanging against the walls and the pieces of bacon from the beams have been renewed, but not much «lse. There is the same floor paved with stones, now cracked and worn in hollows, the same broad chimney with hanging chain, and the long tableland benches, though their age is uncertain, were fashioned upon the model of others that preceded them. Bichard Cceur de Lion, when campaigning in Guyenne, may have sat down many a time to such a table as this, and to just such a meal, with the exception of the coffee and £he rum."

FARMING IN SOUTHERN FRANCE.

-Garibaldi was very susceptible to feminine - charms, in proof of which n Mrs .Minto Elliott tells a a • story in her "Roman Gossip" :.,.(Hurray) :—The daughter of <,the Marchese Raimondi, of Como, went to his camp when he was fighting at the Italian Lakes in 1859. " She was young, Giuseppina, with a lovely face and gentle voice ; in her hand she carded a letter ■which she pretended she had intercepted from the Austrians. Garibaldi thanked her and they parted. Next day her father arrived, and openly entreated him to marry his daughter, ' who loved him to despair.' 'lmpossible!' ;cried; the general; 'I am wedded to my dead Anita, the mother of my sons. Besides;' Marchese, how can your daughter care for me ? She has only seen me once.' 'Ah ! but, General, it is not so much personally yourself, it is the cause of Italy that my daughter adores. ~ You, to her, are the embodiment of her country's cause/ No sooner were these words uttered than Garibaldi gave Whis consent. And on the steps of the altar, but, unhappily, after the binding ceremony of the Catholic Church, he found, too late, that this abandoned girl had had an intrigue with an officer, his greatest friend, and, that the marriage with himself was but a blind to cover her too apparent shame 1 Yet, far from taking vengeance for the dishonour put upon him, he was with difficulty prevented from adopting the unfortunate child. "'.'.& Poor babe 1' he said; » the fault is not hi£ • I loved his father dearly.' " j

&IRIBAZ.I AND TH! FAIR sua

The Tory press—especially the Argus, Syd- '.'.,, ' ney Morning Herald and

Australian Star for .ever, with a melancholy sound like the grind of a i. broken grindstone, about the jway the land-tax and socialistic legislation are driving population away from Maoriland. ' As a matter of fact Maorilaud, in the six years before the land-tax was imposed and the "Socialistic" regime •was started, lost 17,000 people to other countries by emigration, and in the three years after the present nefarious system came into force it gained 18,000 from other countries.—BuMetin.'"^

THE AUSTRALIAN PRESS ON NEW ZEALANI

Mb William Watson's full recovery of his

ME WATSON*! LATEST POEMS.

powers is signalised by the "S publication of a new volume, "Odes and other Poems." The general verdict seems to

be that; his fame is established by this book, and that doubters of his genius will be silenced. The Spectator, indeed, opines that Mr Watson has taken his place on a level with Matthew Arnold and Tennyson, if not with Wordsworth. The following opening verses are quoted irom a fine poem, " The First Skylark of Spring '*:— y : Two -worlds hast thou to dwell in, Sweet — The virginal * untroubled sky, And this vext region at my feet — Alas, but one have I! To all my songs there clings the shade, The dulling shade of mundane care. They amid mortal mists are made — Thine, in immortal air. 2tfy heart is dashed with griefs and fears ; My song" cOnies fluttering, and is gone. O 3a£gh above the home of tears, .Eternal Joy, sing on. The poet, hypercritically, it may be considered, has "omitted the following verse, which appeared in the work aa originally printed : Sing, for with rapturous throes of birth, And arrowy labyrinthine sting, There riots in the veins of Earth The iehor of the spring.

J pelt certain (says a writer in a Melbourne paper) that someone

A BRITISH SUBJECT.

was hanging back for Max O'Kell, and that the frivolous Frenchman with his petty

satires on some of the finest traits in the British national character, ■would eventually catch it hot. The time has rarrived and the man. At the City Court on Tuesday a foreigner named Petersen was -charged with stealing four tins of jam, and ."Mr Panton, seeing his chance to get even -with our common enemy, rose to the occasion ithus— "Are youaßritish subject?" Prisoner jj «• No.''' Mr Panton, with a- great sigh of rrelief. "Jam glad to hear that you are not. are sentenced to a month." It was not

the month that was so severe, but Mr Panton's expression of thankfulness that the man who stole four tins of jam was a foreigner. Four tins of jam—when he might just as easily have taken the whole case. That's singularly unlike a Briton.

] olume of reminiscences of Thackeray, entitled " Chapters from some Memoirs," Mrs Ritchie, the novelist's daughter, describes the feeling of jealousy she and her 1 sister entertained for Thackeray's man-ser-vant and factotum, who used to write letters to the papers and sign them " Jeames de la Pluche," who had an almost preternatural intuition for divining his master's wishes and needs. " I remember we almost cried on one occasion, thinking our father would ultimately prefer him to us." " Ours was more or less a bachelor establishment," she , writes at another place, " and the arrange* ! ment of the home varied between a certain fastidiousness and the roughest simplicity. I We had shabby table-cloths, alternating I with some of my grandmother's fine linen ; i we had old Derby china for our dessert of dry figs and dry biscuits, and a silver Flaxmah teapot (which always poured oblations of tea upon- the cloth) for breakfast ; also three cracked cups and saucers of unequal patterns and si'Ees." But one morning a present came from an unknown hand of a complete breakfast set, magnificent—hideous enough, no doubt, to our taste - in roses and gilding, and accompanying it a copy of verses not written, but put together out of printed letters from the Times: — " Of esteem as a token—

ANOTHER THACKERAY STORY.

Fate preserve it unbroken — A friend sends this tea-dish of porcelain rare, And with truth and sincerity Wishes health and prosperity To the famed M. A. Titmarsh, of ' Vanity Fair.' Years afterwards, when De la Placho was taking leave of my father and sailing for Australia, where he had obtained a responsible position, he said reproachfully, ' I sent you the breakfast things ; you guessed a great many people, but you never guessed me."*

The Marton Mercury warmly approves of

MR SEDDON AND THE BOILERMAKERS.

Mr Seddon's attitude towards a Trades Council deputation recently. After admitting that the boilermakers had

certain just grievances the Mercury writer proceeds : height of absurdity for one speaker to contend, as he did, that Tangye engines and other machinery used in creameries and dairy factories should be weighted with an almost protective duty in order that the Wellington iron-workers—only a few in number they are—shall have constant work. As Mr Seddon pointed out, the larger portion of the machinery used in the dairy factories has been patented and could not be male here, and for one speaker to grumble because, so he alleged, in a wild vague way, ' that all these creameries are run by one man who spends the money at Home which he makes in the colony/ is just so much ignorant claptrap. As a matter of fact, in the FortyMile Bush several creameries were started by an English firm, who displayed a most laudable spirit of enterprise in helping the settlers to establish the dairy industry firmly in their midst, and who have been the means of distributing large sums of money, whilst they themselves, so we are dorry to say, have sustained heavy losses. Jf the Trades Council deputation (some of whom are as ignorant of the difficulties settlers have to undergo as they are rash and reckless in their statements regarding private owners of creameries) only knew what they were talking about they would recognise that English firms who come here and establish an industry are fully deserving of the most generous assistance and sympathy, and to sneer at them because they bring with them English made patented machinery (which cannot be made here) betrays a most lamentable want of knowledge and tact.

Loißri Roberts, in the series of chapters on "The Rise of Wellington" lord Roberts which he has been con-

on tributing to the Pall Mall Wellington. Magazine, dissents from the usual representation of Wellington as a blunt soldier without ambition, and blames him for doing little to bring to public notice the services of his most capable lieutenants. "A study of Wellington's life and writings," he comments, '* leads one to the conclusion that he has been somewhat overrated as a man, and greatly underrated as a commander." In Lord Roberts' opinion the greater general won at Waterloo. "The British commander," he says, " certainly displayed greater readiness of resource, tactical skill, and coolness of judgment than his illustrious antagonist. Wellington was the only general of the first order Napoleon ever had to encounter, and throughout the campaign the Emperor appears to have underrated his opponent's ability, and failed to realise the surpassing bravei-y and endurance of British soldiers." Thus it is an undoubted fact that Napoleon gave orders to Ney to push on in all haste to Brussels, taking for granted that he would bo the conqueror at Waterloo. Lord Roberts pointed out how he blundered in two important respects—first, in supposing that he had succeeded in taking the allied forces by surprise and preventing their junction; and, secondly, in assuming, without taking steps to verify his hypothesis, that after the preliminary battle of June 16ih the Prussians had retreated towards their base in Germany, and in sending Grouchy in pursuit of them.

As represented by Lord Koberts, the key to the whole of Wellington's tactics at Waterloo is that he intended at all risks to keep his route to the sea open. It was this which made him attack Ney at Quatre Bras, and prevented his pushing fons'ard to join Blucher. He himself said to Croker:— " I never contemplated a retreat on Brussels. Had I been forced from my

THE DUKE AND HIS ARMY.

position I should have retreated to my right towards the coast, the shipping, and my resources." It is impossible not to conjecture, after reading the despatches of I Wellington before the battle, which Lord Roberts quotes, that he rather expected to lose the fight- "If lam not mistaken, the Prussians will get an awful thrashing to-day," he remarked to his staff, after inspecting Blucher's position on the 16th, I and vainly attempting to. persuade that; general to shift his ground. Beaten the Prussians were, butnot at all decisively. Of his own troops we find him writing in May :— " I have got an infamous army, very weak and ill-equipped, and a very inexperienced staff. In my opinion they are doing nothing in England." Referring- to the speech recently delivered at Christchurch by Mr Beeves, the Manawatu Partner remarks:—No matter vhat measure is introduced y the present Government, t is all the same to that small but wealthy syndicate that supports the Christchurch Press. In the eyes of that august body which rules its columns it is impossible for the Government to do anything right, and to this end, day after day, its columns are polluted with attacks, charges, and challenges—in fact, anything that can possibly be found to annoy any member of the Ministry, more particularly that gentleman who represents the city itself. Mr Reeves in his telling and powerful record of the real and usful work which had been achieved during his period of office has certainly scored well against his opponents.

MB REEVES ". AND THE J [RISTCHURCH \ Press. b i

1 The Rev W. H. Ash. writes to us (Otago Daily Times), pointing- out i." that the word "dissenting," which was used in a paragraph in Monday's issue concerning a local Keswick convention, ought not in the colonies to be applied to churches thab are not episcopally governed. Here there is no State religion, and consequently there is no such thing as an " assenting " or " dissenting/' The Church of England has its place with the other churches, and is neither higher nor lower than them. Our correspondent considers it necessary to point this out, because he thinks there is a disposition at present being manifested by the local officials of the Anglican body to claim and assert their for denomination a superiority to other denominations which on this side of the world, at any rate, has no existence.

" DISSENTER!

The Feilding Star publishes the following opinion of New Zealand volunteered by a d New South Wales man : it. " Look here/' said lie, "I have travelled thiough „ 0 part of America, I have been through Canada, the Argentine Republic, Victoria, and have been settled for some years in New England, some three hundred miles back from Sydney/but I have never seen such abeautiful country as you have got here. I intend when I go back to. try and sell out and come over here and settle. Why/man, you have a typical paradise here compared to us in New South Wales, and you t**lk about the hard times. It is nothing to be compared to the state of affairs over with us. The banks own pretty well all we call ours over there, and you know what the banks have been doing lately." Farmers, cheer up after that description, and don't let your spirits go down.

NEW ZEALAN THE BES m-nof.

The spirit of fun and mischief is strong- in most school boys, and was the cause of considerable merriment at the Wanganui Boys' School a day or two since. One of the scholars during- class time ostentatiously displayed a large red-cheeked apple of temptingappearance, which no sooner caught the master's eye than it was confiscated and placed on the mantel-piece, whither the youthful pedagogue directed longing glances from time to time, until, impelled by the heat of the day and a parched tongue, he could resist no longer. With as much dignity as he could muster, he walked over to the mantel-piece, took up the apple, and, imitating Dudu, bit it to the core, and, like Byron's heroine, screamed out! It was not *' a bee and apple " this time, but it was quite as painful, for that bad boy had cunningly inserted a teaspoonf xxl of cayenne pepper into that apple!

A " BAD boy's " XTLE JOKE.

Statistics taken on a recent Saturday and Sunday show that in Sydney 20,778 persons visited nine places of amusement on Saturday, while only 5650 services at a similar number of the principal churches of the city on Sunday, of whom 3000 attended St. Mary's Roman Catholic Cathedral.

A SYDNEY SUNDAY.

" Scrutator's " views (published last week)

concerning the action of the Anglican Synod with regard to women voting at parish meetings are emphasised by

THE SYNOD AND THE WOMEN.

the Christchurch Star, which remarks :—The majority of the clergy at the Anglican General Synod have treated the Colony to a display of that wooden-headed Conservatism which is the greatest hindrance to the practical usefulness of the Church of England. By a very large majority they have refused to allow women to vote at parish meetings. Now this is distinctly ungrateful on the part of their reverences, as well as being terribly unjust. The clorgy are under enormous obligations to the ladies. In the first place, the bulk of their congregations consists of the fair sex. Again, women form the majority of the ariny of unpaid and voluntary labourers who do so much in all branches of church work. The funds of the churches would often be in a poor way but for the assistance of the ladies, who, by acting as collectors, by organising

bazaars, fetes and other entertainments, have come there and again to the rescue of many a perplexed incumbent or curate. In spite of all this, when woman, whose now widely awakened logical faculties tell her that she ought to have a voice in the expenditure of the cash which she collects, asks for a vote at the parish meeting—a very modest request—she is met with a refusal. Such conduct on the part of the clerics may, perhaps, bo in accordance with ecclesiastical precedent. If it is, so much the worse for ecclesiastical precedent, for it is in accord with neither common justice, common gratitude, nor common-sense.