ECHOES OF THE WEEK.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1201, 8 March 1895, Page 21

ECHOES OF THE WEEK.

Satira’s my weapon, but I’m too discreet To rnu amuck aud tilt at all I meet. Pope,

BY SCRUTATOR.

T HE great match is over, and the British Lion has given the Kangaroo a beating—an honest, complete, and convincing beating, and one at which I, for one, rejoice most heartily. For the Australian “ blow,” in press, in public, and private was becoming most nauseous. There can be no *‘ ifs” and “ might have beens ” in the criticisms of the last match. It was a fairly-fought-out encounter, and we have a right to assume that the best men won. The blatherskite element in the land of bank-rupt-banks and swindling land companies should now hold its tongue for a while if it has any decency. I have carefully read the reports and paragraphs about the various matches which have appeared m the sporting press of Australia, and tor unfairness of tone some of. them could not well be equalled. The insinuations,.openly made in some papers, that the Englishmen played badly on certain occasions in order to swell the gate-money receipts, the shamefully unfair barracking of the crowd at one or two of the matches, were enough to disgust any honest outsider, and so I at least openly rejoice at the final “ taking down ” of the great “ Blowhard ” nation. TALKING about the test match the Press Association would do well to moderate the zeal of their Sydney agent in the wav of “ fine writing," and in giving personal ideas and criticisms which no one asked for, and for the value of which no one has the faintest respect. Here, for instance, is a sample of the “ penny a lining *' stuff for which newspaper proprietors have had to pay heavy charges:— Such interest in sporthas never been seen in Australia since Beach rowed Hanlan. Before its immense light the V.R.C. races glimmer dimly,- almost . unseen, for the bowling analysis of McKibbin and the batting figures of Darling or Gregory are matters of much deeper concern than the winner of the Newmarket Handicap. “Before its immense light ihe Y.R.C. races glimmer dimly, almost unseen !" What gush! On another occasion we find the agent giving us his opinions as to this player and that player, couched in a strain of complacent esteem for his own ideas which would be very amusing save for the fact that what the public here require is a straightforward account of the play—and ho personal theories or opinions. The report of the first two days’ play was manifestly governed by a strong bias in favour of the Australians, and it was only on Thursday morning that we got a really good, straightforward report of the game. The Press Association should haul their Sydney young man over the coals. 'The work was extremely badly done. .

BEFORE . quitting this subject of cricket, of which I feel sure the average newspaper reader has of late had enough and to spare, I cannot help drawing attention to the absurdly snobbish way in which the London Daily Chronicle, the Democratic daily curious to say, make l * distinction between the “ gentleman” and “ professional ” element in the English team. In a paragraph referring to one of the earlier matches the Chronicle says “We have lost the wickets of Ward and Mr McLaren, and our chief reliance must be in Mr Stoddart, Brown and Brockwell.” Notice how the “Mister” is carefully placed before the names of the “gentleman” players. Surely, whatever be the status of the various players, in a report of a match there should be none of these class distinctions. For the Democratic Chronicle this lache is \ unpardonably snobbish. fTIHE crushing defeat which the Pro- ■ JL gressive party in the London County Council have just experienced is bad news for all who wish well to the Democratic fight for social and municipal reform which has been going on in London ever since the County Council was established. What the Progressives have already done for London should have entitled them to greater support. The particular debt of gratitude owing to the Progressives was well sketched out by the Daily Chronicle some seven weeks ago. I take the following brief extract What does London owe the Progressives? The - most unimpeachable record of honour, zeal, efficiency, ev«r placed to the credit of any administrative body in. any capital or city in Europe. Thanks to the Council —and the Council is the Progressive party —every Londoner sleeps safer in his bed to-day than he did six years ago. He is less in danger of firo, he has a larger breathing-space, he has an incomparably finer playground, his river runs purer and freer, his bridges are kept like wax, his asylums are models of human care, his slums are being uprooted, his sources of public pleasure are increased tenfold and improved out of knowledge, he is laying the foundations of a great remunerative property, and his stock is almost as sound and valuable as Consols. This is not a tithe —not a twentieth part—of what he owes to his Council. If he forgets or ignores such services—services that he obtains from men seeking nothing and desiring nothing in the way of personal emolument, devoting a career to his interests, and asking simply for the opportunitv to serve him again—he deserves * that London should sink into the slough into which lethargy and corruption had ■ plunged her six years ago. HOW is it then that the Progressives have teen beaten? What are,the reasons for the roundabout turn of the London voters? Well, first of all, I fancj the Progressives attempted too much and frightened the small ratepayer class into fears of extravagant expenditure and con* sequentlv heavy rates. Then again in many divisions the Progressives identified themselves too boldly with the Socialists, and to the average Cockfiey, Socialise evei* of the

mild or Fabian stamp, is a thing affrighful and nauseons. Yet again, amongst the ranks of the Progressives there have been some notorious cranks—social purity cranks who entered upon a wild campaign against the theatres and music halls, temperance cranks and many others. Add to this that the Moderates stole some of their opponents’ best clothes and that general politics entered a good deal into the campaign and we have quite a host of causes for the Progressive collapse. No slight reason for their defeat was the refusal of the Council—or rather its old Progressive majority—to effect much needed street improvements until their Betterment Bill (ignpminuusly rejected by the Lords), was passed, and this Betterment Bill, be it remembered, did, not, so I am informed by a gentleman (of strong Progressive sympathies) recently from England, hit so much at the wealthy and big ground landlords as it did against the smaller householders, whose rents it would’infallibly have raised. All things considered, my London friends think ? ;hat the., defeat of the Progressives is not altogether to be lamented. It is a temporary defeat by which they will be chastened and improved. The crank element will, ho hopes, disappear from their ranks, and in course of time they may return to office stronger than ever and more determined and better equipped for the great task of making London the handsomest and healthiest, as well as the largest city in the Empire.

AND this brings me indirectly to a subject nearer home, and of considerable importance to us dwellers in this, the capital city of New Zealand. We possess the supremacy of site, our city is yearly growing in size and importance, great financial and mercantile institutions are making it—as indeed they are obliged to do —their headquarters, but what arc the citizens and the councillors who represent them doing to ensure the health of ttie city, to secure augmented facilities for outdoor recreation ? How badly are we off, for instance, for open spaces, for breathing places, for recreation grounds. This, I think, is a problem which should be faced, without further delay, for every year its solution will become more difficult and more costly.

AT present the Basin Reserve, a poor overcrowded place at its best, and Newtown Park, which is practically inacessible to a large section of the inhabitants, are the sole recreation grounds owned by the city and under control of the citizens. Are we ever to rest content with these manifestly inadequate pleasure haunts ? Certainly not, if Wellington has any enterprise, if her council has any energy, any reasonable amount of foresight. In my mind’s eye there are two places which should be made into city recreation grounds. The first is on the Town Belt, near Mr Martin Kennedy’s house. Here is space enough for a fairly sized recreation ground, which would beof convenient access to thousands of city workers, and all that stands in the way is the easily surmountable task of levelling; the hills and filling up the gully.

IT is widely recognised that we shall have to face another unemployed problem during the coming winter, and the example set by the Queen's Drive Committee last year should be followed on the site I mention. Properly supervised, carried out on an economical plan, the work could be done at comparatively small expense. A “living wage” for the men, employment given only to those who actually need it,'and behold before next summer the city would be on a fair way towards possessing another public recreation ground, the value of which, to Wellington, would be untold, . Look to - it', my councillor friends’., Be up and doing and earn the everlasting gratitude of the city whose interests you profess to have «o much at heart.

AND again, here is the specially pitiful case of Thorndon which deserves consideration. The Hobson street paddock belongs, I believe, to a person who lives in England. It will not be long, however, with the present growth of . Wellington, ere the ground will be cut up for building purposes, that is, of course, if it be not secured by the city. Here is a central and convenient place for another lung. Is it to be choked up with houses, and lost to the city for ever. Answer, ye councillors, answer in the negative, I trust ye will, and that without loss of time. To secure the pqddock as a permanent recreation ground for the Thorndon end of the city will take money, it is true, but surely, to a large and wealthy city like Wellington the financial difficulties are not insurmountable.

WHO then is to be our Wellington ' Napoleon of finance to engineer this twin scheme through into successful operation ? The city will be repaid the cost a thousand fold in increased health and in additional attractions it will offer as a desirable place of residence. Delay is dangerous, let us follow the example of the cities in the Old Country, and secure to our people better means of outdoor recreation. The doctors I know may object, but let them. Let us make our city more beautiful, healthier, let us give to all parts of the city equal opportunities for outdoor enjoyment. I hope to see the council wake up on this question.

TIIE extremes to which certain of the Prohibitionist Party are prepared to push their fanaticism could not be better exemplified than in the Invercargill case, reported in the New Zealand Times of the 6th inst. Here was an application for a transfer (in which the police made no objection to the proposed licensee) which was refused by the Prohibitionist majority on the committee, in spite of the fact that a temporary license bad already /"been granted, and—this is the worst point in the case —that the majority coolly refused to give any reasons for their decision 1 They did not contend that the proposed licensee was unfit to hold a license, nor that the house had a bad reputation, nor

that it was not required —no, they simply voted against the confirmation of the license already granted, and refused pointblank to state their reasons. The attitude of a certain Rev Mr Woollass, one of the majority, was most extraordinary, even coming, as it did, from a Prohibitionist parson—a class, as a rule, from which we expect anything and everything in the way of fanaticism and injustice. This person said that there was nothing in the Act compelling them to give reasons - for their vote, but the Stipendiary Magistrate made the prompt rejoinder that “there was nothing in any judicial enactment giving power to arbitrarily refuse any application without hearing the other side." a remark in which one discerns that spirit of British fair play in which the parson was so lamentably deficient. When one of the minority moved an adjournment, the chairman said it was imperative that such an adjournment should be made when the transfer was objected to. Whereupon the Rev. Mr Woollass, who in pettifogging quibbles is evidentlv a sort of local bush lawyer, said that it had not been stated that there was any objection, his little game—a miserable, dirty little game it was, too—being to let the* license fall through and become void. But the S.M. was too much for him and very properly retorted that if there were no objection the Committee had no business to refuse the transfer, an opinion in which I venture to say, he will be supported by those of the public who possess any common sense and appreciation of what is called common justice. The motion for the adjournment was then carried, and I shall be curious to see what is the final outcome of the affair.

SURELY the legislature never contemplated the possibility of licences being wiped out by such a dodge as that attempted by these Invercargill Isittites. As to the action of the prohibitionists in refusing a transfer and then cowardly refusing to give reasons for such a course, I shall leave my readers to form their own opinion as to this phase of the matter. The case only shows what tyrants the Prohibitionists would become were they allowed to have their own way. It is a lesson which I hope will not be without effect upon the voters at the next licensing elections.

APROPOS to the Dreyfus incident which recently caused such a sensation in Paris, a London paper, which from its standing ought to have known better, indulges in a very unworthy sneer at the alleged disinclination of the Continental Jews to enter military service, the insinuation being that they are cowardly by nature. The paper in question appears to labour under an impression that there are no Jews in the ranks of the French army, but such is far from being the case. As a matter of fact I am informed upon good authority that there are no less than eight French generals who own allegiance to the Jewish faith—one of them, General Hinstin, having seen forty years active service and being now in command of an important district in norfch-east France. There are also, so I am told, amongst the Jews in the French army nine Colonels, nine Lieutenant-Colonels, twelve Chiefs of Battalion in the Infantry, twentyone in the Engineers, nine in the Cavalry and four in the Artillery, ninety Captains, eighty-nine First Lieutenants and one hundred and four Sub-Lieutenants. Whatever may have been the faults of Captain Dreyfus—many people still believe him innocent—it is, I think, very unfair to the Jews, both in Fiance and elsewhere, to infer that he was the only Jew who was an officer, or that the French Jews as a rule seek to avoid the military service any more than do Frenchmen of other creeds. To question a man’s bravery on account of his creed is a mean thing to do.

I SHOULD have imagined it to be somewhat late in the day—outside the arena of Young Men's Mutual Improvement Association—to further discuss that wellworn subject, the novels cf Dickens, their merits and their faults, but others think otherwise, and I notice that Mr W. S. Lilly, a “ littry pusson ” of some slight vogue in English reviews and magazines of late, has been delivering himself of a lecture at the Royal Institution, London, on “ Dickens— The Humourist as Democrat.” The lecture was one of four in which Mr Lilly was to deal with the work of Dickens, Thackeray, George Eliot and Carlyle. The lectures were entitled “ The English Humourists of the Nineteenth Century,” and, according to Mr Lilly, in Dickens we are to recognise the Humourist as Democrat, while in Thackeray we have him as Philosopher, in George Eliot as Poet and in Carlyle as Prophet. How Thackeray, -George Eliot and Carlyle will fare at Mr Lilly's hands I know not, but poor Dickens is treated very cavalierly by his latest critic. Mr Lilly said he took him “ first because from the point of view of mere literature he appeared to be much less important than any of the other three.’’

SO “Boz” the immortal is to be considered inferior to the author of “ Daniel Deronda,” of “ Middlemarch,” of “Adam Bede.” Well, well, chacun a son gout —in fiction as in other matters. Proceeding further, the lecturer was kind enough to state that “in his own youth be also had come under the spell of Dickens, but he went back to him now with an effort,” —poor fellow !—“ and on taking down the twenty volumes of his works the other day he stood aghast at the inanity of his personages, at the crudity of his thought, at the ineptness of his diction, and at the surprising amount of vulgar details with which the pages were crowded. Dickens was one of the most inartistic of writers.” Dear me! how we live and learn! Here is Mr Lilly, the “ littry pusson ” all of the modern time, tilting up his nose at the “inanity,” the “ineptness,” the “ crudity,” and goodness only knows how many other defects of one who has given pleasure to hundreds of thousands of English readers, not only in the Old Country itself, but all the world 9‘YW* l suppose Mr tally is no doubt one

of the “ new school ” in, English literature and literary criticism, which only finds delight in a novelist when his name ends in “ off sky” or " ieff,” which takes delight in the to me most inexpressibly dreary and often revoltingly indecent horde of Russians, Swedes and Danes, Spaniards and others, translations of whose works it is now the fashion to gloat and gush over. Well, I suppose I’m old fashioned in my tastes, but despite Mr Lilly I hope to turn to my Dickens full many a time and oft, both this year and the next, and for as many other years to come as I may be privileged to inhabit this earthly sphere. It is a pity Dickens were not living. I should just like to see the Master painting this particular Lilly. It would be an instructive and entertaining picture and vastly amusing no doubt to everyone save the supercilious crStin who has dared to attempt a belittling of Boz the Great, the Incomparable—may his memory never die out amongst us.

PERHAPS it was that Dickens is abhorrent to this Lilly person on account of his democratic opinions. “ Boz ” never troubled much about the "Gentlemanly Interest,” before which particular interest the snobbish young English critics of the Lilly stamp abase themselves with .frantic adoration. He was the novelist of the people. He wrote of the masses, of their joys, their sorrows, their pleasures, their griefs, his heart was full of loving sympathy for the poor and oppressed. He was never very successful in his attempts to delineate so-called “upper class” character. His Veneerings for example, were there ever such caricatures ? But what of a failure here when there are so many successes elsewhere. The Master could touch the hearts of men as no other writer of his time could do, as very few writers of to-day even attempt to do. How he could bring up the softest, best and noblest emotions in the minds of even the roughest class of readers cannot be better illustrated than by a couple of verses I take from Bret Harte’s beautiful poem " Dickens in Camp.” Listen to the Californian poet:—

The roaring camp fire, with rude humour painted, ' The ruddy tints of health, On haggard face and form that drooped and tainted, In the fierce race for wealth. Till one arose, and from his pack’s scant treasure, A hoarded volume drew, And cards were dropped from hands of listless leisure, To hear the tale anew. * * =» * #

And then, while round them shadows gathered faster, And as the firelight fell, He read aloud the book wherein the Master Had writ of “ Little Nell.” Perhaps ’twas boyish fancy—for the reader Was youngest of them all, But, as he read, from clustering pine and cedar, A silence seemed to fall, The fir trees gathering closer in the shadow, Listened to every spray, While the whole camp, with "Nell” on English meadows, Wandered and lost their way. AND in how many odd corners and wild surroundings has not Dickens brought pleasure and geniality of spirit, love of fellow man, faith, hope and charity, and all good and Christian thoughts into the minds of his readers. The shepherd on the far away out-station on the great Australian plains, the trapper far back in the Canadian wilds, the skipper reading in his cabin while without is the rush of waves and the howling of the wind, the wearied brain-worker in the great cities of our colonies—all these, aye, and thousands of others, have found Nepenthe in those .dear delightful books of “ Boz.” And yet we are now told they are crude, inept, demoralising and vulgar. Bah 1 what matters the- cavillings and captionsness ef Lilly species? Dickens will live long in the hearts of all of English blood despite the miserable “ new literary criticism ” which can find enjoyment only in the morbid, the pessimistic and the indecent.

TO the many curious specimens of “ English as she is spoke”—and written—by foreigners, which I have given from time to time in this column, the following, a special notice “to our English patrons,” from an advertisement of the Paris Ambigu Theatre, is sent me by a correspondent:— The Direction of the Comical Ambigu thinks to have informed the English Colony that th jy are playing at the present moment a piece which passes in their own country. The Englishmen can imagine that they are really good in London, by which they see a very good jig danced by two artists at Cremorne Gardens, also a good cock fight, the amusement which is very much appreciated by Englishmen.

Emanating from the source it does, there is double reason to call this extraordinary announcement ambigilons.

A CORRESPONDENT, “ Fair Play,” writes as follows : Dear Scrutator, — I have not the plea* sure of a personal acquaintance with Mr Robert Lee, whose admirable little “ Geographical Reader for New Zealand,” published recently by Messrs Longman and Co., was the subject of so evidently malicious an attack—in the course of a so-called “review”—in the Post Supplement last Saturday, but I wish to protest as one of the public against such unfair and ignorant criticism as that of the Post writer. Throughout the article there runs a spirit of wilful misrepresentation, whilst some of the critic’s remarks prove him to be a person completely ignorant of the subject upon which he writes with such an assumption of omniscience. I have read Mr Lee’s book very carefully, and really the only errors of any moment are such as are most manifestly the result of bad proof-reading in London. And the Post critic, “Superior Person” though he no doubt fancies himself, is himself deplorably in fault, for he says : “ These Typographical errors are not, however, the worst features of the book.” As to the attacks upon the pronunciation of certain Maori names used in the book, I can inform the Post writer, upon the authority of a gentleman who is one of the best ffaori eeholavs in the Oolong, that

in each and every instance where the critic takes exception to Mr Lee’s directions for pronunciation the latter are perfectly accurate. ' The Post critic objects to “ Paekakariki/’ which is, however, absolutely correct, and grumbles, forsooth, because "the final ‘e ’ is omitted in ‘ Rangitikei.’ ” Where is the final “e ” ? There is only one “e” in " Rangitikei,” and it is in its right place ! In conclusion, I wonder how this evident personal animus of the Post critic against Mr Lee can be explained ? THE differences of opinion concerning the Maori names I will not venture to discuss, but the Post writer’s “dead set” against poor Mr Lee is no doubt owing, I should say, to the fact that the Post critic has but recently left school after having been “ plucked ” for—well, I should say the Fourth Standard—by Mr Lee in the latter’s quality of School Inspector.