ECHOES OF THE WEEK.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1266, 4 June 1896, Page 23

ECHOES OF THE WEEK.

Satiro's my weapon, but I'm too discreet To rua amuck and tilt at all I meet. PorE.

BY SCRUTATOR.

The problem of the day, the puzzle over which Wellington citizens are wearying their brains from morning to night is what has become of Detective Kit-by. " Find the missing Detective "—that's the rub ; 'tis as difficult as spotting tho winner of the Melbourno Cup before tho nominations are out. The theories advanced as to tho missing man's whereabouts arc varied enough in all conscience. Brown will assure you most solemnly that ho knows for an absolute fact that Kirby is now in Brazil, oblvious of the fact that it takes three weeks for a steamer to reach a Brazilian port; Jones knows a friend whoso wife has a cousin whoso" young man " is firmly convinced that Kirby is "putting up " with tho Hermit at Island Bay; Robinson, good soul, has it on tho very best authority that tho "wanted" one was on tho "convert" platform at Brother Crabb's meeting last Saturday night, and so on, ad nauseam. Meanwhile, at time of writing (Wednesday evening) tho festive Mr Kirbyis still non est, and that £2iX)isgoing a-begging. I have a mind, so very tempting is tho very idea of that £250, to set up temporarily in business as a Sherlock Holmes or Martin Hewitt myself, but unfortunately tho Mail has to bo "got out," and a journalist, any moro than a captain, must not leavo the wheel till the ship's in port. Of course I have a theory —who lias not P—of my own as to Kirby's whereabouts, but I mercifully refrain from inflicting it upon an already long-suffering public.

Aucklandors aro rejoicing in a heresy hunt. This is a vory favourite pastimo down at Dunedin, where tho chopping of theological logic is just as much a recognised institution as it was with Lang Tarn Taggart and Snecky llobart of Thrums fame. Mr Barrio would no doubt bo able to get plenty of fun out of tho persecution now directed against the Rev Mr Milne, about wheso orthodoxy certain mombors of " St. Aandrer's" in tho northern cityappear to Ijo much perplexed of soul. Scotsmen aro tho funniest people on earth —in a Kirk Assembly or Synod. Even the Rov Mr Coffey, who, as an unconscious provoker of mirth, has a certain reputation, would not bo " in it " with an excited pack of Presbyterian heresy hunters. I wish tho Rev Milne an escape from his tormentors. After all he can console himself with Bishop Warburton's famous and witty mot on the question of orthodoxy. Lord Sandwich was speaking in tho Houso of Lords on tho Test laws, " I have often heard," said the noble speaker, "of the words ' orthodoxy ' and ' heterodoxy,' but, 1 confess myself at a loss to know precisely what they mean." " Orthodoxy," said Bishop Warburton, in a whisper, " orthodoxy is my duxy, heterodoxy is another man's doxy"! And if tho Rev Ml- Milne behold guilty, by that awful body, " the Presbytery, ' of ,tho sin of " heterodoxy," lie will no doubt find quite enough fellow and heterodox sympathiser., to assist him to run what Mark Twain's miner called " a gospol mill " on hid own account.

America is a laud of big things, it has the biggest buildings and the biggest fires, tho biggest newspapers—and the biggest liars, so say tho scoffers—and it is quite natural that it should b;tvo just produced an awfully big thing in the way of cyclones. Wo think wo know .something about heavy winds here in Wellington, but, bless you, wo are as babes unborn in our innocence of what a really heavy wind is. A cyciono in the Western States-and tho West l>as notamouopoly of thoartiolo—spells almost instant destruction to property and life, it comes almost without warning—with much less warning than a West Indian hurricane—it sweeps round in a circle and "clears the decks," to use a maritime simile, of everything if meets. St. Louis lias just experienced a cyclonic visitation, and although Chicago is notoriously given to boasting it can lick the old capital of the West in anything from hotels, newspapers, and first grade murderers down to the manufacture of lager beor, he will bo a daring Chicagoan who would express a wish that tho Lake City should go " one better " in tho way of cyclones than St. Louis. Tho cablegrams are, as usual, disgustingly vague and incomplete, but I will keep my eyo on the next lot of paper 3 I get from Jonathan's land and give readers of tho Mail a full, truo (as far as Amorican journalism can be trusted) and particular account of the disaster.

I shall bo rather curious to soo how tho " big sky scrapers "—tho fifteen to twenty storey buildings—fared, which, I suppose, aro to bo found in the great city on tho Missippi aswoll .as in New York and Chicago. Americans themselves are getting anxious

—"scared " is their own expression—about those huge buildings, and a recent article in Harper's Monthly drew a very ugly picturo of tho future of some of them which have been "jerry, built." Tho huge iron and steel framework is, it is said, liablo to atmospheric effects which may bring about disastrous consequences. Also tho shutting out of light and the hideous ugliness, which are two features of these " sky scrapers," aro beginning to make them unpopular with tho moro thoughtful citizens. I wonder how many " sky scrapers" that cyciono toppled over at St. Louis. We shall see when wo get tho American papers.

Mem. If you would read a good lively description of St. Louis, turn up Mark Twain's " Life on tho Mississippi," which I have always considered one of Mark's best written though least appreciated books.

I don't notice any mention in the cables of any harm being dono to tho two great bridges which at St. Louis span that noble stream tho Mississippi. One of these, the Eads Bridge, opened in 1871, cost nearly two millions {pounds, not dollars), and has three groat spans of cast steel, one of 520 foet, tho other two 500 each. Tho bridge has two stories, tho lower one containing a double lino of rails the upper ono being for ordinary carriage and passenger traffic. A second bridge, the Merchants' Railway Bridge, opened in 1890, is also of steel, and is 2120 feet, including the approaches. I wonder how these two great structures weathered that cyclone.

Talking about bridges in connection with disasters reminds mo, in a roundabout way, of tho Victoria Bridge at Brisbane, which suffered so severely by the great Queensland flood of 1592, and secondly—and this is|coming to tho point—of the extraordinary and none to 3 creditable poverty of assistance rendered by Queensland to New Zealand in connection with tho Brunner calamity. When Queensland was in her sore troublo, New Zealand subscribed most liberally. 1 don't remember tho precise amount, but it must have totted up to some thousands of pounds, and yet now that wo have a bad disaster, all that wealthy Brisbane can or is willing to scrape together for tho widows and orphans is a beggarly .€SO or so. This doesn't say much, either for Queensland's sympathy, liberality, or sense of gratitude.

Most corlially do I applaud the sentimonts of Mr J. M. Richardson as expressed at tho meeting of tho Scenery Preservation Society tho other day. Mr Richardson drew attention to tho shameful destruction of tho beautiful ferns which aro brought wholesale into town for the purposes of so-called decoration. This is a practice which tho society would do well and try and abolish. To take the ferns on I of their lovely bush homos and stick thorn up all round a hall where a host of pooplo are dancing, caring very much moro for each other's dresses or tho state of their own programmes than for (he most- tasteful decoration which the heart of man can doviso, is an outrage. But the climax of folly is reached when ono sees tho room in which a football "smoker" or public dinner to Brown, Jones, or Robinson is being hold, docked out with beautiful nikau palms and superb ferns which on the morrow of the feasting and song hinging will lie cast out on to the dearest rubbish heap. If the society can only induce the ladies of Wellington to ruthlessly taboo all entertainments at which ferns and palms are employed, it will soon put a stop to what Mr Richardson very properly denounced as a growing evil.

A few months ago I alluded to the degradation which c in befall a, fiuo w<>rk of fiction when its title is crihbi-d hya travelling show to advertise and dean spectators to an alleged ballet. This week I must make a similar remonstrance. Ail over the town one has seen the name "Trilby " on the posters and outside a place of alleged amusement the same word, by itself, is posted up. Tin; innocent public, or such portion of the public as is innocent —a larger proportion 1 ban most think—may or may not have imagined that "Trilby," the play written by .Mr Paul Bolter, and founded on Du Maurier's charming novel, was being performed in town. I don't suppose there is any law to slop what is intentionally or unintentionally a deception practised on tho play-going public, but to my mind there is something inexpressibly inappropriate in the idea of a third-rate " variety" entertainment, with its " song and dauco artists," its horso-collar like mumming and general inanity, having anything in common, even tho name, with ono of tho most tondorest, most humano, most entrancing stories over written. I need only add that the real "Trilby" will not be seen in Wellington until August, when we shall make the acquaintance of Du Maurier's heroine, accompanied by her evil genius, Svengali, and by those charming creations tho " Three Musketeers of the Brush," to wit, " Tho Laird, Tally, and

Little Billee." But "Trilby " and "variety specialities"—ugh, the very idea of the combination is hateful.

Semo of the South African cable news is amusingly self-contradictory. Thus, we aro told that President Kruger's "attitude is regarded as a pledge of racial reunion." But in another paragraph under tho samo dato wo aro iuformed that "President Kruger is obtaining tenders for 25,000 Mauser rifles and 10,000,000 cartridges." For use in the holy cause of "racial reunion," eh?

The Rev Mr Ilaweis has, I see, been giving the usual " good advico about emigration" which is indulged in by most globe-trotters when they get back to the Old Country. I notico that ho is of opinion that "young men who could get up good variety entertainments would lie received with open arms in New Zealand." It seems to mo that tho " variety" market is somewhat overstocked, and I most earnestly hope that no young English journalist may lie tempted to come out to New Zealand on tho strength of Mr Ilaweis' opinion that, "a smart young man might find good openings on tho press." Might he? Well, I think I know a little more about the.state of the journalistic profession in this Colony than does Mr Ilaweis, and I can assure the

" smart yonng men" that vacancies on New Zealand papers of decent standing art) few and far between, and when they do occur, aro filled up as a rule by men who have had colonial experience. In any case colonial journalism is wretchedly underpaid. It is an arduous self-sacrificing profession, which leads to little, save exhausted brains and bodies, and tho prizes aro practically none. Just imagine a profession in which only three or four men in tho wholo Colony get .£SOO a year! That is tho position of New Zealand journalism.

A. story was curreut in town on Monday that when last week our late fellow-citizen, Mr James King, was lying sick unto death at his residence in Cuba street, word was sent round to a noisy mob of so-called "temperance" agitators win were indulging in their usual riot at tho Cuba street extension to ask that the noise should be discontinued, as it was a source of great pain to the sufferer. It is said that the leaders of these so-called " ternperauco' people point-blank refused to ttop tho proceedings. If this report bo true—and I sincerely hope it is not tho incident affords yet another examploof tho discourtesy and other oven worse characteristics so frequently noticeable amongst tho Isittitos, 1 shall )io glad to give publicity to any contradiction or explanation which may bo forthcoming. Badly as the " temperance " leaders behave in public, I am indeed loth to believe that thoy would deliberately refuse to pay heed to the wishes of those who were soothing tho last hours of a dying man.

1 have a host of correspondents, some who write to pitch into me personally, or, what is fairer, fo make objections to the opinions, which are honestly, 1 hope, expressed in these columns; others who write asking mo to look up things for *' am, which I am always glad to do when I have time; and others yet again, and thoso al is, aro not so numerous, who drop mo a kindly line of encouragement, give me a friendly pat on tho back and say in effect

"We like your column, old fellow; g.i fin and prosper." This week I have four such correspondents hailing from places so widely apart as Ballarat, Mount-Morgan (Central Queensland), Cuflensville and Martinborough, for (he compliments and good wishes of my correspondents I hero return thanks. Two of them send me some very good "copy" which will bo duly used and for which (banks ajrain.

Wo were, gossiping a few weeks ago as to the question of "Is franco a drunken country?" Some well meaning but illinformed person of prohibitionist tendencies had, it will be remembered, declared, on the authority of some Yankee parson who visited Pari.; a good many years ago, that, Prance was a drunken-Jcountry. My readers will remember that " Scrutator" challenged the statement, and gave a few of his own experiences in the land of the giddy but assuredly not drunken Gaul, to prove that Jacquos Bonhoiumo is, as a rule, the most sober of persons. Yesterday I received the following letter from Australia, which touches on (he questionabovo referred to : Pj, Havclock street, Ballarat. To " Scrutator,"— New Zealand Mail, Wellington. Sir,—Happening to see the issue for May 7th of your valuable, and always very readable paper at the house of a friend, 1 wish to heartily coincide in all that you have put forward on behalf of the sobriety of the French people. My opinion is (based on five years of personal observation) that the drinking customs of, say, rhigland, are more conducive to drunkenness than thoso of France. One may walk the streets of Paris for twelve months without encountering a drunken man. A wino-drinking

nation cannot be accused of drunkenness from the simple fact that it consumes more alcoholic or fermented liquor, for it is quite possible to obtain a maximum oi consumption with a minimum of drunkenness. There never was a moro lying libel on a nation than the accusation of drunkenness hurled against tho Prcnch by tho one-idead prohibitionists.—Yours truly, W.GAV.

Another correspondent, " W.H.H.R.," who writes from Mount Morgan, Central Queensland, to make enquiry for a missing relation, says incidentally:—"Our local School of Arts gets the New Zealand Mail regularly, and I can assuro you we ex-New Zealauders read every number from cover to cover. It has surprisingly improved during the last two or thrco years and I congratulate you. Wo all watch with tho keonest interest the progress of the gom of tho Southern Seas." That's a good fellow, you may bo sure, a New Zealander who is expatriated (temporarily 1 hope), but who ' takes tho keonest interest' in tho dear old land of his birth." I have rarely heard of a New Zealander who has left the Colony for Australia who does not hanker to be back again did circumstances permit. These old " boys " of ours may make new homes and form new ties, but they never forget the bonny Fernland, the sea-girt isles of which wo ought all to be so proud.

My Cullensville correspondent, Mr A. 11. Waddell, tells mo he is an old journalist, once on the Scotsman staff, and his brief words of compliment, "Allow me to congratulate you on tho ' get up ' of theM.Mi.of late." aro therefore doubly agreeable. Mr Waddell kindly sends me somo "copy." Referring to the very good if somewhat ancient story published in tho Mail the other day anent tho hieroglyphics which tho famous A merican editor and statesman, Horace Greeley, was pleased to call his "handwriting," my correspondent says: Tho incidentyou relate regarding Greeley's writing- is quite true no doubt. As one, however, who knew Greoloy, let me givo you a few more stories : —On one oeeasion Greeley vois writing a leader on the war then raging between the North and South, and in this article he wished to bring in tho old quotation "freemen m buckram." Nest day in tho Tribune it appeared as "three men in a back room." Again, on another occasion, ho was writing a description of a trip to Saratoga Springs, and ho was alluding to the fact of there being several nice walks for lovers and honeymoon couples. After lie had dwelt on the scenery, &c, he quoted thoso beautiful lines — Hark tho raptured carol sing*, Love was no'er a fable. Next day it appeared in tho Tribune, much to Horace's disgust, like this : Hark the ruptured carl sings, Love was no'r a failure. On .rot another occasion ho discha-ged his sub-accountant by a summary note of dismissal in his usual wild ealigraphy. The man could read it, but ho thought he would have a joke, and he went down to tho New York Central Railway and told the manager that Mr Greeley had sent him down for a billet and handed him the letter. The, manager eyed it up and down, turnod if sidoways, and then said, "Well, 1 suppose it's all

right." Oh, yes, said the discharged accountant, and he was immediately taken on as second goods clerk at Idol a day.

Some Scots stories which Mr Waddell also sends mo are held over.

Touching the recent (lomiso of the aged Or Pollen and his brilliant capacity for witty repartee and ready and logical writing, a correspondent recalls one of his brief minutes on an official document. "11, reminds one of an old story which may have been written before now. Lord Palmorston had a formula expressed thus,' IJ.B.P.—P.' --tho meaning of which was literally consignment of the applicant to a. fervent temperature. The Under-Secretary wrote something like this: 'Lord Palmorston directs me to acknowledge the receipt of your letter and to express his regret,'Ac. Or Pollen improved on this by saying, 'Tell this gentleman to go to the devil, but break if gently to him,' and, of course, it was gently intimated.

" Ono day, when I was in Parliament, I went into Pr Pollen's room—he was Premier and Colonial Secretary at Ihe time—and I observed hanging on (be wall tho prize Volunteer Shield for the Colony, with a sword bayonet decorated with a broad green ribbon suspended across it. This was in the year 1K7(3, when the provinces were abolished. Sir Maurice O'Porko had been in tho Ministry, undone evening from his place on the Ministerial benches he rose and denounced the measure which abolished the provincial system he so fondly loved. With that fine elocution that characterises so many of his countrymen be denounced the bill and its supporters, and condemned those who while professing to advocato and extend Urn freedom of tho people and tho maintenance of the provinces, had employed the ' dagger of perfidy' to bury both. 1 narrate this to explain i)r Pollen's reply to my question of ' whatever does tho bayonet on the shield mean?' 'Oh/ said the Doctor, ' that's O'Rorke'a dagger of perfidy, decorated by the green ribbon of Ould Ireland!' "

On the subject of young girls frequenting tho streets at night, a correspondent, " A Bachelor," warmly advocates the establishment of girls' institutes on the samo line 3 as thoso on which tho vory successful Boys' Institute is conducted : If tho ladies would, in connection with tho Girls' Institute I propose, teach the girls painting, sketching, music, &c, it would appeal to their artistic sense, and givo them an object in life, the lack of which I believe is tho cause of ro many of them frequenting tho streets, and a percentage being ruined. By teaching tho girls thoso accomplishments it would, when they wcro not at the Institute, tend to keep thorn at home, making themselves proficient in whatever accomplishment they wcro attracted by. It is possible that all girls might not care for either painting, sketching or music. To meet such cases, classes for the study of literature, elocution, and for the production of dramatic scenes, could be formed. There are also other ways in which tho girls might bo taught to occupy themselves, resulting in good to themselves and their country. These ways 1 need not detail, they will suggest themselves to thinking persona. Thcro aro, however, two matters I wish to refer to before closing. The first is this : many of the girls who run about the streets at night are employed in factories during tho day, and have little knowledge of household duties, and consequently when they get married are not able to make their homes attractive and comfortable, resulting often in unhappy homos. Now, if classes, were established to givo instruction to the girls in cookery and domestic duties, I am inclined fo think the number of unhappy marriages would be lessened, and tho business at the Divorce Court, would not bo so brisk. 'lhe second matter 1 wish to refer is this : girls (and boys also for that matter) are often ruined through a lack of knowledge of their own bodies, It is urged against Die reading of tho Biblo in our schools, that there are passages in it unfit for school children to road. But if a knowledge of the human, frame were taught inourschojlslas I think it ought to bo) thoso passages would serve as warnings against breaking the laws of nature. Now, 1 think if the ladies were to give the girls instruction and advice concerning their bodies, and the effect of any indiscretion, it would save many from ruin whilst single, and prepare them to carry ouCbetter their duties as wives and mothers when married.

The holies of our Colony are showing by their encrgv that they desire to benefit tho Colony, and I believe if they were to movo in the direction 1 have indicated, that it would have a, goo 1 effect on the morals of the people of New Zealand. I have no doubt Sir, if you think thcro is anything in tho suggestion, you will give it the support of your more powerful influence. Of course, there are lots of difficulties in the way, and my suggestion may be tho result of ignorance in feminine matters, for I must sign myself—A Bachelor.