ROUND THE CORNERS.

New Zealand Times, Volume XLVI, Issue 7800, 5 June 1886, Page 4

ROUND THE CORNERS.

{From the Ncv> Zealand Mail, May 28.) Me Stout’s Divorce Bill is a necessary measure. Some of us have long recognised the injustice women labor under in their marital relations. Absolutely man’s equal, according to natural laws, the artificialism of society, beginning with the biutishness of the savage state, has doomed woman to a subordinate position. Compared with the past, her condition now is infinitely ameliorated ; still, there is an outstanding balance in her favor, and a part of that balance will be paid-in New Zealand at any rate—if the Premier’s finds a place iii the Statute Book. It ia really nionsttoiia that iii the matter of divorce, a woman should be placed at such a dreadful disadvantage, where both sides ought to be on absolute equality. On what pretence it was found essential to compel women to prove cruelty, as well as adultery, while upon man only rested the onus of proving adultery, only those who framed the one-sided measure can explain. There was some dirdness of vision, ho doubt, but now that we See clearer there is no excuse for not rectifying the injustice. If adultery, plain and simple, is enough for the man to go upon in his own action for redress; eveiyso it is enough for the woman, wlthdut tacking on cruelty to it. There are polished calculating scoundrels in the world who, rank adulterers, have acquired a refinement that prohibits absolute bodily cruelty; cruel they are, devilish cruel, but yet not legally cruel; such is one of the nice distinctions drawn by the law. You may break your wife’s heart, as long as you don’t bruise her body. In some respects, Mr Stout's measure is—well, drastic. Divorce on the grounds of felony on either side ? No, no, sir; here the law of “for better or for worse ” should find the fullest effect. A pretty how-dy’-do indeed it would be, if men and women were released from marital engagements upon entering jail for a long term of imprisonment. Heaps of confusion must result from such a custom, and the way would be paved for the grossest communism, for people would be encouraged by law to wear their marriage ties as lightly as possible in view of possible contingencies. But confirmed lunacy is another affair that I am not altogether clear would not justify dissolution of the marriage tie. I am inclined to think it would, and that legislation in such a direction is demanded.

Wonder when the law will be empowered to step in and regulate marriage on sanatory grounds. No man or woman to marry until certified to as to fitness of bodily and mental state. Highly syphilitic and strumous conditions and the insane taint to be fatally objective. It will come to this some day.

I had a word from the United States the other day, an eulogistic word about the capacity of colonial boys to hold their own in the XJ.S. A., or anywhere else, and I believe it, for I think it is given to the colonies, only, to produce precocious little cusses that can handle the billiard cue at the tender age of twelve years, and carry off two pools out of three from older antagonists. And yet I was assured of this by a reliable person who saw it done. ’Tvvas at an up-country hotel, and there were men in the pool who took their licking at the hands of the boy as a matter of course, and so did the youngster the whole affair. There were two or three other boys in also, who played anything but despicable cues. Colonial boys up to anything—you bet! No wonder they open the New Yorkers’ eyes.

Of course it is a relic of the dark ages, when the divine right of Royalty was as much an article of belief as the right to draw breath, but still I do think it is time we had grown out of such nonsense. That we haven’t, (quite, is apparent in the fulsome language applied to Royalty. Ws had an instance of this in the opening ceremonial of the Indian and Colonial Exhibition ; that Her Majesty was “ graciously pleased,” to do this, that, and the other in connection with the affair, instead of putting the business plainly before her as part of her duties. The time is close at hand when Royalty will be compelled to work if it will eat. ’Tis a useful institution in some respects, and such a raonarchial form of Government as that of Great Britain is the purest and best of all governments, and will approach perfection when the allowance system to royal children, and a few other extravagances, are clone away with, and the duties appertaining to the position of head of the Estate are fully recognised, and their fulfilment in every tittle insisted upon. I, for one, am rejoiced to see the Queen emerge once more into the daylight of State and public affairs. She is likely to have many useful years to bestow upon them.

The depression must be indeed bad, Mr Moss, if there is no hope in it. And it was herein, I think, sir, you defined the difference between this depressson and others proceeding it, The others had hope, this one none. Well, that may be the character of the depression Auckland way, but it certainly is not the view Welliogtonians take of it. Neither, I think, is it the view that people, with good sound livers, take. No hope, indeedl But, man, what is it you expect ? Is it a return to the flesh pots of the past, to the extravagance and riotous living of the gold and borrowing eras ? If so, why, then there is no hope, You “ can’t eat your cake and have it; " and this is the predicament ot the whole world. Gold discoveries, and liberal legislation, after a long run of rank Toryism, gave the AngloSaxon world an impetus that was not only abnormal, but entirely unprecedented. We did live, eh, Moss ! Wasn’t it tip top, dear boy ? And now there is reaction, extraordinary reaction, I may say, a reaction that all the world is suffering from, as well as New Zealand. Gold diggings will give in, and semi-barbarous nations will advance under the stimulus of example and self-preservation. Gold is getting scarcer, and labor of all kinds more plentiful, and so the shoe is pinching a lot of us Sybarites, and we are inclined to kick. But that’s no good, and it is worse still to take a despondent view of the position, especially when you have New Zealand under your feet. What! Man I No hope in this land of promise \ A land lull of sunshine and green grass, and sweet water, and untold resources to develop ? Go to, Mr Moss, and recast your ideas, and learn to believe, aye, believe heartily, in the future, and present too, of the land out of which you have done —come, pretty tol 101, eh ?

Everyone knows what Holy Russia’s “ peaceful development " means. It is nothing less than development at any price, and everyone not sunk to silliness knows what she means by her quaai-apologetic allusions to “ the necessity for an armed defence.” Just as if anybody was going to attack Russia. She doesn't possess anything that anybody wants so much as to fight her for it. But she is wanted to keep within bounds, and bounds she will not keep within until the terms of Peter’s prophesy are fulfilled, and then, of course, there will be no bounds. She is moving again, now, and needs only half a pretext for making another grab at the Golden Horn. There is, however, a deal in her way, and if she postpones her next move only a little longer, that way will be effectually blocked. And Russia knows this. And so it is a sort of standing cap in hand before the nations, and, with a sinister leer, she talks “ peaceful development,” after launching three ironclads at Sebastopol, and massing 350,000 fighting men in the Crimea. There are plenty of fighting men ready to meet Russia, but the world’s greatest safeguard against the rapacity and insolent ambition of the Houmauffs lies within Russia, That which is modifying the policy of all nations just now willassuredly modify hers, and that is the will of the people. The Russians are not going to be always slaves, and ’ere long the people will be strong enough to strangle the unholy, unreasonable, and unattainable ambition of the reigning family, and tho fighting section of the Russian nobility, so termed. But there isn't much that’s truly noble about them.

The presence of the Russian cruiser in Wellington Harbor has very clearly demonstrated what the position would be if one managed to sneak in some dark night during hostilities and anchored just off the Queen’s Wharf, Clearly, the town would be at her mercy, while she would practically be out of reach of the batteries at Point Halswell and Kaiwarra. That she would have to run the gauntlet of those batteries on leaving port means nothing, because after pillaging the city she would intimate, in plain terms, her determination to return and lay it in ashes if a shot was fired at her as she was clearing out. And it would be quite possible for an ironclad cruiser to steam in on a dark night and lie off the Queen’s Wharf, for the way is made very plain by the New Zealand Pilot, of which no doubt, all Russian and other nations’ cruisers are well supplied. Possible invaders do not need to do any surveys on their own account, for it has all been done for them, and as for the state of defence of the Colony, is it not placed on record, from time to time, in the public Press of the Colony. Nothing is hidden, everything is exposed, and, as in days of yore, bo will it be again—the Sascn, bare-breasted,

is ready to meet and repel any and every foe who may come against him. But at the same time I do think that a well appointed battery of a couple of heavy cannons and two or three machine guns might be useful some day, if it were placed up the side of Mount Victoria, or somewhere thereabout, just above the elevation of the guns of any cruiser in the cove below, and yet having that cruiser and that cove comfortably covered all the time. From such an elevation, shot that didn't hit the enemy would go into the water and stay there. And the only way to silence the battery would be to storm it, and such a battery might easily be rendered impregnable;

I have to acknowledge On behalf of our “shop” on Lambton-qday a visit from one of those interesting strangers, “the Japs.” He came in a little late, and, deceived by the lights, thought he was some where else. He didn’t talk much either ; just one word, and that word—oh 1 horror, Mr Fraser—was BRANDY. We promptly offered him the ink bottle, whereat he incontinently fled. What is the matter with the Lyttelton Times about the “sort of thing,” the Times, allddes to in its attack upon the other Times— the N jsw Zealand. In what did the New Zealand Times offend in its. report about the Russian cruiser ? How . did the, poor thing insult the people of New Zealand ? Really one would imagine, the Lyttelton Times had taken service with the Czar. Certainly its remarks savor strongly of btandy and soda and other “ pick-me-hps.” Abmodeds.