PASSING NOTES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 9391, 2 April 1892, Page 5 (Supplement)

PASSING NOTES.

From the Otago Witness.)

fSTiLL column after column about Williams-Deering-Swanson, Itai ta loipa, and appetite doth grow by what it feeds on. Don't tell me he's not the man, or ta'k of alibis and things. The public mind is made up, and our judgment is not to be juggled with in that way. An <dibi would be a greater atrocity than another murder. All we are ;ansious about i 3 his personal safety. For ■what with the exuberates of the public -outside the gaol and the existenca of broken bottles inside we are in daily fear less some dreaiful accident befall V him before we can get him safely v"~ hanged. It was so with his great namesake v of; Ratcliffe Highway, who convulsed alt England iv 1812 and then managed to hang > himself after all. By the way, I marvel L that the omniscient reporter has not » yet unearthed the many points in which Mr £ Williams of: Kainhill in 1892 .resembles, / whilst ha surpasses Mr Williams of Ratcliffe / Highway in 1812. Says De Quincey in his ,i stately prosa:— : f *}ever throughout the annals of universal .£ Christendom has there been any act by one :^ solitary insulated individual armed with power , \ so appalling over the hearts of men as these M':\, exterminating murders, by which during the ■' 4 "winter of 1812 Johu Williams smote two houses .} | with emptiness, exterminated all but two entire , j and asserted his own supremacy ■. jf sibove all the children of Cain. ■;•*! jßut for the date this passage might have '■* 'been written yesterday, so exactly dots it :^ ;app]ytothe doings at .Windsor and Rain- ;^ hill. In the compass of a Note, or even two, it is impossible to do more than hint at a ' | 'few of the many points of likeness in these -;,i two men, but as a psychological and artistic ,i/ study the subject is worthy of fuller treaty* ment, and I commend it accordingly. y £ Both o£ them were lady killers. Our Mr * Williams—l find it convenient to speak of » him in the past tense, but nobody I hope •' will quarrel with me for so trifling an anticipation of the march of events—had as marked a taste for marriage as for murder, i -.Ad. gratified the former as easily as the £' ;' iVtbr. His namesake, too, was a great V.vourite with women, though the severer bent oE his genius led him to prefer murder sinqjlicUer to murder plus matrimony. Again both were fastidious in their attire, amd had a passion for personal adornment. •Our Mr Williams affected jewellery, whilst [-: 'his great predecessor made it a point of %: -conscience never to murder except in ?' tfull dress—black silk stockings, pumps, ): With "long blue frock of the very finest cloth, aud richly lined with silk"— such being the fashion of the day. Mr Williams of 1812, however, lacked imagination. He could only murder—with a mallet, too—and rob the corpse, or at most the house. Our Mr Williams, on the other hand, was a villain of almost infinite versatility. Quite apart from his magnum opus murder, there is bigamy, burglary, perjury, robbery, forgery, fraudulent bankruptcy, and what jr not. Ifiliil tetigit quod non ornavit. He «d attempted everything and succeeded splenv didly in all. In fine, he was a universal j genius, and will stand to the end of time the *- most colossal monument of rascality that 5 romance can fable or history record. i The achievements of Mr Williams of Rat-fa-Jiff c Highway marked a distinct advance, | but he was an overrated man for all that, f Take, for example, the famous lecture \ delivered in his honour by the Chairman of if 'ie Society of Amateurs and Connoisseurs in "ktfurder. There runs through it a vtin of mthHsiastic admiration which the cilm i' ,ddg-inent of posterity cannot conErm. £ tars— j£ Veople begin to see that something more goes , to the composition of a fine murder than two blockheads to kill aud be killed, a knife, a iv purse, and a dark lane." Design, gentlemen, X grouping, light aud shade, poetry, sentiment, S; are now deemed iudispensable to attempts of i this nature. Mr Williams has exalted the ideal & of murder ,to all of us. Like iEschylus or y Milton in poetry, like Michael Angelo in paiutj ing, he has carriedl^ :rt to a point of colossal ■X sublimity, and created he taste by which he is V. to be enjoyed. JP This goes too far. I don't dtsir* to disparage £* Mr Williams; it is precisely 80 year.-* since f he hanged himself with hi? own braces, and de mortuis nil nisi bonum. But when all's said and done you can't escape the fact that-he worked with a mere malht, and for , plunder. The truth is the lectnrer was carried off his legs for the moment by i sxciternent. Hence it is that after a critical J& review of all recorded murders from Cain's '/?% time to ihe time of our new Agent-general's "Jr grandfather, he deslares that (with the posI sible exception of an unfinished design of "■'■%. Tbnrtell's for the murder of a man with a ■ f pair of dumb-bells—a mere outline, never .1 'illtd in, but a masterpiece), the per;l. formances of the then late Mr Williams were I absolutely supreme and unapproachable. I This is extravagant eulogy, but with our Mr '; I Williams it fails by defect. Light, shade, 1 colour, grouping 1 Think of a man smoking ■sf a cigar and sipping a glass of wine as he ;;,l leisurely cements the domestic hearthstone ■^: ander which he has deposited a wife and '"£ 'baby — strangled —an i three children— '^v. throats cut. 1 Poetry, sentiment, design 1 Think "■£. of him actively engaged in courting a biide ;■■ 'p whilst actively engaged in murdering and :'<jfc* -cementing a wife—aye, and positively j 'buying his cement—four barrels of it—in the if waai« of the bride elect I

An indulgence dated from St. Joseph's ■au'horises the faithful to eat butcher's meat during Lent, because of the influenza. This

curious announcement starts'several puzzling

\ , questions. Is it right to save the body at \ th? expense of the soul 7 The observing of ■\ Leat is understood to mean a diet oi: fish •| and this on the theory that the temporary ;■;■' adoption of a diet of fish is favourable to ;■'/• spiritual fcealth. Bishop Moran seems to [■] have discovered that it is also favourable to tj influenza. Well, suppose it is, what then? '4 In the interests of his spiritual health a ;| good Catholic, one would suppose, ought to Pj 'take the risk. The bishDp, however, thinks |! otherwise, and doubtless the bishop knows I best. On such a question no layman would pre- ;' | sume for a moment to prefer his own opinion. ■'< It would bs sheer perversity to fast when a I bishop authorises you to feast, or to go on '}. eating fish in Lent at the risk of influenza A -when a bishop proclaims that you may law- ;'"\ fully eat flesh, and I hope nobody will do if. ,|- One point remains obscure—perhaps somer body on Bishop Moran's behalf will throw f light rpon It. What is the occult connec- (';■[ tioa between a fish diet and liability to , ] influenza ? The disease puzzles the doctors; ~-"f~ science is at fault; nobody seems to know" £ exactly what influenza is, whence it comet, ; .'• * how it is propagated, or by what means it is ■:■■•■. *i to be cured. Whether Bishop Moran knows -.-"*- anything more about it than other people ... ■£- may be doubted, but anyhow, bis prescrip- ;?| tion may be taken without risk or incon- ■|| venience, and nobody is likely to quarrel M with it, except the fishmongers.

It may be that the 'word ': indulgence as used above is not technically correct. If so, the reason is that t! c doctrine of indulgences has recently been explained by Father Lynch in the public prints, and any faint glimmer of light I may have possessed on the subject has been totally extinguished by Father Lynch's explanation. A lamentable result, but quite intelligible. Father Lynch quoted a long extract from a catechism composed by Bishop Moran. As a vehicle of theological instruction nothiDg beats a catechism. Question and answer, question and answer —what could be fairer? And yet, since the ingenuous author supplies both, what could be safer? No chance of any "awkward question'croppingupinacatechism i The advantages of this mode of instruction are strikingly illustrated in Bishop Moran's catechism on indulgences. I defy anybody after reading it to say what an indulgence is, or what an indulgence does. That is a result which the bishop may be proud of I One point I concede to him cheerfully, as against his rabid Protestant assailants. The moral standard at St. Joseph's is doubtless just as high as at Knox Church or Sc. Paul's. To say that Bisbcp Moran and his priests sell or give away indulgences to sin is a wicked and stupid libel. 1 heir ethical code is probably quite as good as other people's. On the other hand the Protestant fanatic has some excuse for his belief that in the past indulgences were virtually licenses to commit sin and were sold for money. I have ju3t examined the article " Indulgences" in two encyclopaedias— Chambers'and the Britannica —and find ample justification for this belief. In his passiocate denials Bishop Moran means well, but (apparently) he doesn't know, though of course that seems incredible. "Indulgences were never sold for money," he insists. Is it Irne or is it r.Qtrue ihat St. Peter's at Rome was built out oE funds raised chiefly by the sale of indulgences 1

The Women's Christian Temperance Union are about to address themselves to a new

crusade, oce of considerable difficulty and no

small df-gree of delicacy. They are going to " make searching inquiry into the character pf the pictures sold in cigarette packets and

exposed in tobac :onists, and barbers' shops with a view to I be suppression and removal of any objectionable pictures." This praiseworthy movement originated with tho Auckland branch, in which, I believe, is dominant the influence of a lady who some time ago endeavoured to rouse t c colony against the University Senile for including amongst its tex books for the year an immoral Litin play. In the lively controversy that followed, one of our professors of classics admitted that he had never read this objectionable Dlay. Not so tl c iady ; she had read it, bles3 you ! —purely in the interests of the higher moraliiy, of course. I suppose it can be no other than this same courageous female crusader who has been investigating cigarette packets for studies in the nude, and inquiring into the character of the ladies in tights who are exposed in the windows of tobacconists' and barbers'shops. The crusade is to be propagated and prosecuted by the local unions; a fact which may be noted with advantage by our local tobacconists and barber.*. Personally, faithful to the pipe, 1 was not aware that anything; more immoral than bad tobacco was soli in cigarette packets. If the pictures enclosed require judicial scrutiny, not less does the weed itself, if all I hear of its qaalitj and effects be true. Let us hope that the ladies who, in the interests of ingenuous youth, are about to undertake this delicate investigation will go into the matter fully. No half measures 1 They will of course examine the pictures with thoir own eyes. Very good;—but let them be equally faithful in testing the tobacco. Personal experiment will convince them that if the pictures are bad the cigarettes are generally worse.

Having returned to headquarters after a jcurney round the world, General Booth is of course rich in travellers' tales. Some of his yarns require to be mixed with faith in those that hear them, but that fact rather helps than hinders. The average Salvationist is happy in the possession of a faith that "laughs at impossibilities." In Calcutta the general held his meeting in a circus with which was intimately associated a menagerie. There was some fear lest the lions and tigers immediately behind the platform would fail to appreciate ihe Array's singing and "volley firing." Just as the Geuera began, says the War Ciy, the lions set up a roar loud enough to drown the sound of many waters £but, it piously adds, " the God of Daniel was* at hand, and in response to the exercise of faith the roaring was stopped." A highly encouraging incident; nothing impossible about it either; though if the lions had got out the Army would have hurriedly retreated, I suspect, spite of the nearness of the "God of Daniel." In Zululand the General made the acquaintance of some queer converts. Speaking to a Daily News interviewer he said:

"By the way, there is a Zulu chief and his four wives, and a number of his tribesmen, who have been coverted by the Army." "Four wives—that's awkward, is it not?" "No. We just recognise the fact. If a Zulu has got four wives, I simply say to him, ' See that you be kind to them.' There the wives are. If a Zulu had only one wife, I would say ' Don't have two.' If ho had none, I would say, 1 Have enly one, if you have any. But, how T over numerous his wives, I would say, ' You must stand by them.'"

I am not disposed to question the practical wisdom of this policy ; all the same it seecis to be letting the Zulu in on particularly easy terms. In Zululand the Army ought to beat all other forms of Christianity out of the field. CiVis.