Passing Notes.

Otago Witness, Issue 1205, 2 January 1875, Page 13

Passing Notes.

I am death on concrete just now, and go down George street every day to have a look at Mr Alves's work there. I must say the holidays have made it look uncommonly dry. If it keeps the inside of the house as dry as itself, I shall be a certain concretist. By the way, I hear that a certain young architeot in town has a proposal that will take the shine out of cremation, and will excite none of the prejudices excited by that mode of disposing of the dead. He suggests encasing bodies with about three inches of solid concrete. They may then be buried or kept d discretion. A subject thus encased would form, apparently, a block of solid stone, which might be applied to a multitude of uses.

There are some liberal men in Australia. Only a few days ago, we were told that one of the great South Australian squatting magnates had given £20,000 to the University in that Colony. A "Victorian has "capped " that by giving £30,000 to a like object. Surely, in the face of these gifts, we need not feel very uneasy at the tirades of a snarler like Mr J. Gr. S. Grant against our sheepist lords. Nothing of this kind has been done in Otago yet, but it must be remembered that the gentleman who gave £20,000 in South Australia owns or holds a territory greater in area than the Province of Otago all to " his own cheek." When Otagan squatters and merchants have lived as long in the land and grown as rich as those of the old colonies, they will surely be found as liberal.

If there be any truth in the Victorian telegram lately published in our papers,

the dastardly triok played by our Government upon unoffending neighbours is about to be properly rewarded. lam happy to Bay that the deportation of Sullivan was only approved of by a few lickspittles, of whom there are always enough about a Government until it totters, when, true to their rattish nature, they quit the sinking ship. The independent Press throughout New Zealand, speaking as the mouthpiece of the people, repudiated the dirty trick, and now, when the interesting object of all this solicitude is about to return among us, all decent people are content te accept perforce the shameful stigma our Government has inflicted upon the Colony. When Beccaria advocated the abolition of capital punishment, speaking to a keenly sensitive people, in an age when emigration was not common, he told them that life-long shame was harder than death itself. Would that Beccaria were now here, to see how now the murderer is hunted from town to town, and state to state, without finding a resting-place where he can remain even for a moment unknown ! We may rest assured that the oriminal world does not fail to notice this.

Mrs Fenmore has the palm among this year's Christmas stories for weakness legginess, and indigestibility. It is to be noticed that the right of republiahing this tale is reserved, and I have no doubt whatever that the reserve will be maintained with the utmost strictness. The editor who would dare infringe the copyright of the story, would earn respect for his boldness, and an early grave for his paper. If the story were better written, it would certainly be an attractive one, as the author manages, in hia heroine, to pourtray a capital example of ..a sensible woman, and at the same time a very high minded one— but the writer's pen has got loose, and has played up too much.

The learned Pundit Ylleb Evales, a native of the obscure Cirksag tribes of Nepaul, who has been educated at the University of Bombay at the expense of the Indian Government,for the purpose of investigating and reporting upon the customs and general state of the tribes in his native hills, says of his mother tribe in his first report:— "Chicf est among their deities is the goddess Stug, whom they worship daily, nay, almost hourly. Stug, they say, is the prompter of life, and the author of all that makes life dear. Among the^ superior classes a good many show a curious reticence, and never mention the name of Stug. Such people do not avow their absolute devotion to Stug, and seem half ashamed of their acknowledgment of her domination ; but one and all admit that it were impossible to exist without h<ar, and unseemly to deny her power. The grosser masses—the bulk of the people — make no sort of concealment. Indeed, they seem to glory in their devotion to the adored goddess. On a certain day near the close of the year, ostensibly devoted to religious and move solemn rites of another ola^s, and thence until the new year has begun, the majority of the people, including a vast number of eduoated men and women, bow the knee to Stug and give up their whole souls to her service. In the streets of the principal towns the shops where food — the source of life— is sold, and notably the butchers' shops, are adorned with gay garlands and branches of trees. At this season too, they are stored with choice meats from the rich hill pastures, and the streets are filled to overflowing with thegay devotees of Stug, dressed in their brightest garments in her honour. They gaEe with admiration on the meats to be sacrificed to her service, and though her name is rarely mentioned the whole population unites in the most fervent tribute to the might, the boundless power, of her whose absolute denominatien has never diminished since the world began, and will last till the human race shall cease to be.

According to English law, which is, I suppose, law in this country too, it is no crime to swindle the public out of a few millions by a fraudulent banking spec, provided you exhibit a genuine desire to have the swindle succeed. I don't mean absolutely to levant with the money. This, at least, was the reading of the law by the victimised public after the Overend and Gurney case. But to be poor, deserted, and neglected is a crime for which children must suffer. Three villains of this class were brought up before our J.P.s the other day, charged with this offence, and were committed to the Industrial School for six years. Thence they will some day come out with the stain of criminals upon them. Surely it is time to abolish this monstrous absurdity, and allow Justices to decide such matters privately, without the necessity of a formal criminal charge and the painful degradation of an open hearing in Court.

Incendiarism, or "fire-raising," has always been a favourite vice among English agrarian people. It is their way of asserting themselves in bad times, and has often been used by them as a certain and hard hit against their rich landlords. In this country there is no such reason, good or bad, for this crime ; yet I have no doubt that, in our Provincial capital at least, it has been very common, though the reason for it is not very apparent. I am sorry to see that a suspicion of indulging in this sport attaches to the peaceful plains of Tapanui, where one of those large and lovely sheep-lords whom Mr Barton loves to devour has had his barn alight, and "suspects a man of the act." I am not aware that the man of acres in question is a tyrant ; on the contrary, I

know him well, and know him aa a good fellow, though he has a lot of Bheep and 1 have none. I hope my sheepist friend's susi i ;ions are ill-founded.

The following is ;i very old story ; but old stories may sometimes be served up warm with profit. Substitute "cocktail" for "tail," and you will point the moral as you adorn the, &c.:— "A Fox having been caught in a steel trap by the tail was glad to compound for hia mistake with the loss of it. To make the best of a bad job, he called a meeting of all the other foxes, and recommended all — nay, endeavoured to pass a law forcing them to adopt a fashion which he found so convenient. He made a long harangue on the unprofitableness of tails in general, and in particular on the awkwardness of .Foxes' tails, pointing out to them at the same time how degrading it was to possess tails, and assuring them that he never felt so well as since he had cut off his. He said no more, but looked about with a brisk air to see what proselytes he had gained, when a sly old thief in the company, who understood trap, answered him with a leer, 'I believe you may have found a convenience in parting with your tail ; and when we are in the same circumstanoeS) perhapß we may do bo, too.'"