Our Home Letter.

Otago Witness, Issue 1583, 25 March 1882, Page 8

Our Home Letter.

London, January 27th,

The Parliamentary session which opens on the 7th of next month promises to be an unusually lively one, judging from the matters that have been discussed by Ministers and members during the recess, and the amount of interest they havo evoked throughout the country. Naturally the subject of Parliamentary procedure lias been the principal theme of discussion. Before all things the legislative waggon must be got out of the present rut. That is tho public verdict ; but the public does not seem to care whether the means employed be cldturo or something else. But clOture it very likely will be, in spite of its French name and foreign origin — an objection of considerable weight in this country. Call it " closure " and half its terrors disappear ; or say it is necessarily involved in the principle of government by majority, and the wonder is it has not been adopted long ago. The Tory opposition to it will be tierce, but the Ministry is at bay and will hit hard; so the contest is likely to be highly interesting to an indifferent spectator, if any such there be. The chief objection to cl6ture— that it may become' an instrument of tyranny in the hands of an ambitousMinister —will not bear criticism. For such an attempt to be successful the Minister's own party must be entirely with him— a very unlikely contingency if his measures are obviously hostile to the wellbeing of the country— that is, ultij mately, to their own. And, even supposing he could command the necessary support,- he would next have to reckon with the country at large, which would soon bring him to his senses. A Ministerial despotism is the' last thing that is likely to succeed in Great Britain. As it is not impossible that the motion for' reform in the procedure may occasion the defeat ,of the Government and an appeal to tho country, a good deal of interest has centred in the contest for the North Yorkshire seat, with the view of ascertaining how the country would be likely to respond if appealed to. The Conservatives have made a test election of it, and their candidate having won by a majority of 386, a great deal of very doubtful inference has been piled upon this narrow foundation— no less, indeed, than that the country has reversed its policy of two years ago, and is only waiting for an opportunity of restoring the party it then ousted. Not to dwell on the manifest absurdity of taking the opinions of one constituency for those of the whole country, there are other considerations that materially discount the importance of the T»ry victory. The last time the seat was contested the Conservatives polled a majority of 466 ; this time the difference is less by 80. So far there is not much to brag of. To that add the influence on the electors of the secession from the Liberal ranks of the Duke of Cleveland and the Earl of Zetland, both of whom have estates in that district, and the fact of a tenant farmer having come within 400 votes of the aristocratic candidate has a profound meaning in view of the present and prospective aspects of the land question. Finally, it is certain that Mr Dawnay would have had no chance of success had he not in the middle of the contest accepted the tenant farmers' programme in almost its integrity. The Toms are welcome to what remains of their victory. The sacredness of life and domestic peace are so highly valued in England that from no other part of the world has a louder cry of horror gone up against the atrocities committed upon the Russian Jews, and the general indignation has been deepened by the refusal of the Russian Minister in London to transmit to the Emperor a memorial addressed to him by the Jews of England on behalf of their coreligionists of # Russia. It is an admirable document, invincible in its reasoning, and almost pathetic in its humility. A subscription is being made on behalf of the sufferers, headed by a contribution of £10,000 by an eminent member of the Jewish community, Mr Mocatta. Mr Swinburne has raised his voice in characteristic verse, which by somo will sound scarcely less horrible than the conduct it so forcibly denounces : — O Son of Man, by Iyius tongue 3 adored, By murderous hands of slavos with feet red-shod In carnage deep as ever Christian trod ; Profaned with prayer and sacrifice abhorred And incense from the trembling tyrant's horde, Brute worshippers or wielders of the rod, Most murderous even of all that call thee God, Most treacherous even that ever called theo Lord ; Face loved of little children long ago, Head hated of the priests and rulers then, If Thou see this, or hear these hounds of thino Run ravening as tho Gadarean swine, Say, was not this Thy Passion, to foreknow In Thy death's hour the works of Christian men ?

John Bull is nothing if not loyal, and he pays the Royal bUls without much grumbling ; but during the current year there will bo sundry applications to Parliament for money that may seriously upset his equanimity. The allowance of the Prince of Wales is said to bo totally inadequate to his responsibilities, now that he is discharging most of the social functions of tho Sovereign, who becomes more and more fond of seclusion. Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany, will require an extra grant on his marriage with the Princess Helena of Wai dock, which will involve an extra strain on the resources of the revenue. Thera is certain to be a loud outcry iv the Radical camp, and the subject may lead to considerable agitation throughout the country and a few lively scenes in the House.

Whatever differences of opinion are entertained on this subject, there is only one view regarding the absurdity of making Prince Leopold a colonel in the army, for the Bake of

allowing him to draw a salary for a post which he is manifestly incompetent to fill. He has never been a soldier, and will never make a man of war. His delicacy of constitution is well known, and he is essentially a scholar and a man of peace. More satisfaction would have been felt by founding an Order of Art and Literature of which he might have bectvne the head, with an allowance that would assist him in meeting the expenses of his establishment. The city of London has at last woke up to the fact that it alone of all the great towns of the kingdom is without a Chamber of Commerce, and it has accordingly founded one. Among other good things, the new Chamber will, by means of direct negotiations with the heads of the Colonial mercantile world, endeavour to improve the commercial relations subsisting between the Colonies and the Mother Country — a consummation devoutly to be wished. It will also concern itself with the reform of the present bankruptcy laws, bills of sale, railway bonds, brokers' licenses, forms of bills of exchange and policies of insurance, and matters of that kind ; and will take cognisance of commercial treaties, the Suez Canal, and the establishment of a tribunal of commerce for the settlement of trade disputes. The last is a crying necessity, and in their deliberations thereupon the London Chamber of Commerce will doubtless have regard to the constitution and working of the French commercial tribunal and the admirable results it has given. That court disposes annually of thousands of cases, at an average cost of about 18a each.

I am afraid the Duke of Hamilton's affairs have not improved of recent years, notwithstanding that he called in an eminent London financier some time ago to put them in order. Indeed, if all the stories afloat are to be believed, his Grace's estates are labouring under heavier burdens than ever. Now he has resolved to sell off his books and MSS., one of the finost collections in the country. His library has been brought to London, and will be sold by public auction in June. There will be a big gathering of the " aesthetes " on the occasion, as one of the most valuable manuscripts is Dante's Divina Commedia, in folio, each page being illustrated with pen-and-ink drawings by various artists, and chiefly by the great master Botticelli, who is one of the divinities in the Pantheon of the followers of Burno Jones, Morris, Rossetti, and tho notorious Oscar Wilde. , . Apropos of this subject, a somewhat ludicrous letter has been addressed to the leading journal by Mr Henry Bohn, the well-known publisher of the classic literature of all times and tongues. The whole thing is a personal advertisement, and does not exhibit the writer under a very favourable aspect. He dilates on the great assistance he ,has given the Duke in connection with the library, and talks largely of how he worshipped under his august shadow. He says: "My necessary sojourn at Hamilton lasted several weeks, at great inconvenience to my London requirements; but the Duke paid me so liberally, and treated me so kindly, that I found it difficult to tear myself away. He spent most of his mornings in the library after a late breakfast, taking great pleasure m getting biblographical wrinkles from me, and on these occasions would admit no visitors, however distinguished, We then met again at dinner." (The dinner is the bonne louche of the letter.) , "This was a sumptuous affair, as throughout the principal courses every plate and dish was kept not with spirits of wine burning beneath them, which had a grand effect ; and behind every chair stood a full-dressed waiter in # crimson and gold. I have occasionally dined at great houses both at Home and abroad, but never witnessed anything so fairy-like." I can understand a spirit-lamp being fairy-like, but the flunkey ! Mr Henry Gr. Bohn may congratulate himself that the " Book of Snobs" has been written. How Thackeray would have crucified him !

Young men of good family are often driven to strange shifts in the Colonies in order to make a livelihood "when down on their luck," but what do you think of a real live lord in aristocratic England applying for a situation aa bobby? Among the applicants for the vacant post of Chief of Police at Birmingham was no less a personage than my Lord St. Leonards. But Brummagem would not have him. Perhaps it feared that for an effective member of the force he would have too much of the repose that marks the caste of Vere de Vere. The incident has given rise to a good deal of gossip and scandal in certain circles. Of course the appointment is of a superior description, and carries a salary of £700 per annum ; still, it is not exactly consistent with the condition of things here, as our society is now constituted, and 1 think the fathers of the great hardware city have acted prudently in rejecting his Lordship's application. Once in his life every great Englishman must deliver a course of lectures in the^ United States. Without that experience his greatness is not complete, nor, in many cases, his fortune. So it was quite in the course of things that Mr Oscar Wilde (the poet of the Esthetic Renaissance of the Nineteenth Century, as he calls himself) should one day pack up his lilies and blue china and cross the Atlantic to lecture the Philistine New Yorkers on the "revival of the intimate study of the correlation of the arts." By all accounts the mission has not been a success. His first public appearance attracted a fashionable audience, who laughed at his knee-breeches, and yawned through his dreary, unintelligible lecture. The general impression was : that though not . a fool, he had no particular wisdom to impart. The Century Club, to which he was introduced, snubbed him politely but severely; and the people of Baltimore, whom he offended by not appearing at a reception to which they had invited him, revoked various other invitations by way of reprisal. The American treatment of our poet has given unmixed satisfaction on this side of the water. We have known the exact measure of Oscar for some time, though we have tolerated him hitherto, partly because he gave occasion to no ond of clever caricatures and the funniest of comic operas, and partly because we hoped that the aesthetic movement might do something to simplify our lives and beautify the architecture of our homes and garments. We looked to Oscar to deliver us from the tyranny of tall hats. For that we forgave him his big fur collar, his long hair, his mediaeval attitudes, and his vagaries of language. But our apostlehas produced nothing better than a boot of poems, whose exuberant eroticism is nono the less nasty because half concealed in classic figuros and a musical terminology. It is no secret that Mr Wildo's present tour in America is entirely a commercial speculation of Mr D'Oyloy Carte, who, <is it were, " farms " the poet, a kind of transaction that enables us to enter into the spirit of an apostrophe of Oscar to the venality of the times : — Come out of it, my soul, thon art not fit For this vilo tialfie-houso, where day by tiny Wisdom and rovoreiice arc aold afc mart.

it mars uiy calm : wherefore in dreams of art And loftiodl culture I would stand apart Neither for God nor for His enemies.

A great event of the social world has been the adoption of the dramatic profession by the famous Court beauty, Mrs Langtry. She has been engaged by Mr tvnd Mrs Bancroft, of

the Haymarket, at, it is said, a salary of £86 per week, and her public appearance has led to no end of controversy. Opinion is very much divided as to her acting, but there is no doubt she possesses latent ability which only requires development and experience. She is at any rate picturesque and graceful, and her refinement of manner is the envy of many an actress who has not had the advantages conferred by her social training. MrLangtry is at present in America, and on his return he may have a few little accounts to settle as well with her admirers as her traducers.

To change the subject. A discovery of deep interest to historians and Biblical scholars haa been made near Bagdad by 'Mr Rassam,' the explorer of Eastern antiqmties.^ The "find" consists of a pile of ruins tnree miles in circumference, in which, after four days' excavation, Mr Rassam laid bare a room paved with asphalt. On digging through the asphalt he came upon a coffer covered with inscriptions, and containing inscribed cylinders, which "are supposed to be the most Important records of the oldest city in the world, founded, as his, torians tell us, by Noah after the delugeand where, according to tradition, Noah buried the antediluvian records." As Mr Rassam cannot read_ the records, and never heard of the ruins until they were casually mentioned to him by an Arab, it is not clear by what means he so quickly identified the site and determined the character of the inscriptions. I, for one, shall be sorry if he is mistaken. The subject of the deluge has always puzzled me extremely, and I have heard others say the same. Where, for instance, did all the water come from, and whither did it go, if the flood was universal ? And if it was onhi partial, what propped it up round the outsidß? It is staggering to think that these another weighty problems may now be on the eve of solution ! What if the precious brick should prove to be Noah's logbook ! — if I may use the term. Anyhow, the ceramic records are on the way to the Assyriologists of the British Museum, who can read everything, and we shall soon know what they mean. The well-known character of Mr Rassam as an experienced explorer, not given to joking, is guarantee sufficient that the announcement he made the other day at the Victoria Institute is not to be classed with that of an unscrupulous American who some time ago pretended to have discovered the love-lette* that passed between Pharaoh's prime minister and the wife of Potiphar. ' » " M.