PASSING NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2010, 1 September 1892, Page 25

PASSING NOTES.

Grandmotherly advice by the London Times and English press generally on our " Constitutional question 1 " Lord Ripon, the new Secretary of State for the Colonies, is informed that the case will exercise his ablest discretion, and Lord Glasgow is admonished that a colonial Governor must needs accept the advice of his Ministers. As newspaper editors must write about something there is nothing surprising in their writing about this, even supposing them to be in utter ignorance of the facts. The art of journalism is the art of being omnißoient on Bnbjects about which you know nothing. It would be a mistake, however, to suppose that the London editors know nothing on this subject. They know just as much and just as little as Mr Ballantie has been pleased to tell them. The English opinion now being telegraphed from London has first been supplied from $ew Zealand. Nothing surprising in tbis, perhaps ; but what Ido find surprising is the' readiness of Messrs Ballanc'e and Qo-. to refer a colonial dispute between Governor and Ministers to English arbitrament. Personally, I don't object— far from it 1 But the last persons I should have expected to share my feeling on that point are the Ballance Ministry, posing as ultra-Liberals. That they, of all men, should emphasise the English connection, remind the Governor that he is an Imperial nominee, and appeal unto Cicsar, is astonishing in a high degree. A way of deciding the dispute in accordance with the forms of the constitution was open to them here ; instead of adopting it they refer the whole question to the Secretary of State for the Colonies 1 Uriah Heep couldn't have been more 'umble, nor a Windsor Castle beef-eater more abjectly "loyal." Let us hope they will keep it up I

Fully sixteen hundred adults were present at the dedication service of the Temple of Truth the other day in Christchurch. So aflirm the local papers. Sixteen hundred adults— it is a largo congregation. Shall we not rather say sixteen hundred asses? But perhaps not all were asses. The " Students of Truth " proper filled only the Temple floor, whilst the galleries were crowded by a miscellaneous multitude who probably went only to see the fun, as undoubtedly I myself should have done had the chance come in my way. Very excellent fun it was. The interior of the Temple of Truth shows at one end an elevated dais approached by six marble steps, Here were stationed "the male choir of. 35 attired in cardinal robes." Upon the steps stood six little girls in white frocks " representing the help-meets of the type men, each child holding' respectively a bundle of thorns, a bunch of thistles, a cluster of grapes, a shepherd's crook with maize fastened to it, a sheaf of wheat, and a burning lamp." Prodigious I If suddenly, at Seacliff, extreme Ritualism became the prevailing madness, and the combined lunacy of the place invented a service after its own heart, it couldn't do better than this. Bundles of thorns, bunches of thistles, shepherds' crooks, cardinal robes, sheaves of wheat, and burning lamps — nothing like it has been seen, heard of, or imagined since the days of the Dunedin " Lyceum Guide."

After the. choir in cardinal robes had chanted a stave from Hymns Anoient and Modern, Mr Worthington, high priest of the "Temple of Truth," attended by his high priestess, Mrs Worthington, taking up a position at the foot of the steps, uttered the following enigmatical and portentous words : — " In the name of that first great day of creation in expression, with its corresponding day in representation, wherein the mind of man, brooded over by the Spirit of God, burst through chaotic ignorance." Merely that and nothing more 1 "In the name of the Prophet— figs " sounds equally sublime and a good deal more intelligible. But let us proceed with the solemn and ceremonial ascent of the steps : —

Ascending the first step he said: — "Inthename of the second great day of creation in expression, and its separation of the firmaments, and its corresponding day in representation, wherein the mind of man gave birth to understanding." Ascending the second step he said :—": — " In the name of the third great day of creation in expression and its product of form out of chaos, and its corresponding day in representation, in which man reaches the first stage of realisation." Wbafc ascending the third step he said, and what ascending the fourth — and the fifth and the sixth and the seventh— regard for the exigencies of space and the tottering intelligence of my readers preveuta my reporting. It is sufficient to mention that "as Mr and Mrs Wortbington aeceuded each step the Students answered each dedication sentence with 'So shall it be, Amen,' and at the concluding passage, ' So it is now, Amen.' " Fortified by these assurances Mr Worthington set off again: " By the deathleßS quality of life, by the changeless majesty of truth, by the infinite character of love," &c, &c. — a flight of eloquence which, if I had space to reproduce it, would be seen to hover between Byron's " Maid of Athens"— By that lip I long to taste, • By that zone-encircled waist — and Foote's " Yard of Nonsense," — " So she went into the garden to cut a cabbage to make an apple dumpling." After this effort Mr Worthicgton, still unexhausted, proceeded to make "six solemn affirmations" (tinroported), the Students responding as before, then preached a long discourse and collected an offertory, which last, considering the excellence of the show, ought to have panned out to Mr and Mrs Wortblngton's

entire satisfaction. , The OtirUtohurch "Temple of. Truth" is now in full Sunday swing as a formidable rival to the Cathedral. To us, who envy and admire at a distance, all that is left is to speculate how long an interval is likely to elapse before the building will be, like our own Lyceum, to let for assembly balls' and nigger entertainments.

If elaborate reports and costly schemes could make a harbour in. spite of Nature, then Dunedin should possess the finest pore 1 n New Zealand. But as thej don't— very wuch otherwise indeed— the inference ia fhat Nature declines to b3 brow-beaten by experts. Horace said as much a thousand years ago, but neither harbour boards nor marine engineers are supposed to know Latin, so they can't be expected to consult him. I* am moved to make the3e ingenuous obBe'rvationS By Mr O. Napier Bell's lengthy find learned Report in Friday's Times and -kx Gt: M. Baif's equally lengthy and leaf ned criticism of it in the Times of Monday. r lt vrou'ld appear ttiat marine engineers differ almost as much as doctors — or lawyers. Their theoiies are carefully hedged in Kith ifs and an?, and the only point on which your expert speaks with confidence and clearness ia that all the other experts are egregiously wrong. Sir John Ooode, Mr G. M. Barr, Mr Stevens, and Mr O. Y. O'Connor have each in turn examined and sounded and mapped and suggested with most admirable particularity and skill. But no two of them agree ; and now Mr Bell has done it all over again, ahd of oourse differs from everybody; while Mr Barr proves to a demonstration that Mr Bell himself is altogether at sea. Meanwhile the channel obstinately persists in shoaling, and the net outcome of all the researches of the unhappy Board is crushing debt, prohibitive charges, low bar, and silting channel. My own opinion is that , Nature takes this method of resenting all the poking and prying and dredging and soundng to which she has been profanely subjected. But then -I know more about classics than currents, so I naturally lean to Horace.

Judiciously applied, there is no more effective means of routing a deputation than the Socrat : c meaDs of question and answer, as all who waited on Mr Seddon when he was here can testify to their ccst, if only they tell the truth. Me Gladstone, I see, employed the same tactics, and with the same success, when interviewed the other day by the advocates of the Eight Hours movement at Home. His grave iroDjr is delicious, and he impales his victims so gently that it is not until hopelessly astride of thehotn that they find out where they are. An Eight Hours Act is plainly a thing of the far-off future in England. And I fear mo it is not much nearer in New Zealand, 6pile of the strenuous efforts of Mr William Hutchison. I pine for the time when a bowel-less editor shall be fined and imprisoned for compelling me to toil 16 hours aday in the manufacture of Passing Notes, but woe is me, I must pine on. Tho Legislative Council have thrown out the bill, and the only consolation for Me Hutchison and me is that in doing so they have driven another nail into their coffin. So mote it be. Not content with throwing it out, they treated it with ostentatious, almost truculent, contempt, as is the nature of autocrats who hold by life tenure and have not the fear of the Working Man before their eyes. Far be it from me to speak lightly of dignities — oven nominated dignities— but is not the truth the truth 7 Mr Pharazyn thought the bill a muchievou3 and meddlesome piece of legislation; Sir George Whitmore declined to consider it seriously ; Mr Oliver called it a sham ; and Mr Stevens laughed at it as not worth the serious attention of any body of sane persons. These be very bitter words, and contrast painfully with the proceedings in the Peopb's Chamber, as to which please see the next note.

In the People's Chamber the Eight Hours Bill met with the respect due to its principle, its preamble, and its provisions. And these three are one. The preamble sets forth in Hutchinsonian prose the onalienable right of the Working Man to "possess a reasonable time at his disposal for recreation, mental culture, and the performance of social and civil' duties," or, as the Working Man himself is wont to put it : Eight hours' work and eight hours' play, Eight hours' sleep and eight bob a day. The Lower.House, as I say, received the bill with respect. Mr Taylor, it is true, called it an abortioD, but why ? Because it didn't go far enough. He demanded an Eight Hours Bill pure and simple with no exemptions of any kind. Include domestic servants? Certainly — why not? If you wanted a cup of tea in bed before you got up? Why, get up and light the fire yourself of course. "No half measures for Mr Taylor of the Poor and Needy. Even the Conservatives were deferential and subdued. Mr Clutha Mackenzie ventured to be facetious at the expenseof theauthor — the people's William — but didn't venture to vote against the bill. And so likewise with Mr Duthie, Mr Fish, and the rest of the Tory tribe. They cavilled a little, ai d a little they criticised, but they did not dare to oppose, and the bill was oarri'ed . without division— a striking testimony to the power of Right, and the weight of the Working Man. Thanks to the Council, Mr Hutchison has failed of his high purpose. And yet not wholly so. 'Tis not in mortals to command success, but he has done more— he has deserved it. His powerful appeal for the postman, the enginedriver, the mill hand— in fine, for all sorts and conditions of working men— laas not been in vain; and if they forget the father of that beauiiful preamble — they don't deserve to possess a vote.

Our teetotal friends will doubtless derive comfort from a perusal of the report of the case cf O'Neil v. The State of Vermont, which was finally decided on appeal in the Supreme Court of the United States on 4th April 1892. O'Neil, a storekeeper in Vermont, was charged in the year 1882 with having "at divers times" sold intoxicating liquor contrary to the Vermont Liquor Law. In the County Court he was convicted of no less than 457 separate offencee under the above charge, and was accordingly sentenced to pay the trifling fine of 961-296d01, or in

default to 28,836 i days' imprisonment with hard labour. On appeal to the State C t ourt, however, the offences proved against ONeil were reduced in number to 307, and the penalty was accordingly lowered ts the infinitesimal one of 663872d01, or 19,914 days' imprisonment (with bard labour as before) In other words, in place of having to pay a fine of about LI9OO or goiDg to gaol for some seventy -nine years, he bad merely to Rod LI3OO or "take it out "to the tuned fifty-seven years "hard." Even this mitigated sentence, however, did not meet the views of the hardened off mder, and he appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States. After a few years' delay judgment was delivered by that august tribunal on the above date. In the result the appeal was dismissed and the sentence confirmed, the court holding that the appellant could not at that late stage object to a " want of fulness " in the original complaint, and that the question whether the punishment meted out was " cruel and unusual " was not properly raised in the case on appeal (although it had been decided in the court below). When we contrast such proceedings with our own puny efforts in the direction of Prohibition, we feel the truth of the dictum of our own Judge Richmond that " the cause of temperance, holy though it be, cannot be advanced by disregard of tha still more sacred claims of justice."

Some extracts "from the Catholic Times (London) sent to me by a correspondent certainly deserve a place amongst the curiosities of religious belief. They are acknowledgments of services lendered'to the faithful by the late Cardinal Manning since his death. I give two or three specimens : —

A Child of Mary wishes to return public thanks in The Catholic Times for a wonderful temporal favour in answer to prayers to the Holy Face. She also prayed to Cardinal Manning, and believes he obtained a request for her. — April 15. J. R. T. writes to say that he has received an answer to prayer after asking our late holy cardinal's intercession. — May 20. B, S. Beswick wishes to return thanks to the Sacred Heart and Cardinal Manning for a temporal favour received after saying for nine days the exercise in honour of Jesus risen, and invoking the help of the dear cardinal. — May 20. A Child of Mary (Dublin), in fulfilment of a promise, wishes to return thanks for a temporal favour received from the Sacred Heart through the intercession of Our Lady of Dolours and Cardinal Manning.— May 20. If this kind of testimony continues and is multiplied, says my correspondent, it will probably have the effect; of securing Cardinal Manning's canonisation as a saint. A saint must have worked miracles, and as the late cardinal is not known to have worked any daring his life it is .necessary to show that he has worked some since his death. Hence these public testimonials. How far this account of the matter may be correct I know not, but if tho Roman Catholics wish to make Cardinal Manning a saint let them do it, by all means. Why fehould anybody object ? Certainly I don't, for one. I bey have made saints of worse men before now. This practice of conferring %nst mortem peerages strikes me as altogether admirable, and it is peculiar to the Roman Catholics. Our way is to set up a statue, and a very expensive and unsatisfactory way it is ; — witness the Macandrew bust, and the two Burnß memorials in the Octagon. How much better — and cheaper— it would have been had our Presbyterian principles allowed us to make the Rev. Dr Burns a saint I This remark would hardly apply, I admit, to his namesake on the other side of the road. To conceive of Robbie as a saint transcends the powers of the human imagination. Civis.