LONDON CHAT.

Otago Witness, Issue 2086, 15 February 1894, Page 51

LONDON CHAT.

(Fbom Orra Special Cobeespondbht.) 30 and 31 Fleet street, London, December 15. Christmas approaches apace ! lam aware that this will not be " news " to you. Still it is not irrelevant. As a brother Anglo-colonial (Journalist sadly remarked to me a day or two kback i "No more news or gossip now until t frier the holidays ! " This was discouraging, ut I am nob without hope, A very fine winter this must still be pronounced — fine even from a New Zealander's view point. We have had that one great storm in November, one subsequent gale, and one slight fog, but otherwise the weather has been almost unbrokenly fine, and not as a rule very oald. Two or three days' sharp frost inspired would-be skaters with high hope, but S.W. winds and mildness soon set in, and colonial Hjtajs who grumble at this English winter Hne very hard to please. Hiking of weather makes one think of prellas. lam very glad to know that the ndon "unemployed" are not so destitute but that they can afford to sport umbrellas. I looked in at that meeting in Trafalgar Square last Sunday afternoon. It happened to be showery, and the whole gathering seemed one forest of open umbrellas. Very few of those present appeared to lack that protection. This is cheeriDg. Yet I fear there really is a lamentable amount of distress in London just now, There must be many cases almost as sad as that of those two poor old ladies who starved, and one of whom died in uncomplaining patience rather than seek pauper relief. It is these sad and silent sufferers whom I pity most profoundly. Their pride and spirit restrain them from seeking charity until their "knees are weak through fasting," and they lose even the desire for food — nnaty t even the ability to take it if offeredi They seem to suffer more acutely from the cold> but in time that, too, appears to bring a merciful numbness, and they pass through a helpless torpor into restful death. r^'But deplorable as must always be the occurrence of such cases — and I fear they are not few— it would be the grossest perversion of fact to represent the well-to-do classes as standing idly by and doiDg nothing to aid, or pursuing an indifferent career of careless pleasure while their fellow-creatures are famishing from want around them. On the bontrary, the efforts made to relieve the existing distress are absolutely stupendous, and this , by no means in the shape of mere careless almsgiving out of superfluity. Not at all. Num- ' bets of the rich and prosperous are engaged personally in daily efforts to relieve suffering, to help the helpless, and to improve the condition of humanity generally. Of course there are exceptions, as there are peers who disgrace their order, but I do think that in the majority of cases there is not only willingness but desiie to do good. And very much good is being done. Still the distress and poverty of London is so vast an ocean that even its mere exploration is a matter of enormous difficulty, and it is undeniable that a feeling of resentment on the part of the able-bodied poor is steadily gaining ground, and may yet have to be seriously reckoned with. There are disquieting stories of people being |»way laid, assaulted, and robbed in less frequented thoroughfares, and many of the unemployed — genuine unemployed — Bay openly that they have been made desperate by their hardships and privations, and that if society will not help them they must help themselves. Another march through Lendon to the West End is proposed, but if attempted at all will probably be accompanied by so strong a force of pelice as to render it alike harmless and futile. Last Sunday's attempted gathering in Trafalgar Square proved an utter fiasco, and its final result was that the ' sole Anarchist identified as being present was hooted, hustled, and finally hunted by a mob of larrikins, from whose tender mercies he had in the end to be rescued by the police, who were at hand (though not visibly) in strong force as a measure of precaution. Extreme indignation and even alarm has .been excited in London by the news of the latest Anarchist outrage, that in the French Chamber of Deputies. The feeling gains in strength that some special measures will have | to be resorted to as a check upon the repetition lof these frightful atrocities which the dis- • coveries of modern science in regard to explosives have rendered so fatally easy of perpetralotion. Evidently the time is fast approaching when the manufacture of these terrible explosives will be hedged around with the most elaborate safeguards, and with provision against any portion getting into the hands of persons other ) than those well known and of good repute who use them necessarily for purposes of their legitifcmate business. Increased penalties on the unexplained and unnecessary possession of explosives will doubtless be imposed, and but for the prevalence of mawkish tenderness for those who have none for other people's lives L and limbs, the lash would undoubtedly be freely I employed in every case of proved outrage by f, explosive. This last, however, will have to i come sooner or later if an ever-present and increasing peril to society is to be quenched. ' New Zealand has shown England the way in so many reforms that I really wish she would tset the example in this respect and show that, however Socialistic her tendencies, she has a thorough and heariy abhorrence for the propaL gandism of these principles by means of brutal F outrage on person and property. However, I I suppose you are all too happy, and prosperous, k and contented in these piping times to bother ■ your heads about the needs of elder communi■tie*, and are inclined to let them shift for themMfelves with their human refuse. I When a man has done his duty without fuss For display or self-advertisement in the English I army, has fought England's battles time out of I number and been wounded in her service, his ■ reward is — slow starvation and ultimate death r from want. Such at least was the experience a Hew days ago of Charles Guyefot, one of the few I remaining heroes of the Crimean War, a I veteran of 66, upon whose mortal remains an I inquest was held by the Poplar coroner. k "-This is no theatrical exaggeration. Poor f Guyett had a Bplendid Crimean record. He L was in the Ist Grenadiers ; had been in the r battles of Alma, Balaclava, InkermaD, and L Sebastopol, and had won two war medals and I four bars, beside the honourable scars of wounds in those famous battles. He received ■a pension of ninepence a day. He eked this out B>y working as a labourer until his strength ■failed, and then he had to keep and lodge and ■clothe himself on 5s 3d a week, plus Is which a ■,-narried daughter in straightened circumstances Rnanaged with difficulty to allow him. k Upon this total income of 6s 3d weekly, the ■veteran uncomplainingly starved, slowly bu"; till last Saturday night he fell downHKstrs through sheer debility, and was muci ■inrt. Taftpn to the hospital, he was at once Biscoeered to_be dying of cold and starvation, ■tad he did die ! That lingering and painful B-pd dreary death was the old hero's reward for ■cs devoted servietjs-fco his country. No wonder

that the coroner exclaimed, with righteous indignation, "tt is a disgrace to the country !" and that a juror remarked with bitter cynicism, "It does seem rather poor treatment for our heroes." Vet-nobody seems responsible. The War Office paid the sum legally due and never bothered themselves any more about its recipient. The officers, no doubt, thought "Why should they P They did what they were paid for, and the old soldier got what he was entitled to by law^" . . tint public feeling does seem to be a little roused by this tragic case, and good may yet come out of poor Charles Guyett's slow martyrdom. It is pertinently suggested that if the police can watch over ticket-of-leave .men, eurely the War Office might do the same for its retired veterans and heroes, and might at least save them from death by starvation. Sympathy, deep and widespread, has poured in upon Mrs Tyndall. Everyone feels how utterly terrible a thing it must be for a loving and devoted wife to have the ever-present recollection that she killed the dear husband whom she had nursed so tenderly, and to whom she had devoted her own life. Those sad words of the doomed husband : "My podr darling, you have billed your John ! " seem to ring in one's ears, and if mere strangers feel so deeply the profound pathos and horror of the occurrence what must it have been and be to the unhappy widow herself ? The wonder is that the mere borror has not killed her or driven her mad. But she bears up bravely and even insisted on attending the funeral, returning subsequently to the cemetery and remaining there for hours, brooding inconsolably over the grave of her loved and lost one— lost through her own innocent but most fatal act. Strangely enough this shocking fatality was followed on the very next day by another precisely similar. Mr Townshend, a resident at Hampstead, was ill in bed and being nursed by his wife. She rose in the night, tired with nursing and daxed with drowsiness, to give the patient his dose of medicine. The bottle stood side by side with another Containing a powerful carbolic lotioD, both in bottles of the same size, shape, and colour. She inadvertently poured out the draught from the wrong bottle and gave it to her husband, who exclaimed : "I am afraid you have made a mistake ! " In a quarter of an hour he was dead from carbolic poisoning. The jury wholly exonerated the widow from blame. Now, such canes might occur any day in New Zealand — nay, may have occurred already — and the moral cannot be too stroDgly impressed there, as it is being impressed in England — namely, that all poisonous lotions or drugs ought to be dispensed in bottles whose shape, make, and colour should give conclusive warniog of the lethal nature of their contents. The concurrence of these two lamentable fatalities has naturally aroused much interest and even alarm in England, and the papers teem with suggestions more or less practicable for remedies The invariable use of blue fluted bottles for poisons, as already practised by some druggists, is one proposal, and another is that poisonous compounds should be sold in bottles shaped like wine flasks. A third is that bottles containing poisons should have a tiny halfpenny bell appended by an elastic band, so that the poison bottle could not ba touched or moved without ringing the bell. That some plan is imperative everybody agrees. None can say how many lives have been sacrificed through a wrong medicine being given unconsciously by a sleepy nurse owing to similarity in receptacle. It is felt that so pregnant a source of danger ought not to be allowed to continue. So unless the passing sensation of horror and alarm dies away before action is taken— which is not at aIL unlikely — we may hope to Bee some precaution made compulsory. A very good suggestion put forth also is that every poison bottle should bear on its label instruction as to its best and simplest and most easily got antidote — for instance, in case of mineral acids, that "chalk and water followed by milk" should be used — also, as to the readiest emetic that can be employed. These two precautions should certainly be enforced. Delivered in his characteristically dry and (good-naturedly) caustic manner, Mr Hamilton Clarke's lecture on Tuesday week at the Royal College of Organists (this excellent institution being now dignified by the possession of tha long-coveted honour of a royal charter, signed by the Queen on the 23rd ulfc.) furnished, in the opinion of others besides that of the distinguished chairman (Dr E. H. Turpin), very instructive food for reflection, especially on the | part of youthful musical aspirants to antipodean fame. The key to this lay concealed in the second half of the title of the lecture— " Two Years' Music in Australia, by One who has suffered ft." Mr Clarke told in picturesque language the tale of bis musical woes in Melbourne, recounting how, at the close of the Centennial Exhibition of 1888-9, although Mr Cowen's six months' engagement had resulted in a heavy pecuniary loss, it was yet considered so successful artistically that it was decided by the promoters thereof that the thirut of the Australian people for music, particularly orchestral music, was "so burning that no ordinary concerts would be able to quench it." Wherefore Mr Clarke was engaged, as a music licensed victualler, so to speak, to satisfy this public want, and to educate the masses also up to the Empyrean heights of Beethoven, Bach, Brahms, Wagner, &c. Bub, of course, it was the "powers that were," aud not Mr Clarke, who decided how to carry out these objects, so it was arranged to give concerts in the various slums of Melbourne — at Colling wood, for instance, "a miniature and vastly inferior Whitechapel," where, after the concert, the players tramped through a sloppy cricket field in order to accept an invitation to "drinks all round" from the mayor, who, with his shirtsleeves rolled up, was " glad to see them, he was !" " Unfortunately, however," paid Mr Clarke, "the Utopian folly of thus seeding orchestral music into the wilderness was amply and universally demonstrated. At coucerb after concert the same dense lack of perception, the same stupid indifference kept the audience meagre and contemptible." No doubt this was largely due to the fact that the well-meaning; but inexperienced responsibilities who managed affairs totally neglected "the noble art of advettising." More than half the time nobody precisely knew where or when the next concert was to be held. When there was an audience it seemed always, alas ! to be more or less composed of "lady-subscribers." And so the vivacious lecturer ran on, not forgetting, however, meanwhile, to do full justice to the free-hearted hospitality and the charm of the Australian people, to the perfect climate, to which, no doubt, is largely due the acknowledged beauty of the Australian singing voice ; and, lastly, to the very excellent amateur choral societies — notably the Metropolitan and the Melbourne Liederfcafel — of which that city has "so much reason to be proud," and which j Mr Clarke declared to be equal, if not superior to the best societies in London. The lecture of the courtly and distingnished president, Sir Frederick Leightou, on the occasion of the distribution of medals (aud is it not i " Gold medal " year ?) to the students of the

Royal Academy of Arta on Saturday evening, suggested itiany interesting questions to the open mind of the lay visitor. For instance, if the German genids Is " ethic rather than {esthetic, " why deliver or— -agon? of agonics — listen to so long, so very loDg, a lecture upon it ? Secondly, why has the handsome and pleasant-voiced Sir Frederick Leighton never learned the value of "cutting the words out upon the lips," so that they shall all —instead of one in 20— be distinctly audible to the listeners. And thirdly, why was it necessary to have the room 1 so icy cold P Also, why, when for odco the immortal Forty deigned to exhibit themselves to the awe-struck gaze of the breathless universe — or that portion of it admitted by ticket to the Royal Academy lecture room on Saturday evening — why, oh why, were so many of those immortals asleep P Why, for instance, did Mr Alma Tadema divide the time between lengthy snoozes and short returns to consciousness with a deeply-injured expression as he realised that the silvery monotone was flowing, still flowing on. •' for ever and for ever " ? Why did his neighbour next but one upon his left open his mouth so wide and keep it open the greater part of the interminable time ?

Perhaps the answer to this query is that the proprietor of the Said mouth was laudably anxious to supply a group of students near your correspondent's chair — who took full advantage of the opportunity thus thoughtfully provided— with some good practice in the difficult art of drawing mouths in unusual positions P Again, why did the handsome and buoyant face of Mr Marcus Stone take on by slow degrees so patient and resigned, not to say ill-used, an expression ? And why did Mr Yal Frinsep pathetically smile at some longsuffering friend in the audience, as he surreptitiously drew out his watch every now and again ? Surely this cultured and appreciative audidence could not — perish the thought ! — have been bored ? And yet they assuredly looked like it ! Why will net intellectual creators — musical, artistic and literary alike, — realise that their auditors can have too much even of a good thing 'i Musical domposeis of all other creative geniuses seem to find that the hardest lesson to learn ; But evidently lectilrers on art might advantageously go to school in this respect.

John Anderson, a miner, of Grey Valley, was committed for trial at Reefton on the 7th for impersonation at the Lite general election.