DEAD PICTURES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2292, 3 February 1898, Page 50

DEAD PICTURES.

; Written by Baery Pain, in the Ludgate. ! I.— The House Were it was Done. I have but to pick up a penny illustrated paper and open my ryes, snd I can gent-rally see it quite distinctly, as clearly as if it were a dresm. It is a picture of a house. It has five windows, three in the upper storey and two in the lower. The top lef t-handcorner window is partly open, in a careless and natural way, and gives variety. There is a door, with a step to ir, between the two lower windows. At a little distance are shrubp, and a policeman with one arm stuck cut, and some hcr.'zorj. Tbat is the house where it wss done. It may be a murder, or a suicide, or the birth of a cekbiity ; but that is always tha house where it was done. Robert Burns was born in the game bouse where Charles Peace resided, snd the Oarmellite Club was raided, and the Anarchists were arrested, and the ghost was Been by the siugularly clearheaded man, and Boulanger passed his early year?. Thathouso is somstimes a club, srsd sometimes a convalescsnt home, and sometimes a rectory ; but iv is always the seine. The letterpr&ss describirg it may vary, but the picture nsver variee. I!; comes up one week as a " R-streat for Indigent Curates"; ccxt week you are ask?d to believe that Doc-m-ing's victim was discovered under its hearth-stone. If they would otily vary the details occasionally, perhaps it would be easier to bear if. Ctuld not the policeman be made removable 1 Would it not be possible sometimes to open one of tbe other windows, strike out the shrub?, or let in a new horizon? What that old block lost in chips it would gain in conviction and vrais"mblance. In the meantime it goes on. If anythirg is ever done in a house, then tbat is the hcuse where it was done. It must have been inconveniently crowded I at times. ll.— The Cosy Corkeu. | There is only one co*y corner in tbe world. i It belongs to the people who are interviewed, and is sent about frcm house to house co that the interviewer may alwajs fisd it. Or, possibly, the interviewer bring 3 it with him in a cart and fixes it up before he starts work. It's a pretty tbirg, of wood painted white. When you sit down there ia a little shelf with majolica upon it to catch you in the small of the back : when ycu get up sg^in yon bump your head against a bigger shelf. There is a Burmese brass idcl, a 'Japanese fan, and a }ot tulip on this shelf. When ycu bump your head these things fell off. That is where the cosiness comes in. The cosy crrcer is approached by a real Regent street Cairene ajch. Ifc has cushions in some profusiorj, and a mandoline reposes ! carelessly on the cushions. There is co reason why the mandoline should net be theie — I Lave beatd it, and can quite believe that it is better to sit on it than to play on it. When the Interviewer enteis a room where tbis cosy corner is displayed, he is much struck by the ta&te and refinement, and says he feels as if he were passing into another world. | I wish he were. 10 he passed I should not day by day and wec-k by week be confronted with the picture of the cosy corner in tbe , illustrated interview. This picture is doing a lot of harm. The general public believes that every celebrity ha 3 a cosy corner, and then the general public wants one too. And the Halfpenny Home Blitherer tells you bow you can make one for yomself out. of orange boxes and plnshette, and what is leffc over from Isst year's bicycle. If those pic- j tures are not stopped somebody really Tfiil make one, and it will breed dkcord. 111. — The Woman in Bed. Don't go. There is really no impropriety in the picture. The most respectable papers have il. As a rule it illustrates a chapter of the serial story, and there is nothing in the story with any tendency to undermine or honeycomb anything.

The scene depicted is mostly bedclothes. At one end is a far more elaborate pillow than you have got at home, and on the pillow rests the head of a much prettier woman than you -are yourself. The woman's hair is always black. Either the fair-haired women never go to bed, or they dye their hair fir&t. Her eyes are closed. At the left hand of the picture is the nurse approaching ; Bhe carries a full medicine glass in one hand at arm's length, and presses the fingers of her other hand on her lips to enjoin silence. She looks at tha patient instead of at the glass, and you can see she will spill that medicine and spoil a good carpet. But you cannot see why she puts her fingers to her lips, for there is no one in the room except herself and the patient, and the patient ia either asleep or dead; dead for choice — I meaa, dead as a general rule. On the table by the bedside is a split peach, a bunch of grapes, and a medicine bottla with the loose label tied to the neck in the way no medicine bottle ever is labelled except in pictures. i Underneath one reads the legend, which may vary. Sometimes it is, " All was over," not referring to the medicine glass. Sometimes, "The nurse advanced stealthily ";and oa lookicg at the picture you sea that to advance stealthily you bend the top half of your body forward and the rest follows when it can. Or you may have, " She slept like a tired child," or " But Dorothy would never wake again." It is always very sad. The first hundred or hundred and fifty times that yen see that picture you feel as if you could cry. Bat I the illustrated magazines keep on slinging it in, and one grows callous, otherwise yon might break your heart for fourpence halfpenny ar>y day at the discount booksellers. IV. — £n A Gbip of Steel. The grip of course is the hero's ; the man in it is the villain. That is the way these I things happen. Tne hero slants forward ; the Villain giants bsckward. The hero has oes arm behind his back, where it ia likely to be useful as a defence in case the villain thinks of running round and hitticg him there. His other arm is outstretched, and the hand grasps tb.B villain's wrist. The villain has one arm absolutely free. There seems to be no reason why he should not swing it round until the hero's face gets in the way. Bat that does not occur to the villain. As long as he may look horiifird and be caught in a grip of eteel, that is all he wants. Now, the constant repetition of thi3 picture is having a very pernicious effect upon ycurg men jast starting life. It leads them to believe that if they becoms villains — and it, is said there is money ia it — they may look forward to ths grip-of-steel mometfc with composure. They imagine that while the hero is carefully defending the small of his back frcm a parely imaginary enemy in tha rear, they will punch his face according to their own taste and discretion. So they become villain?, and they meat a hero, atd he faila to act according to the picture. Thus this picture leads to crime and also to disappointment. It is flagrantly immoral, and should be suppressed. NORTHERN SIBERIA. Mr J. Rassell Jeeffresor, F.8.G.5., who recently reittraed from a visit to she Yaluaal Peninsula in Siberia, has given an interviewer an account of his experiences. Mr Jessffceson has during the last eight years made many exploring voyages to the Arctic region?, and csily last year penetrated Spitsbergen and visited Bear Itlaad. "The Yalman Pemnenla," hs said, " lies between 68 and 73 lat. N. acd 73 long. E. The country is quite rmknowß, and as far as can be ascertained no European lias previously visited its interior. Mr F. J. Jackson tried to do so in 1891 from ILarberova, but could not get the superstitious natives to accompany him on any consideration, as they said there were many bad men there. Over two years ago I wished to make this jonrnsy, but the difficulties were great. In Jane last year, however, I heard of a fleet of trading boats with which it was intended to go to the Yenisei River, and four were to attempt the passage of the Oai Gulf that lies on the eastern side of the Yalmal Penkuuls. I endeavoured to book on one of the boats bound for the Obi Gulf as a passenger, but was not permitted to do so, though I was afterwards accepted as doctor, in which capacity I signed on for the expedition ship Biicon. Har captain was most KIND AND SYMPATHETIC in regard to my scientific work, and gave ma a great deal of latitude. My official position prevented my absence for very long periods for exploration and research, bat considering: all things my trip was very successful." Mr I Jeaffreson proceeded to explain how, several days affcsr leaving LondoD, be reached Vardo snd joined Admiral Marakoff, commander of tbe Russian Baltic squadrorj, and Mr Thomas Wardror per, a well-known Siberian engineer, on whoae yacht, the Joan Kronstatski, ha visited the Merman coast of Russian Lapland, and was present as the guest of the Admiral and the Governor of Archangel at the midnight ceiemony on the occasion of the opening cf the Ekaterinski Harbour, recently chosen^s the site of Russia's ice-frea harbour in tbe north. The ceremony he described as being very impressive. The piiests, arrayed in their robes, sprinkled holy water on the foundations of tbe houses whi'e they chanted prayers in Russian and Finnish. Mr Jeaffreson appeared to have A VEKY HIGII OPINION of the harbour, ■which the Russians claim will become ultimately a second Liverpool, and he remarked that it had splendid anchorage for almost any number of warships, £>nd was absolutely clear of ica throughout the mest severe winter. Oa rejoining his ship in Pett Straits, lying between Waigatz Island and the mainland cf Arctic S'.beria, he proceeded through the Karo Sea tv 'he Yalmal Futicsula, and though j parallel 7i to tb.B aorth was reached, no ice i was seen, an unprecedented thing for 30 years in that part of tbe Kara, Sea. " Our difficulties commenced," proceeded Mr Jeafforaon, " when we entered the Gulf of Obi. These waters are unknown ; the British Government's chart is in some cases nearly 100 miles out, and there are dangerous and uncharted sand banks all down the gulf . OS. the four ships that started oars tow tbe only

one that traversed the gulf in safety. Two others were stranded for several days near the mouth of the gulf. Our veEsel was fortunate enough, thanks to Captain Stuart's

SPLENDID NAVIGATION, to reach Nahodka Bay, which is on the east of the Yglaial Peninsula and about 400 miles from the entrance to the gulf. A three weeks' stay was made there, which I otilised in exploring the entrance of the Yalmal. The coast is most curious, and the colouring is veiy vivid. Perpendicular shale, sand, and clay bluffs fall down fco the sea-level, here and there intersected by small yer, for rowing boats, navigable rivers. Near Nahodka Bay these rivers run inland about IS miles, where a line of bluffs rise, ranging in height from about lOOfc to 150 ft. On the top of these bluffs there is the temdra or flat, undulating ground, covered with moss and lichen, that forms nearly the whole plateau of Arctic Siberia. Every few miles lakes ars meb with from one to about ten miles or more in length, hitherto quite unknown."