PASSING NOTES,

Otago Witness, Issue 2302, 14 April 1898, Page 1

PASSING NOTES,

From Saturday's Daily Times.)

'Qv the sparring match in the Far Bast, of Russian stroke and British counterstrofee, we of the Farther East have as good a right as anybody else to form an opinion ; accordingly I have proceeded to form my own. The weight of a blow is best measured by its effect upon the recipient. That is the test I apply to our acquisition of Wei-hai-wei. How doea Russia take it ? How the British press and Parliament take it counts for something, no doubt, and it is satisfactory to note their tone of comfortable self-complacency ; but the true criterion is the tone of Eussia. I am delighted to observe that the tone of Russia is decidedly grumpy. The St. Petersburg Novoe Vremya — virtually a Government Gazette — complains that the concession of Woi-hai-wei to Britain " deprives the Russian fleet of a free exit from Ibe Gulf of Pechili." And so it dose. The Gulf of P^chili'is the water front of Pekin ; entrance to the gulf i 3 through a strait;^ on the northern side of that strait is Port Arthur, on the southern aide is Wei-hai-wei. Russia having giabbed the one Britain collars the othsr. Tit for tat and the gams is equal. Or rather it is unequal, and the advantage is with us ; for the Russian fleet in Port Arthur would be trapped, whilst behind ours is the open ocean — our true base and natural line of communications with everywhere. How little Russia likes it may be seen in her closing the ports of Cronstadfc and Sevastopol against merchant shipping. This putting up or the shatters on two of her principal shop fronts won't influence affairs in the Far East ; it means merely that the proprietor feels indisposed. In fact the Russian bear ib sore and sulky, and that fact, I take it, is pretty good evidence that Wei-hai-wei is worth having.

Messrs Seddon and M'Keczi3 stumping the country at the public expense in the interests of Messrs Seddon and MKeczie deserve pity rather than reprobation. Forlorner spectacle bave I seldom beheld. As a humane man and a subscriber to the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals I protest against its continuance. It is a painful thing to read, as in' to-day's Times, that at Wyndham the -Hon. John M'Kenzie, acknowledging a motion of thanks for .which .a majority of, the audience does not seem to have voted, "was received derisively," and that the meeting broke up with "cheers for ( G. F.,'" the member for the district, and, politically, the Hon. John's mortal foe. This is a nice result, truly, for a Seddon and M'Kenzie missionary meeting 1 3STor does the Bight Hon. Richard fare any better. Witness his painful experience at the AgriQoHaral Hall in DunecUn; even tho tion-

political Governor had to intercede for him. Considered as orators Richard and John aie ab the best a clodhoppirig pair, with little to choose between them than except that Richard has the greater gift of prolixity, taking two hours and a-half, as a rule,, to pass a given point. When the two of them go to the count'.y to whip up the poor old dead horse of Seddonisra, attempting it in speeches as long ss a Jubilee procession — Pomahaka, Bushy Park, Jubilee expenses. Old Age Pensions, varied by Old Age Pensions, Jubilee expenses, Bushy Park, and Pomahaka — is it any wonder if their audiesces, when they get any, turn again and rend them ! Too Eurely the game is up ; this stumping procession of two serves only to make the fact more painfully evident. Wbat Dick says to Jock on tbe subject and what Jock replies to Dick is not reported, asd that is just as well No editor would be likely to ficd it fit for publication.

The barque Lairs, sack at her moorings alongside the Dunedin wharf, is a melancholy sight. Ir- this opinion will concur readily oil parUss interested — Captain Smith, .the Union Company, and, not least, the under-wrii-frrs. About the legal questions which ,Ihe L^iis's catastrophe bas generated, a wMerrtess of lawyers is already busy, and. they doubtless are happy enough. There will also be a contractor who will succeed or foil in getting her op again and who indirectly welcomes the incident as all in the way of business. Otherwise the affair means tears all round — tears and recriminations. Th? qupjflon Who is to blame? I leave to the Jmitical Court ot Inquiry, which ia alreaoy sitting upon ifc, and, i am afraid, would hardly accept me as a competent assessor. All the same I have my opinion. In my opinion the parties to blame are Destiny and Providence. Here is the barque Laira lying unoffendingly at the Dunedin wharf, receiving cargo in tbe lawful practice of. her profession, thinking of nothing but her eposdy scarfc for London, wbec, one bright, summery morning, with nothing ominous in wind or weather, a 750-horse-power catapult smashes into her vitals and sends her to the bottom. Looking at the Wakatipu's voyage from Sydney as fated from ilic beginning to end in the Laira's side, the accuracy with which she reached her destination is admirable, and I commend ifc, for their consolation, to the insurance companies. Then there is Providence — Providence which, assisted by the scrapings, scoopings, shovellirga of the Harbour Board and the expenditure in these obscure processes of a mint of borrowed money, has left less than three fathoms of water in the Danedin Upper Harbour. Let us lay tbe blame on the right shoulders, pay up the damages, and forgive one another all round.

We must reluctantly admit thafc the Americans beat ua in some things. Amoog these 5s the education of women — politically, socially, and professionally. I daresay this statement will be warmly resented in a colony blessed with .women's political associations and girl graduates, bat nevertheless I am going to stand to my guns and declare that when measured by the American standard we fall lamentably short. For example, I am not aware that vivisection is practised in any of our colleges by female students of biology. In America it is, and what is more, there is no privacy about it, and a newspaper has j ast published all the details, with sensational engravings. We read a few weeks ago that a female teacher, wishing to illustrate a lecture to girls in one of the public schools, killed a cat with chloroform in the pupils'presence and proceeded to dissect it. This very womanly act was rewarded by dismissal, but only, it seemed, because she had killed the cat. On the other hand, the female students at Cornell College practise on live cats and also on rabbits. Here is a description of an operation : —

A cat is brought into the room in a glass box and chloroform administered untiLthe animal is entirely anaesthetised. The four legs are then securely and quickly bound, and before life is extinct the dissection is begun. Although unconscious, the pussy's mews are most pitiful ; yet the experiment must go on. The ribs are quickly cut, the, chest thrown open, and the beating heart laid bare. Red blood runs in streams until it covers white hands. But the young, eager scientist has learned thafc the animal is not sensitive to pain, that it is not cruel to vivisect, aad she allows only a scowl to show that she is conscious of the operation. Jnsfc as the surgeon becomes accustomed to his work, bo does the young woman student in Cornell's biological laboratory learn to experiment on the living. This course, it seem?, is partly for the purpose of training the delicate woman tip to the point where she can begia the dissection of human beings, and enters the coarse in

human anatomy. Her first human subjectis a baby. Strange to say, this course makes tbe woman more womanly. Yet the proof submitted seems somewhat inadequate. ~ " She now no longer screams ab the sight of a mouse, but goes closer to the little harmless thing in order that she may study it more carefully." There could, I think, be no better proof that the women become unsexed, and I hold that a woman who is not afraid of a mouse is in the same category as the man who hath no music in his soul.

The elite of New York, the " Four Hundred," have fonnd a rew distraction which may be recorantpudsd to persoos everywhere who suffer from ennui. They have taken to tracing thair descent from royalty, and have founded an Order of the Grown, to which are eligible only those of the fair sex who are invited to join, and oan prove that; they are liueally descended from a king. I have before me as I write a list of 78 women who have demonstrated to their own satisfaction and to that of the founders of the order that they are descended from Charlsmagne, William the Cocqueror, or some other defunct; monarch. The benefits this society is' calculated to confer upon the world are immense. But for it wa should probably have never known that Mr and Mrs Job.!? Jacob Aator were descended from Edward I of England, and that through only 21 generations. Their claims to royal descent cannot be disputed. ' The testimony of the horald'B office would be sufficient in itself, but luckily there are other methods of arriving at the certainty. Evsry person now living had two parents; those lw> parents had four parents ; those four had eight, and so on. If: you continue this process jfor 21 steps you will fiad that 21 generations ago the person had upwards of two millions of ancestors. Consequently, the king must have been among them ; therefore the person muct have descended from a king. QE.D. The ection of the ladies of the Four Hundred is quite natural — at least it is not unusual. The acquisition of great wealth, or the reputation of owning it, implies the possession of great qualities, derived from some great ancestor. When a person becomes rich he sets the heralds to work, and they soon prove incontestably that he is of noble descent, and fib him oat with a crest and coat-of-arms to ruffle it among the other golden pots sailing down the atraara. The strange part of it is that the American girls, being themselves such patricians, hanker so much after European titles. How ib must delight John Jacob Astor to know that he has wedded into a Royal family, and if old Vanderbilt could rise from his tomb and compare his jank sbop and waterman's boat with the jpresent Mrs Vs pretensions I daresay he wonld sleep a good deal more soundly, **• Civis.