Is it Ignorance or Sentiment TO THE EDITOR.

Otago Witness, Issue 2437, 28 November 1900, Page 44

Is it Ignorance or Sentiment TO THE EDITOR.

Sir, — It is true that compassion ought, like all other feelings, to be under the government of reason, and has, for want of such government, produced some ridiculous and some deplorable ' effects. Macaiilay's "Progress and Civilisation" : "Nowhere could be found that sensitive and- restless compassion which, in our time, pries into the stores and water casks of every emigrant ship; which winces at every lash laid on the back of every drunken scoundrel ; which will not sviffer the thief in the hulks to be ill-fed or over-worked, and which has repeatedly endeavoured to save the life even of the murderer." It is a mgst s iafttauctiye^ illu|tratioa of the

[ perversion of human sentiment to read the daily and weekly papers of our own time, as pioying the truth of Macauloy's remarks. "We notice, week after week, letters on many and 1 various subjects, but through the whole runs a vein of perverted sentiment that is truly amusing. Uoes this prove wisdom, or tell us of ignorance on the part of the writers ? Som® of the kindest-hearted, and maybe some of the noblest-minded, of our countrymen and women 1 are ever running after the changeful odour— the scent, the phantom, while the flower, the form, the substance is scornfully cast aside. I have noticed that men and women who rush, off, say, to Africa, to China, or to the crowded centres of India to civilise the heathen, will pass their sufiering sisters and brothers by in the streets. They will give with a free handi towards helping the natives of the Pacific Islands; mission funds, or funds for buying Bibles for foreign readers, meet with hearty, support; while around their own doors are tobe counted hundreds who have no Bibles, /who. never enter church, and know not what " the Saviour said— children hungry, half-naked, ancl . home-reeking with the fumes of drink; they will freely give of the little they have to help - to buy luxuries for New Zealand soldiers fighting in South Africa, knowing well that the brave men rarely ever receive their tokens of goodwill, and also ltnowing that the richest Government of the world 'is straining every nerve to feed and clothe her troops, and doesi so-in a manner never before-known in the,history of warfare.. These same good will . cry. and howl at the corruption of their o-^n G-overninent, the wickedness of* their own people, and the immorality -of their own children ; they will attend chuxch regularly, . tsach in Sunday schools, and even, act as la-y-preachers; yet -they think.it no sin to do all. "they can to get their "member" to corner G-o-yemment to have public money expended unjustly near where they live, and when a Mrs; Deans or a Butler commits some feaiful crime, these same good people are to be niet with, going around with a petition to get a reprieve. They compel the Government -to raise the age of consent, and yet they themselves limit the ratural increase, and besides and above everything else, they rear their children on cows' milk, bring them up in the gutter 3 and on the streets of our large towns, and when a, poor I school teacher corrects these same- children for | some flagrant breach of our moral law, the parents cry out and demand an. inquiry into the brutal treatment of their poor dear one 3. These people really cannot help themselves. They are born that way. You have them in. Dunedm — you even have them, some, in your own office. They are to be met with all over _ the colony. From their ranks we get all our pro-Boers, our pro-Americana, pTO-peace preachers the world over — all good men and women, but cranks of a- too sentimental twist, for this steady old world to be always at peace with them. They commit more sin by proxy, more crime by connivance, than they can ever hope to undo by self-immolation. They imagine they have made Heaven, and are now busy forming hades for themselves. The world is very beautiful, but they can't or won't see it; men and women are very lovable,* but they deny it; children are very sweet, entertaining, and just what' we 'like to make them — vile or virtuous, wicked or good — bxit they are blind and won't see. Such good folk have been to school and believe they are educated; but they deny ihe facts of'history, the teaching of science, the experience of their own lives, and choose the pnantoms of their own imagination. They are ambitious, and seek notoriety ; they want to do and say something so that the world may-hear them ; and they rusk off to China, to Africa, to India, while laboiirers are much in need in I their own vineyard. Ihey are even to' be found in opposition to and detractors of -every noble> and generous action ; they- seldom live at peace with their, neighbours. It is said thas CassiveI launus, when beaten at Verulam, 'found detractors and calumniators among his own friends, and that Caradawg was betrayed by his mother-in-law ! Is there any woder, then, that we find enemies within our own gates, traitors in our own castle? Is it skange, then, that we have Edric and John, at our own hearths, ever ready to carry their tales to the King? Canute, though a murderer, gave freely to the cnurch ; .Robert Bruce, though a homicide, yet won his way through oceans of blood to the throne of Scotland, while the Covintess of Buchan, for placing the crown on Biuce's head at Scone, was shut up in a cage. Pope Innocent 111, by appointing Stephen Langton as Archbishop of Canterbury, and by interdicting John, brought about the meeting of the Barons at Brackley and the signing of the Great Charter of Liberty on the meadows of Runnymede. Still, he gave back the crown to one of the greatest scamps of history. . Why hold the mirror up to crime? War and rapine, and every crime known or imagined by man, has been rung out on the dissonant harp of Time.' Whether it is a Constantine murdering his son\ putting to death his own sister, or giving Christianity to the Roman, world, as a State religion ; or a Clive fighting aeainst fearftd odds, on the arid plains of India; or a Wolfe, struggling up the rugged heights of, Quebec; or a Btiiler' hurling hisbrave fellows against storms of Winding lead,or up mountains belching forth" volcanoes of deadly fire; whether struggling for the liberty ?.nd freedom of a race, the justice of man, 'the J honour of women, we must content ourselves to tolerate Gur Steads, our Covirtneys, our Labbys, and our very^ own. : "Love* of- - Justice," '' Lover, of Peace," and our numerous other good-hearted countrymen. . It-seems nothing to these same good-hearted folk that our -liberty has .been purchased by. the blood of our sires ;* 'that this free land was won at the point of theAayonet, that all Natureis at waiv Even the flies in the sugar howl, the fowls of the air*no less than the beasts in. the field are constantly at war; the world ia red, tooth and nail, with the blood of its vie- ! Tims, and while there is a power "that guides our ends, rough hew them as we may/ it is just possible that it may be so for ages ha come. j "When the day conies, predicted of old, "when. I men shall study war no more," I am of opinion, that the present race of man will have passed away. In the meantime, the men and women, who "growl and find fault do a certain amount ' of go-od, so that we must look over many of their faults in ■fihe hope that by-and-bye they may come to themselves. No doubt they irritate one by constantly dabbing their 'proboscis into one's, eye.; but, .there, they are only proBoers, and know no better. — I am, etc., j CALLIOPE;

Most of the lawyers in Poverty Bay are strongly of opinion that the Native Land Administration Act is unworkable and will make confusion worse confounded. It is stated that a petition has been largely signed by Natives requesting the Government to delay the gazetting of districts under the act. Owing to the scarcity of female servants in this district, a Masterton resident was recently obliged to engage a help and agreed to pay her unusually high wages. The servant arrived on the appointed- day, but performed! the duties required by her in a rather perfunctory manner, giving little or no satisfaction. However, washing day came round, when to her disgust, the mistress discovered - that her newly-acquired -domestic was unable, or unwilling, to act in that capacity. On seeing how matters stood, the mistress commenced the washing- herself, much to the servant's satisfaction. It was not long before the latter made her appearance at the washhouse door, and commenced instructing he* mistress how to do the washing 1