PATER'S CHATS WITH THE BOYS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2905, 17 November 1909, Page 83

PATER'S CHATS WITH THE BOYS.

-r' ' ' " HOW MANNERS AND CUSTOMS ..'_ '. 't)JEt ANISE. ■ Don't be alarmed) but I am going to , touch upon_th.e 'iquor question. When I {Scotsman, /founded Otago 60 yeais ago .how many* cv • thonght that within the lifetime of some of th*m — for we have •immigrants |by the first ships amon t g etiM— it would be Avithiai tiie bo-onds of "possibility t'bat .the importation, manulacture, and «aie of intoxicating drinks i would, be by law. i'efc such ' ■is th. case, aethia week -Wilness shows. In a large' pdrtic<n ol Otago race, meetings, ! are held and'- no liquor sold ; ' New,' Year «ports gathering's are held — by Scotsmen, too — and iiq, , whisky. §o'd; agiicultural ■ shows are JieM^and no ntoxicants are on sale. Yet '-tua only a few yeaiv ago when two or thr«9 •publicans would/ give" £5Q or "nlcre for tlte r^gKt of sslling on two divs. ■ Times At& cTlainf'ihg, you see.". For the -better?' That' l'll allow to say for yoursglf. .',. "1 Have any of you read " A Short History a* Social, Life in England,",? In it we are told that Dr Johnson, whotee centenary .we..vhave been celebi-ating,'syste-matically drank >three bottles df , poH at a sitting in ' Ms- young days, „ when -all . deoent folk' got, iirutrk every night jvithout social "criticism. .Read Rosebery's. '-'Life of Pitt," ajid you sea that heavy drinking " was the custom-, and' carried no 'disgrace with it — iwdfckj, a guest not getting drunk was tli-cus^it" |o^ be alighting his host'shosp'talit}'," 1 , But reformation has come in many ways other than in drinking. Walpole, who, for his time, was moderate ai most things, refers to coarsa eating habits of his time. " I see here <every day," said he, "men who are mountain.* of roast beef, and only sesm just roughly hewn nut : nto the outlines of human form," and he wistfully yearned for th-e simplicity of ancient life, " wh-en we were the frugal, temperate, virtuous, c-!<' English." I dor't think I y-eam for the gocd o'J English days, but at the same tinw I do not wa.it to see bad customs perpetuated. THE BIRCH AND THE SCHOOLMASTER. i Tluxre who read mv Chat last week know what Frank Buckland had to face. The birch was the meet prominent tlvng in the education of boys. " It serveth for many good uses," said a Dr Turner, "and for none befrtc han for betyin,^ of stubborrie boys that ether lye or wyll not learn. 1 ' "And an author wites ; "It wa 1 * the general opinion of the age that the b££t schoolmaster was th* greatest bsa *«.!•, and many a story i£ toJd of Nicholas Udal, the famous Eton master." One of his boy pupils nai '-ecorded his miseries in vsrse : ' ' From Paul's I went to Eton, cent To learn str*iglitways the Latin phrase ; Where fifty-three stripes given to n:a At once I had For fault but 'small or none a' all, I came to pass thus beat I was. See. Udal, see, the mercy of the© To me, poor lad. And girls had • bad time of it too. Even such a women of rank .»s Lady Jarw Grey. She wiote: ''When I am in pie-k-eii'.-e either of father or mother, whether | I speak, keej silence, pit, t-tand, or .150, .' eat, drink, be mciTy or s?d, be sew ; ng, I playing, dancing, 01 doin^ anything elb-e, •• 1 must do t a^s f t »vere ;n; n &uch weight, measure, and number, evca so perfectly as God nade the worL, t^r el«e I am so sharply threatened — yea, sometimes with pinches, nips, md bo-bs and other ways (which I w-'l'l not name tor the honour X l>3ar them) that [ tliink rayeelf in hell, till time come hat L must go to Mr •Elmer, who teachetlL me so gently, go pleasantly, with such fair allurements to learning that I think all the time nothing whiles I am with h ; m. And when I am - called from him I fall weeping, because whatsoever I do. else but 'earning is full of grief, trouble, and' fear." « PITILESS LAWS. The same hardness showed 'tself »n the lsrws. A century ago the feeling of the time was so inclined to severity that Edmund Burke said he could obtain the

assent pf the, House of Commons to any bJll ; .njposing,'rthe 'punisliniejat ,of ..death,. No fewer than 223 offences '-were punishable by death," and 156 of these --were not legacies from the dark 'ages, but were enacted in the ,r«igns of th« ,(^eo'rges. A judge said that ther^- was no bope ,of reforming a criminal, and tnat both for his own sake asnid for the sake of society he were better nanged. If r man appeared difjguised 1 on a public ~oad,' out down young' trees, shot "abbits^ stole property worth ss, or anything at -ill from a bleaching field he was hanged. Charles Wesley saye that he preached a sermon to some 20 condemned ordminials.. every one of whom he thought died penitent, and, that 20 more were tc die the next week. In 1816 th,er« w-ere' 58 uhd-er sentence of death at . the one time, and one was a child under 10 years of age.

These, like other brutalities, are now things of tb& past, but we "have a a ong way to 50 yet before Christ's creed is fully enacted.

But though these cruelties are matters of bygone history with us they still exist within a day or two's journey of London. Look at- the Sphere of September 25, and you will see a picture of the Moroccan Pretender beir|7 brought to Fez in a padlocked cage on whe-eLs, carried 'on a ca-me!. In this, exposed to t-he ' wind's of heaven arjd tIK curiosity of the populabe, he was exposed for four days, them tortured, then dissmbo welled alive, then dismembered, an.-i his limbs thrown on-e by one to the animals in the Sultan's menagerie. And ivb-at i>37ST>re»ksb]e horrors have been, and are still being, perpetrated in the Congo bafiin ! Is it not a shameful thing that Christian nations of Europe allow such cruelties to' be practised?