CORRESPONDENCE.

Taranaki Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 11664, 25 January 1901, Page 1

CORRESPONDENCE.

t»Ve tre not responsible for the opinions ex* pressed by correspondent*, roe writer's name as a guarantee of good faitb, must be enclosed in the letter].

QUESTIONABLE TASTE. TO THS HDITOK. •

Sib,— Allow me to quote a few lines from your leader in Wednesday's Herald: — " The nation mourns to-daj the loss of the best, the wisest, and tha most beloved sovereign that has ever ruled. It is indeed hard to Realise thai the figure which most of usi throughout our whole lives have Jookedpip to with feelings of love and reverence as th* Queen Mother is no more. We are sura that the hearts of the people 0 even in this) far-off colony goes out to those dear one* who have lost a beloved mother. V I should have thought these lines expressed tbe genuine feeling of all but the most obtuse and unthinking members of the community. It was therefore no small surprise to me to learn that on the day following the receipt of the news of the Queen's death a country school not a, hundred miles from New Plymouth held its annual picnic, with games and races for the children, wound up by the inevitable dance at night. Probably the event had been previously arranged; but surely ;iny local inconvenience incurred through deferring it should not have been suffered to outweigh considerations of fitness and propriety, to say nothing of sentiment. For over,' sixty years our Qur^rf . bir'uofrv has uflorded an annual holiday. »\c of this generation have shared in the rejoiciugs at the Queens jubilees, when obtained for school children an extension of their* usual holiday term. This last yeor .schools and places of business have been closed time and again, and nil classes of the comuiunity have given themselves up to nm-ih-nmking to celebrate some triumph won by British arms in South Africa. l£ tho action of ti ¥ c residents of the locality I refer to is to be taken as an index of the general foe! ing it spurns that occasions of national rejoicing are to be celebrated by cessation from work and by festivities; while a natioual calamity is not to interfere with pleasure inakipg. I hope, however, that this feeling is not universal, and that the action of this school will remain exceptional. We hear much said nowadays of the want of reverence shown by the young. But, children take their tone from their surroundings, and are pretty much what their elders make them. The committee!, teacher, Or whoever are responsible, who have thns deemed the close of an illustrious life and a reign unparalelled in history unworthy to be marked by the postpone* inent of school festivities, have lost c unique opportunity of arousing feeling! of reverence in the achooLcbildren, end' have done their best to inculcate the j principle that personal convenience and pleasure are to override considerations of duty, deeeney, and good feeling. — I am* &c, ■ Protest.

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