PASSING NOTES.

Thames Star, Volume XX, Issue 6138, 1 December 1888, Page 2

PASSING NOTES.

[By Ki.MiLiB.J

What is ealied in London the " Silly Season," ».«., during the recess, has been occupied by a fierce discussion iv the columns of the Daily Telegraph on the vexed question, " Is marriage a failure t" and it is hardly credible that no fewer than 27,000 letters were received by that paper on the subject, only a small number of which of course oould be printed. The woe gqestioQ hie been takes up oq,t Ijere,

lus letter 9 hate appeared in the Auckland Herald on the subject, it being always the case that whenever any new or startling proposition is put forward it invart- , ably gives rise to an ocean of newspaper correspondence. The Telegraph soms up tbe whole controversy as follows:— " The consensus of tbe letters is overwhelmingly strong against early marriages. Our law i ought, we think, to forbid marriages to youog men under twenty one and to young women under nineteen Among the work* in a classes especially this would produce, we believe, an excellent effect. Then, | also, it is clear to our mind that the law of divorce mast be enlarged to permit dissolution of mirriage for desertion, for lnnaoy, for conirmed inebriety, for conviction of disgraceful crimes, as likewise for established incompatability of temper and temperament, such as a just and prudent jqdite would admit to be inadequate. That tbe marriage serf ice as it stands calls also for alteration has been abundantly demon* strated by these letters; and the sooner His Grace the Primate finishes with the Atbanasian Creed and turns his attention to the passages in that service which shook young minds and disconcert older ones —the better." x x x ■■■■'•■ With reference to the foregoing question, on which so many individuals have been recklessly squandering their surplus intellect I have come across a solid faot, which may be of some interest in connection with tbe knotty point in 'dispute. It is stated—and there seems to.be no doubt about it—that in civilised countries the mean marriage age is steadily rising; and as all the world is in the course of being civilised, this may be taken, by anticipation, as of universal application. The mean marriage age at present is 28 for men, and 26 fur women. Now, we have only to take the rate at which it has risen for the last ten years or so, in order to arrive at a date when the mean marriage age for men will be 70, and that for women, say 63, and then—why there will be not much difficulty then, in solving thejjroblem which is now vexing the minds m so many. XX X Newspaper reporters have almost uni» versally come to be regarded as a class, sui generis, who, from their " infamous calling, become so hardened and reprobate aa to be beyond the pale of all hope. So much so is this that, aa a rule, they accept the inevitable with as good a grace as they can gather. A ray of hope, however, has just dawned upon these unfortu* nate beings through a sermon lately preached by the celebrated Dr. Talmage, on " The Pulpit and the Press," in which he holds out the following glowing anticipations for a glorious future for the now much-abased reporters :—" Providence intends the profession of reporters to have a mighty share in tbe world's re* demption, as suggested by the faot that Paul and Christ took a reporter along with them, and ho reported their ad* dresses and their acts. Luke was a reporter, and be wrote not only the Book ot Luke, but the Acts of the Apostles, and without that reporter^ work we would have known nothing of the Pentecost, and nothing of Stephen's martyrdom, and nothing of Tabitha's resurrection, and nothing of the gaoling and ungaoling of Paul and Silas, and nothing of the shipwreck at Melita. Strike out the reporter's work from the Bible, and you kill a larye part of the New Testament. It makes me think that in the future kingdom of God the reporters are to bear a mighty part." X XX There is no doubt about it that the Press is the great educator of the age, and that through its means a vast amount of information can be obtained on certain abstruse subjects which it would be difficult to obtain elsewhere. Take for instance natural history, a study which does not receive great attention in our public schools, aad regarding which we are sometimes left to grope for knowledge, which fortunately we get occasionally through the mediums of the newspapers. I am led into this train of thought by the following paragraph, which appeared in yesterday's Adrertisw, and which will throw quite a new light on the subject of our native birds:—

" The Gbzette notifies that from the Ist December, the bird known as the kiwi or koukou by the natives, and as the night jay or inorepork by the colonists, come under operation of the Animal Protection Act."