CURRENT TOPICS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 4581, 1 March 1893, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

The Contemporary fits Goldsmith's line "remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow," to " The Tear Alexander III.," of whom E. B. Lanin has written plain truths such as are Beldom spoken of a reigning monarch. His reading of the Autocrat of all the Euaeias is that he is a dull and phlegmatic, if a " well-meaning man, whose ethical level is a little higher than that of the bulk of his countrymen, who ib in possession of a false conscience, and under the influence of religious mania," believing himself to be the Vice-Regent of God. He repudiates the British notion that the Tear is kept in partial ignorance of what is being done in hie name; but explains his cruelties and fanaticism on the ground of moral delusion. The pet (P) nameß of the people for their " Little Father" are " bullock," " butcher."

In a letter which Mr John Ward, as President of theNavviea* and Bricklayers' Labourers* Onion, addressed to Mr Gladstone and the Home Secretary respecting accidents occurring on public works and buildings, he pointed out. as an instance, that during the construction of the Manchester Ship Canal 12,000 men were engaged> in addition to the employment of about 500 excavators and steam navvies, .and that during the first fire years occupied 'in carrying out the work, from the returns of the above Union, no fewer than between 1000 and 1100 fatal accidents occurred, 1700 men were permanently injured, while 2500 were partially disabled'; so that in five years on one undertaking no fewer than 5000 men out of 12,000 men met with accidents, and it was necessary to have three hospitals for their accommodation. . -

There are at the present time (writes the Argus' Ballarat correspondent) 105 in-patients in the Ballarat Hospital, of whom no fewer than thirty-seven are of the age of sixty years and upward. These thirty-seven patients have a combined age of 2543 years, or an average of nearly sixty-nine years each. One of the inmates states that he was earning 2a per day at the time of the battle of Waterloo, and her arrived in Sydney in. 1836, when Sir Bichard Bourke was Governor. Another was a. passenger to Tasmania in the illfated Enohantresa, and he arrived in the Bister Colony in August, 1833. A third was a passenger by the Royal George on its first voyage, and he has never slept a night out of the Colony since January, 1838. The last was married in Melbourne in May, 1842, his wife having arrived in the Colony in the David Clark, which was the first vessel that Bailed from Scotland to Victoria, and which arrived in the bay in November, 1839.

There is a very singular custom in Manoheßfcer Cathedral, namely, the lighting of twelve candles on ' Christmas Eve and extinguishing l one every night till the Epiphany. The improvements jurtt effected in the cathedral almost realise the dream of Canon Parkinson, who in 1851, to commemorate the Queen's visit to the oity, gave JBIOOO to "rebuild on its original lineß the collegiate church in harmony with the intention and designs of its founder, Lord Da la Wane, and its first warden, John Huntington." The fine masonry of the nave had been terribly defaced with plaster in the Waterloo year, which was called *'f a restoration." It really (says a London paper) was a vile' defabement. Mainly owing to the exertions of the late Dean Oakley and the liberal support; of Manchester merchants, the cathedral now presents aff ecclesiastical interior of great beauty. The roofs, arches and clerestory work have been thoroughly repaired; and the Derby and Ely chapels have been restored; while there is how a wealth of memorial windows. .

The Saturday Review says i—i The Volunteer force etandß alone in the world. There is, as everyone knows, nothing like it in any country other than those where British subjects Make their home under the British flag. It is not understandable of the foreigner, who, when Beeing- the work done at Easter manoeuvres, or even when looking on at an inspection, ia apt to say^ "What fools t" He cannot for the life of him- comprehend the nature of men who devote time, money and brains to military service without any recompense in the way of pay, and very little in any other shape. Volunteers are kittle cattle to deal with, and we are not overstating the case when we say that but few regulars, especially those in high places, to this day understand them, notwithstanding their three and thirty years existence. The 1 every day circumstances of the Volunteer are bo totally dissimilar from those of the Eegular, the training of the one so different • from the other, and the reasons which prompt a man to be the one or the other so unlike.- The Volunteer is generally the victim of one or other of two great mistakes. He is either looked on in the light of a soldier— a Regular soldier— or as a civilian ; both equally erroneous ideaß. It is just that blending of the two elements, without becoming the one by relinquishing the other, that makes a Volunteer. You cannot draw a hard and fast line where the civilian leaves off, and the soldier begins. The man who tries to do so must fail most signally, but there is such a line, subtle and wavy though it must be, whioh can be recognised by those who take the pains to do so, and are endowed with all the/inanifold attributes embodied in that one Bmall word " tact." There is no keener soldier than a keen Volunteer, and the more soldier he is, the more he recognises the civilian side of himself. This savours of a paradox, but we believe it to be true.