CURRENT TOPICS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6727, 23 February 1900, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

_ -♦ At Namesto, in Hungary, the "blood- some months ago, an agitaacchsatiox." tion was started against the J Jews by a newspaper which published accounts of an alleged murder of a boy of twelve, who was fraid to have been . sacrificed, in accordance with Jewish custom at Passover. The Roman Catholic* Bishop of the diocese has just put an end to ! the agitation by censuring his priests for the part thej*- played in it. Some of our readers ' may have come across this curious story of j the sacrifice of a Christian boy; it is con- I stantly recurring in literature, and belief in it is firmly fixed in the minds of most European peasants. The '' Spectator," mentioning the Hungarian incident, expressed a wish . that Mr Zangwill, the authority on j Jewish customs and traditions, would civ© some reason 'for it. In reply, the scribe of j the Ghetto writes a letter of striking in- ' terest. The recurrence of the story, he says, | is a matter of psychology, not to be ex- \ plained by ordinary laws. Charges of. the j kind have been made in all ages against , all peoples. -' St William was the first boymartyr," says Mr' Zangwill, "for the: story actually arose in England, though from this recently-published Latin text it appears that i the one fact round which the circumstantial tale was woven was that the body of a boy was found in Thorpe Wood on March 24, 1144. The 'blessed martyr' smelt sweetly, like 'a great mass of herbs and flowers'; the Jews were in ill„odour. If . anyone desires further explanation, let it be added that his shrine worked miracles, and the monks took the profit." Other boymartyrs followed in rapid succession — St Harold of Gloucester, St Robert of Edmondsbury, and the anonymous boy of Winchester.' The idea that the "people that crucified Christ " should carry out a crucifixion every Easter was likely to appeal strongly to the imagination of the Dark Ages, and it had only to be started to spread from one end of Europe to the other. Ifc appeared in Chaucer's " Prioress's Tale," and it gave plausibility to " The Merchant of Venice." The myth persists, continues Mr Zangwill, because ifc has never been allowed to die out. It is resurrected by priests and politicians when occasion requires, quite in the same way as some people have held that Jewish capitalists are responsible for the Boer war, a statement which tho "Spectator" itself characterises as a " monstrous assertion." Both Houses of the Newa foundland Parliament, we newfound- learn this morning, have i.a_td agreed to the renewal of the poxtroverst. modus vivendi regarding the French fisheries question. The trouble between the colonists and the French fishermen was patched up ten years ago by a temporary arrangement which has been renewed year by year. It lapsed at the end of December. But the renewal of the agreement by Newfoundland does not by any means dispose of the matter, for the French bounty laws cease to operate at the end of the present year, so that the whole question will have to. be reviewed by the French Chamber also.. For nearly two hundred years the French have enjoyed under the Treaty of Utrecht certain fishing rights, confirmed and extended by the treaties of Paris and Versailles. Supplementing the latter treaty the Government of George 111. declared in "1783 that "His Britannic Majesty will take the most positive measures for preventing his subjects from interfering in any way by their competition with the fishery of the French during the temporary exercise of it which is granted to them upon the coasts of Newfoundland, and he will for this' purpose cause the fixed settlements which shall be formed there to be removed," and "will give orders that the French fishermen be not incommoded in cutting the wood necessary for the repairs of their scaffolds huts and fishing' vessels." The question at issue between the colonists and the fishermen, aggravated and embittered as it ! is by other grounds of quarrel, is in effect the interpretation to bd put upon , these treaties and declarations. Cod-fishing, the greafc maritime industry- at the time of the' treaties, 'has been displaced by the catching and canning of lobsters. The colonists appealed to a'scientific definition of " lobster," excluding it from the category offish. 'It was retorted not unnaturally that precise classifications in natural science were not fashionable a : century ago. The French claim the exclusive right of catching and canning lobster, and of erecting the neces-

sary buildings. Lobster-catching by the Colonists, they argue, may " interfere " with their cod-fisheries, and the canning factories erected by the colonists come under the head of the " fixed settlements " prohibited by the declaration of 1783. The colonists maintain that cod, and not lobsters, were the fish referred to in the treaties, and that the canning factories erected by the French are not the ".stages made of boards" contemplated. Under the modus vivendi of the past ten years, fifteen French and forty -five colonial proprietors have a monopoly of the trade. The trouble is complicated by the questions of '* bounty " and " bait," into which we need not enter now. A final settlement would certainly be in the interests of both parties. A correspondent of the the Chinese " Sydney Morning Herald," j crisis. writing from Hongkong at the end of last month, sends some i further particulars of the Dowager Empress and her latest coup d'etat. It seems that the amiable lady has been laying her plans for sometime, and that the developments of ■which we heard, the other day were the results *bj .much careful preparation. Early in January an edict was issued, apparently under the' liand of the Emperor, stating that his Majesty was too unwell to attend the religious ceremonies connected with the Chinese New Year, and a little later another document of the same character appeared, in which he thanked the Dowager Empress for her. great care of him, and resigned the throne in favour of a nine-year-old son of j Prince Tlian, named Pu Cheu. It is said I that Jung Lv, the gentleman who played such a prominent part in the last coup, has been dismissed in disgrace, and that a number of other officials who appeared to stand i in the way of the Dowager's designs have ! conveniently disappeared. Li Hung Chang, who has lately been appointed Viceroy of the I Two Kwangs, is supposed to have been sent ' south for the express purpose of assisting I the Empress in that part of the Empire, | and Chang Chih Tung and Lv Chuan Lin, [ who stand well with Russia, are. expected I to conciliate the northern and western provinces. In the meantime, rumours of the wildest description are in circulation. The Emperor has died a natural death, has been ,' stabbed, strangled, poisoned, has committed suicide, has escaped from the country, has got out of the way, in fact, by any means that appeals to the fancy of the person spreading the report. Whether the Empress is strong enough to accomplish her purpose remains to be seen ; but. it is certain that she and her emissaries are cordially detested by the great mass of the people. When Li Hung Chang landed at Hongkong to lunch with the British Governor he had to be surrounded by a strong guard of police, to protect him from the violence of his own countrymen. If the Empress herself ever ventured abroad it would probably require a tolerably large army to slave her fiom the vengeance of the' long-suffering populace.