Under Current

Waikato Times, Volume 106, Issue 17839, 11 October 1929, Page 6

Under Current

IN THE DRIFT OF LIFE

(By " Seeker.”)

THE BISHOP'S LATEST. The Bishop has been telling us that direct gifts to the church are best and that sales of work and such devices for raising money are wrong in principle. If one replied that the abolition of all such schemes for wooing the coy shillings would leave many a parson to starve or take his place among the unemployed, the Bishop, we may be -sure, would not wince at the lest. There is one prominent church in Hamilton that does without sales of work, but the members who take responsibility for keeping the finances , sound have a heavy task to collect what is needful. After all, is it necessary t.o have principles about everything—even sales of work —when there are so many positive evils to be fought? To attack the sales and to make a mere casual reference to the gambling game called raffles, so popular at church functions, seems to show a lack of sense of proportion. And what an opportunity the Bishop / misses of telling the world of . the splendid act of faith of the Hamilton Anglicans, who have abolished the wretched, unchristian collection plate. When will the churches all get rid of that abomination?

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AN INJURED INNOCENT. Dear “Seeker.” —Your story of the 1 Eton boy who was wrongly accused of stealing four shillings (which he had wanted to give to a mate without appearing as a charity-monger) reminds me of a Hamilton boy who came under the gravest suspicion of lying. He was outside a shop in whose window were displayed quantities of a threepenny allurement that young hopeful had greatly coveted. Dad came along and was half disarmed by the innocent way *n which Alfie displayed one of these toys. A boy at school had given It to him. As it was quite new, Dad was surprised. What was the boy’s name. Alfie didn’t remember —he thought It was Ivy something. Ivy didn’t sound very masculine, and the whole thing seemed fishy. Suspicion suggested that the rascal had made a forbidden raid on his own money-box. The Ivy mentioned had certainly had nothing to do with the gift. Still the parents did not like to lay an accusation of lying until they had proof. They waited in patience and were glad they had done so. The story, utterly improbable as it seemed, was true." —11. Bloggs.

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THE KNOW-ALL

A know-all attitude of suspicion !S just as dangerous as credulity. An American tourist who visited England recently refused to believe that the old quarter of Chester town was really old. It had just been faked (according to his confidently-pronounced conviction) in order to deceive ignorant Americans and help to relieve them of their spare cash. The most positive assurances failed to shake his disbelief. He knew there was nothing of the sixteenth century about those buildings. How did he know? Why, they were made of bricks, and there were no bricks in the sixteenth century. • * • • BRICKS. Most of us have a vast amount of ignorance about such things as bricks, and a sufficiently assertive know-all would probably have convinced us that bricks were really a comparatively modern invention. A “Seeker" is, of course, far better informed—having access to the encyclopedia, which tells him, “The art of making bricks was practised by all the civilised nations of antiquity. The earliest burnt bricks known are those found on the sites of the ancient cities of Babylonia. The Babylonians and Assyrians attained to a high degree of efficiency in brickmaking.’’ They even glazed and enamelled some for ornamentation. The bricks that the children of Israel made during their slavery in Egypt were probably only sun-dried, not burnt, but the Romans made the proper sort and introduced them into Britain. In Suffolk there is still standing a building, the Little Wenham Hall, built about the year 1216. Thus, having had time to steal a look at the encyclopedia, one is able triumphantly to confound the Yankee know-all and to prove the thesis that one should always suspect suspicion. * * w * RATES AND POETRY. If local bodies issue their rate demands 'in poetry, as was suggested lately, why should not the ratepayer reply also in poetry (asks a correspondent). A hard-up farmer, he says, would probably answer in this strain: In answer to your rate demands, I cannot pay. All I earn slips through my hand# From day to day. With interest to my mortgagees, And heavy bills and lawyer’s fees, And drought and floods and cows gom dry, Butter-faj/t low and all else sky-high. I’ve wife and seven bairns to feed, Of clothes and boots they’re much in need; Ifiie car stands idle in its shed With worn-out tyres, so I walk instead, My land Is crying for manure; Without it my returns are poor. But what can this poor beggar do, The man you threaten now to sue? w # * * PARENTS AND MODERN GIRLS.

All over the world the ways of modern-girls are a puzzle to fond par-

ents. Here is a note from Japan. The editor of the Japan Chronicle, commenting on the diatribes against the girls of Tokyo, says: “Exactly what they do that is so dreadful does not appear: apparently they stroll about and cal unlimited ice-creams and go to innumerable picture palaces. If tncy get into mischief besides, it i 6 only what the outwardly more demure have done before them. But we are told that family life is breaking up and Ihnt girls are unruly and defy their parents. Home life must be excessively dull in Japan, and it is not surprising that girls who learn that life may he a little more lively proceed to make it so. The trouble comes not so much through the girls having been educated as through the parents not having been.” That is all very comforting, perhaps, if one’s own daughters are not of the age of indiscretion. Then it seems to look different, and good mothers are not content to bemoan their own lack of "education.”