PERSONAL NOTES PASSING ECHOES CONTRIBUTORS

New Zealand Graphic, Volume VI, Issue 28, 12 July 1890, Page 9

PERSONAL NOTES PASSING ECHOES CONTRIBUTORS

BY

GRAPHIC

The increased facilities of communication with Europe and the rapidly growing comforts and rapidity of travel may give us some advantages, but they have the effect of augmenting the number of absentees and of speculative vagabonds. There are some men against whom the Noxious Animals Act should be put in force, and a rigid system of quarantine instituted. These persons regard New Zealand not as a home, but as a sort of happy hunting-ground, ami so surely as a rumour of their return arises so surely is it time to be on the qui rtre and set about locking up the national spoons.

If the early closing movement proceeds we shall, like the Jews, have to begin the reckoning of our Sabbath from sundown of the preceding evening. At the rate the shops are shutting up the only thing that will distinguish Saturday evening from the one which follows it will be the fact that you go straight into the front of a • pub ’ for a drink instead of asking a policeman the way to the side-door, as is the case on Sundays. It is, however, undeniable that a dull and deserted main thoroughfare on Saturday evening would, in the matter of recreation, be a great loss to the community, particularly to the fair sex, many of whom can only revel in the luxury of shop gazing on that night.

The Pall Mall Gazette has of late been discussing the question of the politeness respectively of men and women in public conveyances. Some of the evidence makes it look very black for the ladies, though other such, procured by a woman, present the male sex as monsters of impertinence and disobliginess. The trouble with man is that he is too kindornot kind at all. If the lady is charming and slender he is all obsequiousness and importunity, if she is fat or frouzy he is stolid and unconscious. There is, however, something to t>e urged in excuse for the men in a small omnibus when a lady equalling four sacks of flour presents herself at the door, and it is a question of three getting out to oblige or else being annihilated. The law regarding complement of public conveyances apjiears to be a dead letter everywhere, as the tramways with their row of women on each side and a string of men standing down the middle on wet days and holidav seasons often show.

It is a moot point as to whether the lunatic’s life is a happy one. < >ne would suppose that, except in case of dangerous mania and melancholia, the lunatic has the advantage of his brethren at large, for be enjoys complete leisure in which to gratify his peculiar hobby. The fanatical hobbyist or ‘ crank ’ is often only a lunatic who is obliged to devote his spare time or lucid intervals to the necessity of gaining a livelihood, which satisfied, he is off - again to his ideejbcee. It is probable that all lunatics when they are actively employed with their mania are happy enough, but even they, poor people, suffer from vacant moments, and become alive to a craving for unusual excitement. The authorities connected with the Auckland Lunatic Asylum have been reduced to a condition of blank dumbfounderment by a request of their proteges to be supplied with cards. Presumably on the theory that ‘ man is a betting animal ’ they regard this as something so rationally human as to indicate a strongly latent sanity. The act of one lunatic staking his visionary millions against another lunatic's ‘ castle in Spain' seems to us no more melancholy and not half so insane a< the sight of nominally rational persons dissipating their all at the gambling-table or the race-course. As for cards, it should not be forgotten that they are said to have been invented for the amusement of an imbecile king of France, so that we are only now at last getting back to the true and original purpose of their being. A few experience- of the very mild excitement of playing cards for love or counters makes one wonder why that aet is not cause sufficient for the issuing of a writ de lunatico inquirendo, and sending the perpetrators up to the enjoyment of the ]>astime with the inmates of the Auckland Asvlum.

Poor little Portugal ! How she squealed and danced a fandango of impotent rage when the British Lion placidly laid his paw upon her emblem in Africa. It is an ancient and amiable weakness of his, an 1 he never appears to greater advantage than when he is jumping his neighbour s claim, does that dear old lion. And poor little Portugal ! What was the use of her trying to bounce the British l>ea~t without even a balance of twopence halfpenny in her purse. For thirty years she has had an annual deficit. Let us recommend to her some of our colonial treasurers. They have a knack of executing financial summersaults and preserving a balance which surprises even themselves, and is most gratifying to Zealandia, who is never above being complimented upon her looks, however l>ad she may feel.

The attempt to naturalise base ball in English communities does not proceed apace—the Briton persisting in his devotion to the time-honoured pastime of cricket. But judging by the salaries paid the cricket professionals in England and by those paid to liase-ball professionals in the United States, it would appear that the former does not carry the same value in the market as does his American brother. During the last year the National Base ball League employed sixtyfour professionals, not one of whom was paid less than £240 for the season, which is more than the average English professional cricketer can ever hope to receive. The salaries of the sixty-four American professionals ranged between £4OO and £6OO, a few attained to £BOO. two enjoyed the moderate

‘screws’ of £l,OOO and £1,400 respectively, while another is said to have refused £1,600 for a season of five months. Even the fancy prices paid to W. G. Grace and W. W. Read pale before such retainers as these, and justifies one in speculating on the arrival of a time when the land of ‘ tall things ’ will evolve its base-ball millionaire.

Oh, no ! New Zealand is not at all depressed. We have the authority of numerous globe-trotters on that point. Each as he rustles gaily through the land with influential introductions, dining at the best houses, and frequenting the most fashionable streets, looks in vain for those signs of depression under which we are groaning Such guests wish to be polite, and are content to accept the evidence of their eyes. They are too busily distracted to notice that people die in our young towns of starvation. They are feasted too well to trouble their heads with diy statistics concerning loss of population and depreciation of property. Many of their hosts are embarrassed. some are on the verge of bankruptcy, but this does not alter the taste of the victuals, the scent of the floweis, or detract from theglory of the New Zealand sunshine. When the Shah came to Lond< n in the best season of the year and made his progress through the West End he asked * where are your poor ♦’ They were not very far off—a city of half a million—but he was not introduced to them. It is all very well to tell us that we are looking wonderfully well, but we know better. It is the flush of dyspepsia and not of health. It is all very well to say we are looking prosperous when opposite is the bank manager who knows of our overdraft.

In the lamentable condition to which the survivors of the Light Brigade are reduced we see the enormous chasm which separates the real from the ideal. It looks as if not only [■eople's courage but their charity required to l>e screwed up to the sticking point by some electrical thrill of excitement. Sentiment and enthusiasm move the world, not reason or principle. As a dramatist of la-t century remarked hundreds of persons will lie violently agitated by a simulated death upon the stage who would be comparatively unmoved by the sight of a drowning man. Londoners will go to see a play like ‘ Jo, - weeping profusely over it, and then walk home utterly regardless of the starving street-aralrs they pass as they return. Such is the inconsistency of human nature, that persons who have been driven to the theatre in a hansom cab and jiassed a fire upon the way will shout themselves hoarse at the sight of a hansom or a fire upon the stage. Even now it is necessary to get up an excitement over the decayed actors in that lurid act at Balaclava, to warm up society by a sort of intellectual shanqiooing to the point when the electrical thrill is communicated, and the pulse strings insensibly ojien. It seems a- if there were as much ‘ Dutch ’ charity a- ‘ Dutch ' courage in human society, ami that we must lie worked up into aeondition of hot-blooded-ness before we can sacrifice either our money or ourselves.

By all accounts the delivery of the Financial Statement must have been an ordeal with which eveiybody could have well dispensed. Some members went to sleep ; others went away averring that it was very dry, and sought the usual remedies ; while none seemed, when all was over, to have a very clear idea what it was all about.

Is it not rather absurd that the Statement should be read aloud at all ? New Zealand has at least made this improvement in the practice of the old count ry, that the Treasurer is freed from the burden of making his budget speech without further aids than his notes and his memory. Why should not the House go a step farther and take the Statement as read ’ Most, if not all of the members, are able to read it for themselves when it is delivered to them in print, and if any should find difficulty in understanding it they can always fall back on such of their fellows as pass for pundits in financial lore. Anyhow, the mere voice of the Treasurer could hardly elucidate obscure sentences.

The last month or two have been remarkable in the world of journalism for the starting of two new newspaper ventures. < >ne, it need hardly be said, is the New Zealand Graphic, ami the other is the London Daily Graphic. They are both equally important in their respective spheres, and both are started with equal spirit and enterprise, and in an equally efficient manner. Probably few of your readers have seen the London Daily Graphic, which who know something of press work and the difficulties attending it a marvellous piece of work. It consists of sixteen pages profusely illustrated with sketches of daily passing events and of the people who are engaged therein, not, of course, finished in the style of its weekly number, but well drawn, and full of interest, while the reading matter is that of ran ordinary London Daily—notes of the day, foreign and home telegrams, law reports, sporting matters, stock and share lists, the theatres, Parliament, leading articles ct hoc genus omne. Both papers have caught the public taste, and we look for a prosperous career for our contemporary as well as ourselves.

A supplement to the London Weekly Graphic of 17th May gives a long account of the foundation of the Imperial Institute, and illustrates the building itself, which is now rapidly approaching completion. There are also portraits of the men closely connected with the scheme, amongst which is an excellent likeness of our late visitor, Sir Somers Vine, who while professing only to be endeavouring to obtain promises of support, always hail a hand behind his back ready for more material help. He did not get much in this colony, but he returned to England, after visiting nearly every Britisli settlement in the world, by no means empty-handed. He has left an impression behind, and Mr Vincent Pyke returns to Parliament this year got up to represent the Assistant-Secretary of the Institute. Though Mr Pyke is (may we say) much the older ot the two, he preserves his youthful appearance so well that he shows all the colouring of the younger man—the ruddy face, the light hair. The two men are much the same shape, and they both wear glasses. They are both press men, and in character not unlike, clever, energetic and very amusing, capital tellers of good stories, and both fond of good living.

There are very often extraordinary telegrams in the’Wellington papers, ami possibly in other papers too. Here is one which appeared in both the evening papers (Wellington) on the 26th :— London, 25th June. Mrs Overend, who lately arrived from New Zealand, to her great indignation found she was being shadowed by detectives while paying a visit to Enniskillen. It does not seem at first sight to be a matter worth a ‘ special ’ cablegram. Probably it is a mutilation or some very simple matter cabled out in brief and filled up at haphazard by a careless sub editor. We remember some years ago reading in a Wellington paper the following telegram from London :— * Captain Macheath, a celebrated Highland chief, is visiting Chiselhurst.’ This item of news staggered us. There are no celebrated Highland chiefs nowadays, and if there were, and one of these barelegged sons of the North came down to bask in the pleasant glades of Chiselhurst, it would not be a matter of any moment. What could it mean ’ (Puzzling our brain, we met the then representative of the great Reuter in New Zealand. He winked his eye and smiled. ‘ This did not come through us,’ he said, ‘ but through another agency.’ Very good, but that did not explain its meaning. * I only know,’ he continued, * that the two thousand guineas was run yesterday, ami amongst the entries were three horses called respectively Captain Macheath, Highland Chief and Chiselhurst.’ That at once ex. plained the mystery. The three names only had been cabled out, and the intelligent agent of * that other agency,’ who ought to have had the list of entries and the date, which of course came out months l>efore, ready under his nose, evolved the remarkable statement out of his remarkable head. Only the other day a London telegram apfreared in the morning pa|>er here stating that a colonial quarterly magazine was Ireing started,

and amongst it supporters were Sir Mountstuart Grant Duffy and Mr. J. Anthony. Somebody had blundered, for surely the names Sir M. Grant Duff and J. Anthony Froude are well known, especially the latter.