The Autocratic Idler.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume IX, Issue 38, 17 September 1892, Page 932

The Autocratic Idler.

(WITH DEMOCRATIC NOTES.)

No. 111.—THIRTEEN BAD COPPERS.

IT could hardly have happened in Dunedin, although, to be sure, Sir Robert Stout resides there, and the statue oi Robert Burns looks over the city, and seems to be whispering * Holy Willie's Prayer ’ in a most irreverent manner, and otherwise poking fan at the Ruling Elders all day long. A halo of holiness, like a cold Aurora, scintillates over the Cathedral City; an 1 periodic gleams of the same icy glory flit about the horizon of Wellington. No such thing could have occurred in either of these capitals—anyhow, not so long as Bishop Julius is present in the one, to talk to the people in his usual plain fashion ; and the Primate of New Zealand in the other, to put his foot down, on occasion, and to startle the Christian world into its senses (1). As for Auckland—don t mention itShe is altogether too lovely to do anything wrong. And vet these thirteen bad coppers were heard jingling in a very sacred edifice in one of these islands ; population of the pdace not less than 25,000 souls.

I dare say you will think the whole matter could be related in words much fewer than I shall find it necessary to use : but I intend to tell the story in my own rigmarole way, for all that, after the manner of other legislators. The story that Hansard tells could, probably, be put into a pocket book. But Hansard, at the conclusion of the session, ain’t no pocket-book '. And if you know what it s all about—after carefully pandering over every page of it -you are a cleverer person than I am—which is altogether unlikely.

Besides, copper, as you know, is not readily compressible; and a spurious alloy doesn't mend it, in that p>articular. The story of a tbreep-ennybit could be told in a single line. It is simply dropt into the plate often by the daintiest of fingers, and there's an end of it—at least until it gets to the vestry, which is its intended destination. Copper, on the other hand,—like most vulgar things, and all vulgar persons—is noisier, and attracts more attention on that account- It is almost impossible to drop a p>enny into a plate with that quiet ease and dignity which distinguishes us when we put a half crown into it, as, of course, we sometimes do, when the sermon touches what remains of the big heart we once had. That, we are bound to say, isn't often.

Anyhow—and this is a thing not always remembered — parsons can no more live on Holy Writ than can a newlymarried couple live on love ; nor can a church be kept going without funds, no more than any other edifice needing constant maintenance and occasional repair. This was what was the matter then : the annual meeting did not disclose a satisfactory state of the finances : ‘ Only la®t Sunday ' (the report went on to say) ‘there was but £ in the offertory, and there were thirteen bad pennies in the plate.' Such a revelation was not calculated to make the assembled parishioners clap their hands, like the floods in the Psalms of David, nor yet to skip with joy, like the hills of the same sacred poet. The only thing to be done w as, to devise ways and means for meeting a deficit, so that, in 1893, returning prosperity, and pverhaps a surplus, could be announced. This was accomplished so far—and here I leave the churchwardens, and the vestrymen, and the parson whom I haven’t seen since> wishing them all success in their endeavours.

But a® I happen to know some of those persons who • passed ' this base coin into the poor box, and have even—strange to say—the kindliest feelings for at least one of them, I cannot so readily part from them. For it is a fact that all those worthless tokens were not contributed by worthless p>eople. Some of them found their way into the plate by mere accident. Some of them didn't. One or two of them were fumbled out of white waistcoat pockets. by men who are best left to their own devices (2). A poor widow woman slipped one of them in, and thought it no great harm; and a young fellow (who found the coin amongst his change) p-opq-ed it in, when the plate went round, and thought it a good joke. Lastly, or, I should say chiefly, a timid, and, withal, quite a brave and courageous girl oprened a slim and slender purse under her mantle and took out the one coin in it (knowing it. p>oor thing ! to be a bad p-enny ). She hid i» in the palm of her hand—and blushed, a~ she gave it in. And the Recording Angel, at that moment, dropped his p-en, rustled his wings, and so deadened the spurious sound of the base coin, for ever : For he knew all al-out her. It was this timid mite that was running in my mind from

the commencement. She was what we call a ‘ Lady’s help,’ and I knew her history. Nothing indeed very different from the history of ever so countless a number cf lady helps, governesses, slaveys, on this earth ! I knew her to be brought up ever so tenderly ! And, one awful morning the beautiful blue sky became black, black as midnight, and thereafter there was utter darkness and desolation in that household. The father had either died, and went to the good, or lived, and went to the bad—it matters not. And then you know—we all of us know—what happened (3). There was a sale, and a scattering of household gods; bitter griefs and agonizing p-artings—and the cruel wide world for the children ! It was in this way that she found herself at length in a strange city amongst strangers, and sitting in a strange church on that p-articular Sunday evening. in garb resp-ectable but worn—like the electro-plated cruet just before me (4). Perhap-s you don’t know very exactly what a lady help is ; and it certainly isn't my business to tell you, even if I knew precisely—which I don't— for it is quite p-ossible that it is no easier to define accurately a lady help than it is to define an engineer or a banker. You may mean half a-dozen different things when you speak of an engineer and—for all I know —the term lady help may be just as ample. But this poor little brave thing, was one sort of a lady help anyhow. She applied for the appointment, and got it in the nsual way, and ‘ gave every satisfaction ' —and that means much more than you think. A most respectable family and so on. There was work to do. of course ; but this creature didn’t complain of work—no brave man, woman, or even tiny mite, does. There was work to do—servant s work ; and after nightfall there was the piano and, if she wished she could play some of the ‘ Mikado ’ music, or ‘ Songs without Words, by Mendelssohn. Wages,—or, I should say, salary, seven shillings p>er week.

Now, you will understand that this little lady help never complained about these wages, and was, in fact, grateful for them (5), but at the same time it must be perfectly obvious that they were sufficient merely for boots. And an educated lady, or indeed any lady at all civilised, requites more than boots in this country ! Seven shillings a week explains a great many things—threadbare clothes ; anxious, weary face ; gloves, kid, not over clean and not without patched holes—and a bad psenny in the plate that Sunday. And when she went home, after the benediction, she put her little guilty head on her pillow, which soon was moistened with tears ; bitter tears, useless tears, big tears. Over all the world such tears are being always shed ; have been always ; will be a ways, for how long, God only knows. She had so moistened her pillow, every night for ever so long—and yet she was scarcely ont of her teens. HER. di The Primate occasionally startles the Christian world out of its senses as well ; at Anglican Synods, where he is firm, at a time when infirmity, or, at least elasticity, would meet the case better. (2) One of these sort of men died in Sydney a while ago, and after his death several things w ere learned, totally undreamed of before. One of them was, that he was all the time defrauding the widow and the orphan and the industrious pour, while a regular church attendant. (3) Before such a crash takes place there are generally premonitory symptoms, during which the auctioneer becomes unduly elated at the prospect of business, and one’s friends gather round—just to sympathize, and to see where the bargains may lie. >4) It passed for silver for a number of years. (51 1 here is such an unsusp-ected lot of shabby genteel, re-sp-ectable, educated, and even cultured, poverty, in the world, that very many of the p>ersons, I dare say, who employ lady helps, give them as much remuneration as they can well afford. And there is so much utter beartlessness in the world that it is quite p-ossible that a number of them don't. In either case and in both cases, something is amiss. And it is one of the most difficult of all things to adjust blame, or to distribute it. because in few cases are the whole facts before us.