Topics OF THE Week

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XIII, Issue XXV, 22 December 1894, Page 578

Topics OF THE Week

CHRISTMAS is coming. Asa matter of fact it has been doing so for a considerable time past, bnt what I mean to say is that it is coming so close that it has to be very seriously considered. Christmas is a time of much enjoyment and little bills. An almost primary object with nearly everybody is to increase enjoyment and to render little bills less. A few hints and suggestions towards the attainment of that object may not be unseasonable at this season of general festivity and disbursement. Economy, in the primitive sense of the word, is the regulation of a honsehold. It should not be confounded with parsimony, as it commonly is. Its object is judicious expenditure rather than saving. Personal economy is the art of spending money to the greatest advantage ; that is, so as to purchase as mnch happiness as can be had for the amount. We are informed by divers heroes and heroines, in sundry melodramas, that money is not happiness. True; and money is not mutton ; but no money no mutton, without sponging or swindling. Money will simply buy all the happiness that the world has to sell, and in so far as happiness is the same thing as enjoyment, the quantity of that is pretty considerable. It is perfectly consistent with the most rigid economy to distribute nearly the whole of one’s income among decrepit and unable-bodied paupers, if one takes pleasure in relieving them, whether from the hope of being rewarded for so doing some other day, or from the exercise of constitutional benevolence. But the great majority of economists prefer the distribution of their money among their own ordinary and inferior wants, even at Christmas.

Economy, under certain circumstances, is a pleasing employment. When one has to consider how much, out of ample means, one had better allot to house-rent, how much to hospitality, how much to carriages, how much to travelling, how much tu the stud and the stable, how mnch to the cellar, and so on, the labour of economising is one that we delight in—which physics pain. But when the question necessary to be decided is, which of these or any other good things we can least inconveniently do without, economy becomes a bore, endured only for the sake of averting judgment and execution —a greater bore. The alleviation of the economical bore is onr present objection ; we have nothing to say about the nobler and pleasant species of economy, because we have no experience of it, having been conversant only with the baser and disagreeable.

By far the least painful economy that a man can practise is economy in dress. Stint yourself in those wants of which you can most easily divest yonrself. You cannot divest yourself of the love of beef or the love of drinkables. Self-denial in these particulars is attended with an aching void. In respect of dress you cannot repudiate, nor stifle, nor subdue your want of warmth and comfort; but yon can at least subdue and stifle, if not absolutely banish, all care whatever and concern for appearances, whereby you will effect a great saving. You can, by a resolute effort of the mind, refuse to think about the look of your clothes, or you can bring yourself to a disregard for it by exerting your reason. Reflection will ebow you that the only importance of other people’s opinion of you lies in the confirmation which it gives to your own opinion of yourself. If you feel quite satisfied that your own taste is good, that if you were sufficiently well off you would keep a tailor instead of going to a slop-shop, what signifies it to yon that your acquaintances suppose that you are insensible of the difference between a good coat and a bad one ?

Of course if your livelihood depends upon your costume, that is another matter. Your respectable exterior is a part of your investment. Many rational personal-medical prac-

titioners, for instance—are nnfortunately precluded from economisimg in apparel by the prejudice of society, which will not believe that pills and draughts can be deliciously prescribed or administered by the wearer of a shootingjacket and a pair of strong boots.

Whenever, then, you are called upon to retrench to any amount, you will, if a sensible man, consider in what particular you may screw that amount ont of your dress. The necessity for deterioration of meals may be obviated by wearing cloth gloves instead of kid, if you wear gloves at all. A silk hat may be exchanged for an oil-skin, rather than Havannah cigars for Cubas ; or a deficiency which might be supplied by a reduction of wine or grog, might be met, instead, by ceasing to dress with conventional respectability, adopting the fustian jacket and corduroys already alluded to, and substituting the strong walking lace-up for patent leather boots; though these last are economical if your poverty is not abject, and you have to dine out often, for you can walk in goloshes with them without tarnishing them, which is not the case with blacked boots, and yon save the blacking into the bargain.

ONE of our proudest New Zealand boasts, one of onr colonial characteristics, is that a man who fails for many thousands and pays an eighth of a penny or so in the pound is a great financier, and that the man who purloins a loaf for his starving wife is a low thief, but we do not often hear in this colony of rich people who steal trifles through a species of madness, yet if my informant is to be trusted, a case has occurred in one of our largest towns, and the principal actor—actress, one should say—is well known in society. She is extremely handsome and dresses superbly, but is never seen in public alone. Some member of her family always accompanies her and never leaves her side for an instant, although a married woman over thirty does not usually require such minute chaperonage. She is a very charming woman and a very brilliant conversationalist, and is most deservedly popular. The horror of her friends may be guessed when she was arrested the other day for stealing a sausage from the front of a grocery shop. The grocer promptly had her arrested, and on searching her they found some potatoes, some eggs, an opera glass, a photograph, a coffee cup and saucer and a spoon, and also, unhappily, her cardcase, giving her full name and address, the only thing that was legally her property, as the other articles were claimed by their rightful owners, from whom she had annexed them. The family was sent for, and by paying for the stolen articles were able to release their poor relative, who sat weeping bitterly. It seems that this irresistible impulse to appropriate other people’s goods is periodic. She is perfectly sane in other respects, but one never knows when this mania will seize her, and that is the reason of her being constantly watched. This is the first time she has been taken into custody, and the family feel the disgrace so keenly that society bids fait to be deprived of the poor culprit’s presence, as they mean to take her to the Old Country until the whole affair has blown over.

ALMOST too good to be true is the story being told of a well-known card player in Auckland, and of how his daughter and her lover managed to get the parental consent to the engagement. George—so we will call him —had after long procrastination finally screwed his courage to the striking point and asked the girl to be his wife. She had said yes, and had promised to break their engagement to her father. George did not care to do it himself. He said that if he broke it to the old man the old man would break him. George was poor and the old man did not like poor men, even in the abstract; what would he say to snch a concrete thing as a poor son-in-law ? George preferred to hear what he would say by proxy. Hence the scene. The girl had promised to post her dad, and being a girl of her word she determined to do it, though the heavens should fall (cielum ruat). * Father,’ she said, * I have something to tell you—something I fear that you will not like. George Deftfingers and I are engaged to be married.’ Involuntarily she closed her eyes, expecting exery moment that her stern parent wonld empty the vials of his wrath upon her head. The next moment she asked herself if she were dreaming. Her father’s voice came to her cast in its usual pitch, and brought to her half-dazed brain these words: *Heis a good catch, and I approve of your choice; he wiped the floor up with me playing poker the other night, and the chap who can do that is bound to rise. Accept my congratulations.' George had for the only time ‘packed* the cards.

MY goodness, how terribly we colonials get behind the times every now and then 1 For months past most of ns have been sitting at our dinner-tables under the most outrageous circumstances. We have had an epergne, or a plant on the table, all unconscions that by so doing we were outraging the proprieties in the most terrible manner. To have an epergne on the table shows the worst possible taste, so we are gravely informed. *ltis an unpardonable social sin,’ so says the authority from whom I quote. Just fancy bow we have sinned. Isn’t it awfnl! Listen to this:—* The guests may be congenial and not too many ; the temperature of the room may be as faultless as that of the wine; the palate may be tickled without a clogging of the brain ; the service may be like unto that of the Slaves of the Magic Ring ; the conversation may steer steadily between flippancy and solemn dogmaticalness ; and yet the pleasure of a Sybarite will be spoiled by the presence of an epergne, branched, with each branch bearing a vase of flowers. The epergne may be the famous silver cocoanut tree presented to Mrs Clive Newcome at the second of the banquets of the Bundlecnnd Banking Company ; the same tree that Mrs Mackenzie, the terrible mother-in law, would fain have saved from the wreck. It may be a simple box of ferns. In either case there will be sensitive diners-out, to whom it is as an upas tree, smothering kindly and gregarious feeling, poisoning enjoyment.’ There is certainly no doubt about it. Nothing—no epergne in the world could stand such blows as are here dealt.

AN incident occurred in conrt a few days ago which has passed with too little comment. During the hearing of the trial of a case in which the most prominent figure was a Mrs—shall we say * Sallade ’—a leader in the crusade against * the haunts of vice. ’ The lawyer for the defence was naturally anxious to make his opponents’client, Mrs Sallade, cut as sorry a figure as possible in the box, and as soon as he got the opportunity badgered and taunted the good lady in the infinity of ways at the command of his kind. He asked the witness if the name by which she is known is her right name. * Don’t insult me,’ Mrs Sallade returned sobbingly. * I couldn’t insult you,’ the lawyer sneered. When Mrs Sallade in consternation asked him what he had said, he re. peated with even more obvious intention : * I couldn’t insnlt you, Mrs Sallade.’ The case went on. Subsequently Mrs Sallade, almost hysterical from the taunts and insinuations of F , suddenly snapped out : * Did you ever steal anything, sir ?’ Instantly the court room became utterly silent. F , staggered by the query, turned deathly pale and gasped for breath. He mopped his brow nervously. Finallyrecovering his speech he turned to the presiding judge and besought him to require Mrs Sallade to give facts, details to justify her slur. *My honour has been assailed,’ pleaded F— ! * the good name that I have worked since boyhood to win for my. self’—we quote from memory—from the newspaper reports of the affair —* is pnt under a cloud ’ —etc., etc. The charge, it transpired, was based on nothing more serions than the lawyer's donbtless unintentional purloining of Mrs Sallade’s umbrella. Of course, everyone laughed and the sensation ended pleasantly enough.

But what a suggestive trifle it is—how significant of the outrageous advantage that lawyers assume unto themselves. F— had not the slightest compunction in uttering the most damning insinuations against the character of this witness. With no thought for anything beyond disgracing her in open court and discrediting her testimony, he employed every license that an utterly absurd system of procedure allows to his profession. Think of such an unwarranted, needless, dragged-in insult as his impertinent remark : * I couldn’t insult you, Mrs Sallade 1’ It is the very acme of vituperation and contumely. And yet a mere question from this half-hysterical witness, a question not one whit moie insulting in its implication, to speak mildly, than his wholly irrevelant observation that provoked the retort, almost knocked the lawyer off his feet; stunned him into silence; caused him to mop his brow in the mechanical manner of one undone ; and finally, to entreat the protecting interference of the Court. He, a man strong in worldly experience, could not bear a tithe of the insult that he persistently, relentlessly hurled upon a woman. Was there ever a more graphic and convincing illustration of the cowardice, cruelty, and unconscionable license that characterise one feature of our law courts ? What is the system of reasoning that makes this sort of thing seem right? What is there in the constitution of society, of communal life, that gives to one set of men, engaged in a mere money-making calling, the privilege to commit outrages of the sort that result in such a scene as we have noted ? Does law and order really compel that they should enjoy license to revile and insult and yet feel secure from retaliation ?

With the merits of this particular instance we have no concern. We know nothing of lawyer or witness in this affair and we care nothing for the outcome of the case in reference. But we cannot avoid the conviction that the instance is a most impressive illustration of an impious abnse that requires the atttention of the people. There is nothing in law, justice, or common decency that gives a counsel the

right to otter such an irrelevant insult as that pnt npon the witness in the case.

FLIRTING may be naughty, but most of us have at one time or another found it very nice, and will certainly not be inclined to join the ranks of the faddists whose latest craze is a crusade against flirtation. A band of foolish women have, it appears, bound themselves to do all they can to put down what they call ‘ that shameless and detestable creature—the feminine flirt. They wax indignant over the wrongs of men deceived by the fickle sirens. What nonsense all this is. As a lady writing in defence of her kind has said :—"Ouryoung women are in far greater peril from the wiles of this gay, deceiving charmer than he could ever possibly be from the most subtle coquetry of the accomplished flirt of the female persuasion. In the first place, she has everything to fear, everything to lose; he nothing, comparatively speaking.

* For if woman is a “ born flirt,” as claimed, then flirting is her “ birthright ” since the day her first mother yielded to the seductive flatteries of the first deceiver, and which , she would do well to sell for a mess of pottage. But whether her flirtative propensities be the outcome of innate coquetry, the love of admiration, the fondness for show or desire for social conquests and eclat, the reckless diversion of a desperate loneliness or vicious inclinations, her position is always perilous, and she is never secure from the snares of the begniler of her vanities, be she ever so sure of herself. In the second place, woman is very much what man has made her. If she is vain, he has been her flatterer. If too fond of his admiration, attention, adulation, he has been the adulator. When she flirts, it is more often to follow his lead than the adventurons test of a * lone hand,’ and when she is betrayed man is her betrayer. It is no use to blame books or fashions for the prevailing tendency of our society women and men to flirt. Books represent life pretty mnch as it is, reflecting society with the flash-lights of revelations known already too well in the minds of those whom it depicts. Yet it is truly deplorable to embellish in romance the sinful horrors of murder, theft and other crimes, and it is a thousand pities that we modern writers should dwell so persistently npon those poisonous subjects and find so ready a sale for the same. But woman has been the same since the First Temptation and she will ever be subject to the second as long as beguiling serpents lurk along her pathway of life. What is the society man to- day but an accomplished flirt of the most sinister type—plausible, charming, beguiling 1 What are our married men but flirts, ever on the alert or a tilt with some other man’s wife or innocent spinster ?’

A GENTLEMAN in Christchurch writes me as follows concerning one of the * Topics ’ in a recent issue : * Your article in last week’s Graphic referring to a lady who has taken to the cultivation of her will power with such satisfactory results on her digestive organs was read with special interest by a lady in Christchurch who desires me to write to you on the subject. In her case this branch of metaphysics—tbe exercise of the will over the bodily functions—has been practised, with wonderful success, for some two vears, to the great astonishment of her numerous friends. From being a lady * with a back ’ who could not walk into town without fatigue, she could now, I believe, if it were necessary, ascend Aorangi. She takes long walks, is never tired, and as for her digestion—well 1 her belief is that nothing whatever ought to disagree with her if taken in the ordinary way to sustain life, and not as an experiment, which would be contrary to her principles. She is deeply interested in any case which resembles herown.as thescarcity of persons who seem able to practise this strange psychic power causes her to feel a certain singularity and isolation, so she welcomed the appearance of tbe article in question with much pleasure, and got me to write on her behalf and thank you for its insertion. Speaking for myself, and knowing what has been done in this and other cases, I think, though unable to practise it myself, that the subject of the influence of mind over matter should receive more serious scientific attention than it has had heretofore, and cease to be relegated to tbe region of fads and cranks. Surely if there is anything in it there is a great deal, and psychic force seems to loom large as the future great healer of disease among suffering humanity. I hope you will give further attention to the matter in your interesting columns from time to time.—Faithfully yours, E.R.W.’

THE woman of the future having been pretty well * talked out ’ in the magazines, writers are now starting on the family of the future, the sequence of ideas being plain. A certain Mary Gilliland, writing on the subject, says :— * We want to arrange the home life so that it shall not debar women from public life. And just at present her husband is about the only person who can co operate with a married woman toward this end. This will not be always so. Things will be easier both for men and women when family life is less isolated, when it is more simple, and arranged on a more co-operative basis.

* The family of the future will not, I trust, set itself down within four narrow walls and seek to be sufficient

unto itself within them. We shall try, I hope, what cooperative dwellings can do. In snch dwellings there might be suites of rooms, larger and smaller, to suit the needs of single men and women, or of married people and their children. These suites would provide their inmates with the privacy of the present home, but would avoid the exclusiveness of the present-day flat. There would be a common drawing room, a common dining-room, managed as such rooms are managed in a good hotel to-day. Tbe service of the whole would be managed from a common centre, cutting off at one blow the greatest domestic worry of a modern woman's life, and encouraging the organising of tbe work by skilled experts, which it needs. There might be a large, airy, sunny, common nursery, presided over by trained kindergarten nurses. The skilled education of the children might go on from the earliest years. Think of the superiority of such nurseries and such care over the nurseries and the care possible to the children of the vast majority even of the middle classes. Think of the fine common library there might be ; think ot the fine solid building of good design ; think of how a few commonly held works of art of the first order, might replace the trumpery decorations of the present day individualistically arrayed establishment; think of the good and wholesome and well cooked and varied food which might, at less cost, replace the burnt mutton chops and muddy coffee of the suburban villa.

‘When the boys and girls of a family grow up, each having been educated to the best possible advantage, and each having been fitted to earn his or her own livelihood, each might move ont to a private set of rooms in the same building (if their work admitted of their living there), thus securing that independence and privacy which young worn'in need as much as young men, and which both need to ask from their families as much as from the public. Think of the bigger, wholesomer family feeling that would grow up in such a community. How men and women would grow np knowing each other with an intimacy and freedom unknown to us. Think of the immense benefit to old people and to those who have tbe care of the aged.’

THE boa that swallowed his blanket— * speckled enthusiast !’—has been outdone by his present representative in the Zoological Gardens. This individual has swallowed his wife. There are, unfortunately, a good many people who cannot do this ; a very different class of husband has, indeed, been heard to say, in the exaggerated language of affection, that he could eat her; but it has never been done. At all events, as there was only one foot of difference between the lengths of the active and the passive parties, it is certainly a record which will never be beaten. After this unusual meal, though * rather lethargic’ and exhausted, he appears to have been none the worse, and his scales have the beautiful iridescent bloom peculiar to snakes in perfect health. What wonld one not give to know his emotions during that progress of deglutition ! Those of his (late) spouse one can guess. There may have been some incompatibility between them. When is it ever otherwise ? But on one side at least there was genuine assimilation. What one regrets, of course, besides tbe domestic catastrophe, is that our human bores have never been induced to swallow one another. I have known several, though with more than a foot of difference in their favour, who have not shown the slightest inclination to take advantage of it in this way. If two bores could thus be made one, how great would be the public benefit, though of coarse the survivor would be a bigger bore than ever 1

A DISCUSSION is going on in one of the papers beloved of young men, as to whether ugly women are less happy than their more fortunate sisters. One would like to hear the views of the ugly women themselves, who, no doubt, would be perfectly willing to forego the virtues that are unanimously ascribed to them for tbe rosy cheeks and golden hair of Nature’s favoured ones ; but, according to tbe young male prigs, who more or less ungrammatically express their sentiments, the plain good girls, with their sunny tempers, efforts to please, and homely qualities, are actually preferred to haughty, exacting, capricious beauties. This is rather an unromantic view for yonth to take, and one perhaps that some of us would prefer in tbe mouth of sober middle age, from which romance and susceptibility to beauty have very rightly fled. However, the trnth seems to be that if a woman of only moderate comeliness does not get the * fun ’ and flirtation and the sort of not very desirable homage that fall to the lot of the pretty creature, she is quite as likely to win and keep affection of a deeper and more enduring kind. One can imagine, too, that tbe plainest woman is pleasing in the eyes of her lover ; and which of us has not met women with a reputation for beauty for which we conld not account?’

IT is some relief to tbe gloom of tbe late Wairarapa disaster to feel that frowning is after all a pleasant death. This is not merqly a popular idea ; it is supported by tbe evidence of tboaer who to all intents and purposes have been drowned, and yet have returned to give us an ac-

count of their sensations. To be born may possibly be more painful than to die—to be restored to animation after drowning is certainly so. The case of the sailor who having been rescued from the waves declared he had been in Heaven and complained of his restoration to life as a great hardship is only one ot the innnmerable instances in point. Another is that of Admiral Beaufort, who when a boy fell overboard in Portsmouth Harbour, and before relief reached him had sunk below the surface. All hope bad fled, all exertion ceased, and he felt that he was drowning. Two minutes did not elapse before he was hauled up, and he found the return to life much less pleasant than drowning.

In a well-known passage of the * Confessions of an English Opium-Eater,’ De Quincey relates that he was once told by a near relative that having in her childhood fallen into a river and being on the very verge of death, she saw in a moment her whole life clothed in its forgotten incidents arrayed before her as in a mirror. An American gentleman gives a somewhat similar experience. He lay at the bottom of a river in a state of semi-consciousness, in which he saw his relatives and friends all about him with their eyes full of tears. All the events of his life passed slowly before his mental vision; he felt that he was drowning, and he remembers thinking that it was not pain to drown. He was able even to speculate whether his body would be found. He had sensations of ringing bells in his ears, and visual perceptions of the most marvellous combinations of colours. Next all was peace around him ; he had a peculiar feeling of well-being in a medium of a temperature, neither too hot nor too cold. Then he felt himself as if raised from the earth, and floating in space and looking down on the world spread ont at his feet. Lastly came mere darkness and oblivion till he found himself stretched on the river bank and being subjected to tbe disagreeable process of restoration to life.