Topics of the Week

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XV, Issue XIX, 9 November 1895, Page 577

Topics of the Week

THE season of Agricultural Shows is in full swing, and from all parts of the colony come reports of highly interesting exhibits and an increase in the popularity of shows from the public point of view. It is astonishing how keenly townsfolk enjoy anything that for a time brings them into touch with their country cousins, and it is wonderful, too, what an amount of learned talk concerning agricultural topics one hears just at present from even the ‘ towniest ’ of the ‘ towny,’ Everyone seems to think it necessary to have, or rather to appear to have, a deep and extensive knowledge of the points of Herefords, Durhams, Polled Angus, Jerseys, etc., and will discuss the relative merits of these beasts as if they really understood them. It is much the same harmless passion which, it was remarked by the Home papers, possesses mankind in the shooting season. Men who never have gone shooting and never will go shooting discuss the merits of guns they have never seen and powders they have never smelt.

WE have all of us a special weakness where horses are concerned, and of the thousands who have attended the shows held during the last few days, it is safe to say that there was not one male who did not squint sideways at the horses with the air of a connoisseur and disparage some point and eulogise another as if he had never done anything all his life but judge show horses. As a whole, agricultural shows are an agreeable way of spending an afternoon if the skies are bright and it is dry, or moderately so, underfoot. Sheep-shearing competitions, milking machines, and the jumping always afford amusement if one can see them in comfort, but on a wet, sloppy day they are pleasures which cloy very quickly.

IT is, of course, a good thing that these shows should be largely attended, and that we who live and work in the cities should get a glimpse of work and interests outside our own. The most hopful sign on the social horizon is, indeed, the ever increasing interest displayed by various classes and sections of the communitv in each other’s work mode of life. An increased sympathy for one’s fellows, a greater appreciation of the results of labour which differs from our own, is a notable and very hopeful characteristic of latter day civilisation.

COLONIAL smugglers, it would appear, have a particular predilection for getting jewellery through duty free. It is only a month or so ago since some big houses in Melbourne were caught out smuggling jewellery, and now it is alleged that big Customs frauds in the jewellery line have been discovered in Sydney. The profits are, no doubt, excellent, and the risk must be considerably less than where spiritsand tobaccoareconcerned. Curiously enough a similar case to that now under judicial inquiry in Sydney has been attracting a lot of attention at Home. For a long time the Customs authorities of Belgium have known that large quantities of jewellery were systematically passed over the French border free of duty, but they were at a loss to discover how the smuggling was done. In the luggage van of the express which runs between Paris and Brussels is a case which holds the accumulators when the train is electrically lighted. A key of the case is held by the conductor of the express, a foreman porter and an excise official of the border station,but none of these ever appear to use it. The other day as the train ran into the border town,a Customs inspector took it into his head, more from officiousness than than suspicion, to open the chest. To his amazement the case was filled to the lid with watches, chains, rings, bracelets and all kinds of dutiable jewellery to the value of over

5OO. There wasan exciting scene. Thetrain was delayed and a council of customs officers was held in spite of the protests of the passengers at the delay. It was decided, pending further inquiries, to detain the conductor and foreman porter at Quevy, and it was ultimately found that the latter had for a long period been carrying on a contraband traffic for a well-known Paris jeweller, who, it is said, has had to disgorge heavily both in jewellery and hard cash in consequence of the disclosure of his frauds. VERILY the old order changeth. Even Bellamy’s is not what it used to be. Years ago it was considered more in the light of a select Club, where all the constant members were friends by reason of their birth and education. In those days so many members regularly dined there that there had to be two distinct tables, the legislators and the members of the Lower House being divided as sheep from the goats, and at each table reigned a spirit of friendly intercourse and banter which has almost disappeared. The present member does not as a rule, dine at Bellamy’s at all. If he does he goes there only to dine and not to talk and linger with his neighbour and there is only a small coterie of friends who keep up the genial spirit of old. Now one table is sufficient for all the guests, indeed is not fully occupied itself, and the man of the university has no fellowship with the selfeducated man, and he of the people has naught in common with any of the ‘ blooming aristocracy,’ to quote an expression often heard apropos of some of our gentlemen representatives.

AMONGour rulers the-Hon. W. P. Reeves takes first place as poet. His latest production, inspired during the bank crisis, is, I hear, well worthy of publication, but unfortunately it is so jealously withheld from the public that few have even heard it, and those few are apparently bound over to hold their peace. Mr Montgomery may be called our artist. He has painted a really good picture of the Hon. the Speaker, Sir Maurice O’Rorke, and his impromptu caricatures and sketches evidence great talent, and cause much entertainment among the members. Mr Hone Heke is the sweet singer of Parliament, and well deserves the title.

RAROTONGA is certainly going ahead since we pro vided it with a President. Under the wise and beneficent sway of Mr Moss, the native element is becoming rapidly quite a leader of fashion in Polynesia. For some time past the island has been in the throes of a buggy fever, and no self-respecting native felt his happiness complete unless he was the possessor of a buggy. The smarter the vehicle the greater the glory of the owner, but to be a ‘ toff,’ so to say (the word is popular in Rarotonga), it is necessary to have more than one buggy. Quite a number of the jeunesse dorie have a couple, and the big wigs are not content with less than three or four, while one big chief is, so they say, possessed of no less than six buggies of assorted shapes and sizes. There is now an indication that the buggy craze is on the wane, and that the new fashion will be for ’cycles. Presumably in Rarotonga there will not be much argument as to the most fitting style of dress. A return to the old fashion of a smile and a necklace will possibly be found at once the coolest and most convenient costume for the Cook Island ’Cvclist Club.

TTTHENEVER the parsons of the English Church VV foregather for their annual korero, there is always a terrific pow-wow concerning religious instruction in cur schools and the absence of the Bible from schoolbooks. The arguments pro and con are so familiar, so exactly what has been said over and over again with weary persistence ever since the day when the vexed problem was first propounded, that it seemed hopeless to expect anything of interest in the speeches this year. But the Rev. Mr Beatty, who is always to be relied on, for broad thinking and straight speaking, certainly exploded a bomb when he said that he accounted for the absence of the Bible from the schools with the fact that those who were supposed to understand and appreciate the Book did not do so. His suggestion that his fellow divines might profitably devote themselves to the study of the Old Testament and its bearing on human life was not without a touch of cynical humour. The newspaper reports are discreetly silent as to the manner in which the novel suggestion was received, but one can imagine

the bridling indignation with which not a few of those present would regard the insinuations of their outspoken brother.

One thing is certain, if the Bible is read in our schools, those in charge must be prepared to answer some extremely awkward questions. The Old Testament narrative is one which can scarcely fail to interest an- intelligent child and one of imaginative temperament. It proves as the writer well remembers, even more exciting and enjoyable than history. But it bristles with suggestions and difficulties which will prompt an enquiring youth to simply bombard the teacher with questions. The common practice has been to snub the questioner severely with a remark that we are not supposed to ask questions on such matters, that the Bible must be swallowed whole, and that to ask the why and wherefore is a sin of an extremely luminous character. To do this is either to drive the young idea into an apathetic acceptance of anything and everything accompanied by a complete loss of interest, or else to frank disregard and disbelief. The questions must be answered, and unless it is believed that those in charge can be trusted to answer in such nffihner that the inquirer will be satisfied, why, then, it is far better to do without the Bible as a school book. And as Mr Beatty justly observed, it is very difficult to say if the moral deterioration of the present and rising generation is due to the absence of religious instruction in school. Is it not rather from lack of home-training, and is not Bible-teaching one of the essential factors in home-training? It is my own opinion that the very excellence of our education system has caused a temporary reaction—l believe, that is to say, that parents have been so far relieved of their responsibilities that they have forgotten they have any left, and have looked to school for the entire training, mental, moral and physical, of their offspring.

OUTSIDERS will probably hear with some surprise • that the Anglican church in this colony is lamenting the fact that there are not enough clergy to carryon the work of the church. One has always had the idea that the church,like every other profession, was fearfully overcrowded. Parsons always seem as plentiful as blackberries in every neighbourhood, and one has frequently wondered how many of them earned a living wage.. But apparently not only is the supply of clergy in this colony unequal to the demand of the church, but more surprising still, the same state of affairs prevails at Home. The bitter cry of the church has provoked considerable correspondence in the Guardian, which is, of course, the organ of the church. * But,’ says the Spectator, commenting on the matter, 1 the “ Bitter Cry ” has indeed quite lost the meaning it originallyhad. Then it stood for the cry of the church for more clergy ; now it stands for the cry of the curates for more benefices and more rapid promotion. The latter cry has quite swallowed up the former. The church is an abstraction, and her desire for more clergy is an abstract desire. The cry of the curates for promotion and benefices is in the highest degree concrete and human.

• Into the latter phases of the correspondence, there has entered a new factor. It is not so much vicars that the curates cannot put up with as vicars’ wives. “ Interference on the part of the ladies,” says “ An Assistant Priest,” “ is at the root of many of the troubles that arise between the incumbent and his curate.” We have no doubt that this is entirely true. Not, indeed, that the fault is all on the side of “ the ladies.” The relation between a rector’s wife and his curate is necessarily a difficult one. The curate is not, like a groom or a gardener, the servant alike of the master and of the mistress. He occupies the position of a subordinate towards the one, and of an equal towards the other. Not seldom, indeed, we notice that the curate, as represented in these letters, denies that he is a subordinate, even as regards his rector. This denial is at the bottom of the demand for the representation of the non-beneficed clergy in Convocation. “I am as much a priest as you,” says the curate to his rector ; “ why should not my- vote count for as much as yours in the election of a proctor?” The answer, we suppose, is that though the curate be as much a priest as his rector, he is not a priest who can count upon having his own way, or ordering things after his own mind.

* LET us imagine a division in Convocation upon some point of ritual in which the representatives of the curates constituted the majority, and the representatives of the beneficed clergy the minority. Not a single particular in a single service in a single church would be altered as a result of the vote. The beneficed clergyhave power and responsibility, the curates have neither. An incumbent in want of a curate looks out for a man of his own way of thinking, or at any rate a way of thinking

which will not clash with his own, and having found him, he lays down the lines on which he wishes the work of the parish tobedone. If he isawisenian, he leaveshim a good deal to himself, lets him try his own experiments, and profit by his own mistakes. But this rope is given him with a definite object. It is designed to make him realise that there is more to be said for his rector’s way of doing things than he at first supposed, and when the rector gets tired of teaching him, or despairs of teaching him anything more, the connection probably comes to an end. While it lasts, therefore, the curate is the mouthpiece, the representative, the deputy, of the incumbent, or so far as he is not so, it is because on certain matters the incumbent is not at the trouble to notice what his curate does or teaches. It is plainly of great importance to the good working of so delicate a relationship that it should not be interfered with from the outside, and no one is so likely to interfere with it from the outside as the rector’s wife. She may interfere from the highest motives and with the best of intentions. She may be simply anxious to see her husband’s wishes carried out, and her husband’s ideals put into action. But if she attempts to bring about these ends by any effort of her own, all that she does will not merely end in failure, it will end in absolute mischief. When women are wise, they will remember this; so long as they are what they are, they will constantly be tempted to forget it. Mrs Proudie is a type of which there are many varieties, and not all of them in high places. ’