Topics OF THE WEEK

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XVI, Issue XIII, 28 March 1896, Page 345

Topics OF THE WEEK

THE other evening when there was a sound of revelry at Government House, Auckland, and bright the gas jets shone o’er fair women and brave men, the same gas jets, or at least those of them in the main building, went out, and the place was in darkness till candles and lamps could be obtained. The mishap caused very slight inconvenience, and rather added to the amusement of the evening than otherwise, but I am told that some of the guests would just have been as well pleased if no substitute for the defective gas had been found. A dark corner for a quiet flirtation is never amiss, and how Cupid shoots his arrows when there is no light whatever to dazzle his eyes '. He loves the dark, lam sure, whatever poets may say to the contrary, and is no friend to our modern methods of illumination. Have I not seen, both in Auckland and Wellington, what havoc the electric search light plays with ripening courtships ? When Corydon is sporting with his Amaryllis in the shade on the wharf and on the esplanade some evil genius puts it into the mind of the gallant Jack tars to turn their wretched electric light on the scene and reveal the lovers toa curious and ridiculing world, and probably just at the moment when Corydon, under the shadow of the blessed night, has mustered up courage to ask the maiden the question of questions.

Apropos of the gas incident at Government House I remember a story which may be new to many. The occasion was a dinner party, and the guests were numerous. Some toasts had been drunk, and the company were lazily lingering over their wine. The remnants of the dessert lay on the table, and among them was a solitary fig. Many had eyed that fig and thought they would like it, but as it was the last no one cared to annex it. As time went on that fig began to exercise a fascination on half-a-dozen who felt they could reach it by merely stretching out their hands, and they sat looking at it and mentally anticipating its luscious flavour. Suddenly the lights went out, and then, despite the confusion which ensued, six hands reached stealthily forward and met over the coveted fruit. When the lights went up there was no fig, and each man, including the one who had it hidden in his watch pocket, looked most consciously unconscious.

EVEN in these matter-of-fact days adventures may be met with in countries that can boast as high a civilization as New Zealand, that is, if they can boast such an acute police force as that which guards the rights and liberties of the citizens of these islands. Messrs Mounsey and Austin, two Australian tourists who arrived in Auckland last week from the South Sea Islands, probably thought that after having seen the wonders of savagedom in the Pacific, the novelty and romance of their tour was at an end. Tiny New Zealand could add little to their experience of the world, they conjectured, and in a biassort of spirit they visited Rotorua. But they did not know, as they know now, that there is a police force in New Zealand. During their stay in the vicinity of the Wonderland Mr Austin became acquainted with two men decent sort of fellows they seemed —and in the good Australian fashion cemented the friendship with a drink. Nay, I understand he bathed in the same bath as these gentlemen. As this last statement would convey an impression to some people of a degree of intimacy that is rarely if ever attained to among Anglo-Saxon gentlemen, let me explain in parenthesis that the bath was not a private one in a hotel, but

a semi-public hot spring. To return to the story, later on after the bath and the drink, or the drink and the bath, Mr Austin’s two fellow travellers were arrested on a charge of robbing the Rotorua Post Office. This little incident did not, however, shake Mr Austin's faith in the colony, and he continued his journey to Rotorua, where he was joined by his friend, Mr Mounsey. After they had seen the wonders of Whakarewarewa they retraced their steps to Auckland, where greater and unexpected marvels awaited them. When they stepped on to the Auckland platform they were accosted by a faithful guardian of the peace, who requested the pleasure of their company as far as the station. Like well trained citizens, they went, wondering what they had done to merit such attention from such an escort, but it was not till they were safe inside the police office and their baggage had been searched that they learned that they were suspected of complicity in the Rotorua robbery. That night they spent beneath the hospitable roof of the Government, and next morning were marched handcuffed to the Court. Here the sapient police asked that they should be remanded to Rotorua, and although the poor tourists protested their innocence, got friends to prove their identity, referred the police to the Bank of New Zealand, on which they had letters of credit, their whole story was discredited, substantial bail refused, and they were driven to Mount Eden gaol. After a day ami a night spent in that salubrious locality they were brought before the court again, and finally discharger!, their being no evidence whatever to connect them with the crime. It is hardly to be wondered if Messrs Austin and Mounsey are not inclined to speak of the Queen of the Waitemata in those complimentary strains we are so pleased to listen to. They have been unfortunate in their experience of Auckland, but still they owe to her an adventure which will give them an added interest in the eyes of everyone they tell it to. In these days of commonplace it is something to have a story like theirs to relate ; and there is a lesson, too, for them to learn. Be careful of the company you keep. Don’t ‘ shout ’ for every Tom, Dick, and Harry when you are in a strange land, and above all, be wary what companions of the bath you choose. I own it is difficult in this century, when people judge by the outward trappings and clothing of a man, to tell an honest man from a knave when you meet him in a bath, so perhaps the best plan is to make your ablutions in private.

WE poor Australasians have grown so accustomed to banks and their winning, or rather losing ways, that no disclosures regarding them will appear sufficiently startling in our eyes to merit the epithet ‘ sensational.’ The newspapers use the word because it makes a good cross-heading, and s«b-editors are often pushed for cross headings, but they—the sub editors—have long since ceased to be shocked by anything a bank may do, and they have little hope that they will be able to shock the public, which is one of the chief aims in a sub-editor’s existence. If, however, the public have still left in them some capability for being shocked, I think the disclosures in regard to the City of Melbourne Bank should • fetch ’ them, as the saying is. Here we have in real life an institution which almost rivalled in the wildness of its transactions the financial institutions of the stage, where in the space of one act enormous sums are dissipated to the four winds and the hero and heroine reduced to beggary. How the mouths of some New Zealand speculators must water when they read of the way the City of Melbourne Bank distributed its golden favours among its friends. Its a good thing, they say, to have a friend at court, but give me the friend in a banking company. The one may introduce you to a sovereign ; the other can put a hundred thousand of them at your disposal. Haroun Al Rashid, when any storystruck his imperial fancy as particularly good, used to have it written up in letters of gold in some prominent place in the palace. I really think that the banking companies which emulate the Caliph in the splendour of their dealings, might follow his example and spare a little of the gold they have in some cases speut like water, to inscribe the tale of the City of Melbourne Bank on their walls in letters of bullion. It would be a golden legend in more senses than one.

LET us see how it reads. First comes the general

manager of the institution with a modest little advance of Z 75,000. Anothergentleman when we first hear ot him is the fortunate possessor of an overdraft of 130,000. He has evidently given up all thought of reducing it. He is on the other tack, and so in a brief three years he is down for Z‘2i6,000. Another individual ‘ sported ’ an overdraft of /. 215.000 in IS9I. and so industriously employed his time in simple addition, that he increased the sum to /. 291.000 in a very short time indeed. But these favourites of fortune were nowhere compared with the Monro Company, which got advances to the tune of Z 400. joo, or just four-fifths of the Bank’s paid up capital. And—but why go on ? I am afraid that the legend will have to be written in shorthand after all if it is not to interfere with the gold deposit of the banks, and then, unfortunately, the people would not understand it. But would they understand it if written in letters a foot long ? I doubt it. I doubt still more if they would learn the lesson it teaches.

r TIHE Auckland Women's Liberal League discussed a -L somewhat knotty question at its last meeting and settled it. It has been the rule with this body to open its proceedings with prayer, but some of the members who take exception to this introduction of religion into politics, desire to have the practice discontinued. A motion in that direction was accordingly tabled by them and discussed at the meeting in question, the result being that only seven out of twenty-seven present voted for politics without prayer. I think that I should have voted with the minority, not that I think it unnecessary to ask for heavenly guidance in the management or discussions of our public affairs—we all know we want such guidance in New Zealand as much as anywhere else—but because it has always seemed to me that prayer on such occasions was very like a long grace before a banquet—a bit of a farce that were better left out. If the members had come together in that same devotional spirit which we may suppose characterised the councils of Cromwell and his friends; if they were inspired with a sense of the divine hand leading them to their conclusions, it would be altogether another thing. But with most of them I think I can say the repetition of a prayer is a mere form, and the question is whether it is not derogatory to religion to introduce it into public affairs merely that it may* give a greater ' respectability ’to them. As political meetings are conducted at this present day there would be something incongruous in opening them with prayer, for we know that they not unfrequently end in a free fight and in showers—not of blessings, but of immature chickens and vegetables. It is quite probable that the ladies intend to improve the character of the modem political meeting as they hope to improve the character of modern politics. Still, lam of opinion that the mere formal repetition of a prayer—for, I repeat, however sincere a few may be the majority of the meeting are not in 3 prayerful mood—will do nothing to advance the objects of the League. This is a case in which the monk’s wise motto, laborare est orarg—to work is to pray—might be well applied.

While the ladies of the Auckland League have decided that it is inadvisable for them to dispense with prayer, the ex-president of the Wellington Women's Institute, Mrs Jones, has decided that it is impossible for the Institute to exist now that she is out of it. She has made her views public in a notice witnessed by a Justice of the Peace, so there is no mistaking what they are. The Institute, she declares, is defunct—dead as a door nail—under ; ts charter of constitution, and further, she tells a public, aghast at her intrepidity, that she 'has taken this step in consequence of the desertion by the officers and members of the Institute against the authorities and powers vested in her Mrs Jones) as President and against her commands.’ There is an autocratic ring about the above that makes me tremble for those of my sex who shall be left on this earth when the reign of woman is begun. I thank Heaven that I shall not be living when the Jones’ dynasty sways the sceptre.

VMONG the many excellent ways of passing a Sunday afternoon which a more enlightened interpretation of the character of the day has provided for our friends in the old country, a course of free lectures on the British Empire, is one that commends itself to us very strongly. All during last winter these lectures were delivered every Sunday afternoon to those Londoners who had sufficient interest to walk as far as the South Place Institute, Finsbury. The lecturers were conversant with the subjects they spoke on, and in many eases the lectures were made doubly entertaining and instructive by the introduction of a magic lantern. Our own New Zealand, I notice, was twice to the fore. Mr H. B. Vogel singing her praises. There is surely no excuse for our friends at Home being ignorant of the great empire they are part of with such advant-

ages at their doors, nor need they find the Sunday hang heavy on their hands when they have such easy means of entertainment. Could not we here inaugurate some similar way of spending a portion of the first day of the week ?

THROUGHOUT all the Venezuelan bother, which, it appears, is soon likely to end, there has been manifest among the people of the United States a certain distrust of England. Uncle Sam has got the idea into bis head that John Bull is an aggrandising animal—as indeed he is—and that his whole soul is bent on grabbing whatever he comes across. He is worse even than the

Scotchman who, according to the Yankee definition, is a man who keeps the Sabbath and every other • derned ’ thing he can lay his hands on. Perhaps nothing expresses this American view of England more happily than the above caricature. On one side is the map of South America as it is; on the other as John Bull would like it to be. Observe in the second map how the great continent has assumed the unmistskeable physiognomy of the British Lion.

THAT is a somewhat extraordinary request the infirm and aged porters of Wellington have made to the City Council. Give them a monopoly of the business and refuse licenses to all able-bodied men ' The result might be very well for the porters benefited, but how about the many men with families to support who are forced to take to the profession in the absence of any other work ? And how. too, about the poor public, who would be forced to employ men physically unfit for their work. For my part I had rather carry my luggage myself than see an old infirm man struggling under it, and if I did out of charity employ him, the probability is that I would do most of the work myself while he pocketed the pay. It is astonishing in this democratic country what unreasonable demands men will make.

“yTT HO would have thought that discord could ever V V have succeeded in throwing her hated apple into the camp of the Salvation Army ? She has pitched and tossed it as she liked among nations and the best regulated families we know, but it is a matter of surprise that she ever got it through the close phalanx of Christian soldiers without its being ’ well fielded.’ as the cricketers say.audthrown back to her before ithad done any damage. As it is. the jade did succeed, and the Army, once one and indivisible, is now broken in twain. Commander Ballington Booth leads the secessionists, who have assumed the new and picturesque name of * God’s American Volunteers,' and it is clearly understood that this new army has ' no connection with the one over the way.’ The two march under the same banner of the cross, towards the same eternal city, with the same songs on their lips; their objects here are the same, and their hopes for the hereafter. There is no good reason in heaven or on earth why they should be divided, yet the probability is that they will continue to march in rigidly parallel lines to the end of their journey. No doubt, too, the seceders will adopt new watchwords and wear new uniforms, and in other ways differentiate themselves from the older body, and it will not be till their marching days are over that they will mutually recognise the folly of division. Is their case so very different from that of other religious bodies ? Does the Christian Church present to

the world an unshaken, undivided front ? Alas ' everywhere there is schism where there should only be unity ; jealousy where there should be generosity ; hatred where there should only be love. The Salvation Army has not escaped the fate of every creed and sect, because its soldiers are just as human as the rest of us, and as Juvenal has said, 'There is more agreement among serpents than among men.’

A correspondent interested in this break in the Salvation Army sends me a number of queries regarding the organisation. She—for it is a lady—wants to know

why it was that Commander Ballington Booth would not give up his keys to Commandant Herbert Booth, and why the latter demanded them, and lastly, 'what the keys had to do with the matter, anyway ?’ My dear young lady, you puzzle me, I admit. I believe that Commander Ballington Booth and his wife accepted their dismissal owing to the peremptory demand of Commandant Herbert Booth for their keys, because the cablegrams told me so, but with regard to their private reasons for making so much of a bunch of keys I am as ignorant as you. I don't even know what keys are referred to — their latch keys, their watch keys, or their bed keys. At first I thought they might be duplicates of the papal keys, but these are strictly papal possessions, and Ballington Booth could not possibly have come by them in an honest way, nor could Herbert have taken them from him without being guilty of receiving stolen property. As I, of course, cannot conceive of either the Commandant or Commander stooping to such dishonesty, I am still at sea as to what keys are referred to. I quite agree with my correspondent that there is a little difficulty in the matter. One does not know whether the keys are a mere insignia of office or not. If thev are one can understand their importance, but as I never heard of such insignia in the Salvation Army, I am inclined to believe that they are real keys ' made for use,’ to open the military chest where the dollars are kept, for instance. If so why so much fuss abont them ? Could Herbert not have got other keys, or at the worst, if the lock was a patent one could he not have forced it ?

TTERE is an item of interest to ’cyclists—a section J— l- of the community which is now so considerable that its interests cannot be ignored. A certain district council in Scotland has declined to support the proposed taxation of 'cyclists on the ground that they constitute such a numerous and influential bodv that they will, if taxed, insist on a much heavier expenditure on the roads. One councillor pointed out that if the tax were imposed cinder paths beside the highways would be demanded and the Council would gain nothing. As it is I think there is every prospect of cinder paths. If Mr Northcroft drive the poor ’cyclists from ‘ the narrow way,’ as a writer in these pages complained last week, and force them to take to the rouzh roads, the time will certainly come when they will demand as much consideration as is given to pedestrians and vehicles. TO DARKEN GREY HAIR. Lockyer’s Sulphur Hair Restorer, quickest, safest, best; restores the natural colour. Lockyer's, the real English Hair Restorer Large bottles, is 6d,everywhere—(Advt)

HOW civilised and polite the world is becomingl Far away even in the Cook Islands, where once upon a time the natives used to dine, not with, hut on each other, they do things quite in the European fashion. The other day. I am informed, they sent a letter of condolence to Her Majesty Queen Victoria and the Princess Beatrice expressing sympathy with them in the bereavement thev had suffered through the death of Prince Henry of Battenberg. Just fancy the change that has come over our little world when Pacific Islanders, who not so very long ago hardly knew of the existence of Great Britain, have now advanced so far as to send ‘ their sincerest condolences.’ The inhabitants cf these groups consider themselves bound to observe all forms of courtly etiquette—aoWrsw oblige. and they would feel it derogatory to their own dignity to ignore a royal birth, death, or marriage in any other part of the world. The King of Raratonga must keep in touch with his royal cousins. Was it not he who. on the threatened outbreak of a European war. allayed the fears of the Powers by declaring that he had resolved to maintain a strictly neutral attitude, and to favour the pretensions of neither one party nor the other ?

I HAVE often been amused at the number of persons who. when they come across a description of a robl»erv, a swindle, a murder, or even a suicide, in which the culprit bears the same name as themselves, feel it incumbent on them to write to the papers and assure the public that they are not the parties referred to. Of course the inference is manifest. Unless a man considered himself open to the suspicion of guilt he would hardly take the trouble to draw public attention to his innocence. Occasionally the newspaper paragraphist, in his haste, makes matters worse, as he did in a small town in Australia the other day. ‘We have been requested,’ said this journal, * to state that John Smith, who was charged at the Supreme Court on Monday last with embezzlement, is not John Smith, of Mooses, who follows a like occupation.’ If all the John Smiths in the district had been so fearful of their reputation as this one, the newspaper would have been hardly equal to the demands on its space.

When one considers the confusions and misconceptions that may result to a man from the mere commonness of his name, it is easy to understand that it is not always foolish vanity that leads to changing it in whole or in part. It is seldom that a man cares to discard his patronymic; he evinces a clinging respect for it even when it has been dragged in the gutter. You will notice that criminals, when they are forced for business purposes to take an alias, very often choose something of the same sound as their original name. hey do not, somehow, like to destroy every vestige of their ancestry. The individual who, either from vanity, or to avoid inconvenience, alters his surname, is usually content with a slight and not a radical change. If he is Smith, he becomes Smithe, or Smyth, or Smythe. On the stage where it is popularly, though erroneously, supposed no one goes by his or her real name, partial changes in names are very common. This is especially the case in the lower ranks. For instance there was a certain young man named Frank Dillon who used to be conductor on a street car, and Frank Dillon he was to all who knew him. But he discovered that he possessed a talent for acrobatic song and dance, and now he figures on the bills as ‘ Mr Frankly n Dyllyn.'

A few months ago Edith Conners made her triumphant debut in a lady’s wood-sawing contest at one of the dime museums in the States. Later on she discovered that her histrionic genius was better adapted to tights. So now the gifted maiden is carrying a shield and spear and is known to fame as * Miss Edyth Conyers.’ Others in the cast are Haryet Nelsyn, Mr Wylls Fyscher, Kathryn Kylby, Mr Myrtyn Gylbyrt, Gwynn Gyfford and Olyve Rhynes.

UNINTENTIONAL jokes are frequently the most amusing, but there is a grim suggestiveness about one which recently came under my notice that provokes a passing comment. A gentlemen well-known in one of our principal cities, but whose name, for obvious reasons, I will withhold, recently died. As far as could be judged from his external manner and usual way of life and conduct, he was an average sort of man—one with quite as good a chance of going to the ‘ Happy Land ’ in the hereafter as anyone in the town. Yet, passing down a side-street a day or so ago, I saw the following legend in a shop window :—‘To Let.—Apply to Mr (the name of the deceased), a little Mac.' The implied descent into lower regions is a little rough on Mr and on his friends. As a rule, we act up to the good old motto—‘ De mortuis, nil nisi lonurn,' and unless the theosophists have betrayed secrets, there seems no need to depart from it in this case.

r PHE position of an Acclimatisation Society in this J- colony is not altogether an enviable one It is called upon to please a dozen different sections of the community, and generally does not succeed in pleasing one. Its work is mainly experimental to begin with, and it is consequently liable to make mistakes now and again. But the public has no sympathy with it on that score, and not only blames the members in office for all their errors of omission and commission, but saddles them with the shortcomings of their predecessors. The introduction of the sparrow, for instance, is always cast up against the present personnel of the Societies, as if they had harboured that bold and prolific bird merely to injure the farmer, who is often heard hurling shot and curses at the pheasant, whose acclimatisation in the colony is considered by some sportsmen to be the only good thing the Society has ever accomplished.

At this moment the Auckland Acclimatisation Society is having a warm season of it. A whole host of sportsmen are up in arms because the Society, on the plea of the scarcity of game, has issued a ukase deferring the opening of the shooting season for native game till May instead of allowing it to open in Easter, as usual. I never knew there were so many people interested in shooting till now that the decision of the Society has drawn them from cover. They are assailing the poor members on all hands, and for the last fortnight one cou’.d not take up a paper without finding some anonymous ’ sport ’ taking a pot shot at the Society from behind the correspondence column. The great grievance of these Nimrods is that they will not be able to get any shooting during the Easter holidays, and as killing ducks has been their favourite method of celebrating the blessed season, they will be deprived of a great deal of pleasure by the Society's action, and probably may be reduced to going to church pour passer le temps. For the most part the complainants appear to be men of little leisure who can only get a chance of a holiday at Easter, and some of them declare that game is very plentiful this year, and that the postponing of the shooting season is only a base contrivance of the leisured sportsmen to get better bags for themselves. I confess I cannot ascertain which side is in the right. The truth would seem to be that in some districts there are lots of game, and in others that the reverse is the case. I should think that the Society has a better opportunity of judging what is the wisest general course to pursue than the occasional traveller who may chance to come across some good flights of ducks, or the city tradesman who has no knowledge of the matter whatever. As to the charge that the members of the Society are making the change for selfish ends, I can hardly think they would be guilty of such ungenerous and unsportsmanlike conduct.

THE sequel to the Little Barrier eviction case was very amusing. It seems that Tenetahi, driven from the halls of his fathers, has refused to acquiesce in the justness of the proceedings, has abstained from lifting the purchase money due to him, and has declared himself ‘ agin the Government.’ He has no intention to remain a wanderer on the face of the earth, but is determined to return to his old home, which in his eves is evidently 1 the first flower of the earth and first gem of the sea.’ According to one account he or his friendshave since their eviction made several attempts to land on the beloved spot, but were repulsed by the guard. Eventually, however, they succeeded in their invasion, and were not removed till a police force from Auckland had gone down to the island and forcibly brought them to town. Tenetahi and his friends have been charged with trespassing ou the island, and as I write their case is under consideration. Probably by the time th’s is in print the matter will have been settled, but, however it is arranged, I cannot see how the Government are to prevent Tenetahi visiting the place as a Maori tourist, in which capacity his solicitor inferred he went. On the other hand there is nothing to prevent the Auckland police arresting tourists if they take it into their heads. So between arresting Australian tourists and Maori tourists the force is likely to have its hands pretty full.

f | IHE enterprising spiritualist who finds the spook -L business played out among the whites should try his skill among the Maoris, who in the North have latelv developed a great interest in ghostly manifestations. Far away in the Hokianga they are having nightly saxes in their big wbares, where they sit in darkness a waiting the advent of the spirits. The latter come sure enough and reveal their presence by a kind of whistling. Who the Mrs Mellin is in this case, or who does the whistling has yet to be found out, but the Maoris have so little of European scepticism where ghosts are concerned that the man who is running the show runs little chance of exposure. I daresay he will go on raking in the dollars or their equivalents in kumeras and pipis till he grows sleek and fat. The poor clergymen in

the district seem quite unable to shake the faith of the natives in these ’ manifestations ' by any amount of reasoning, and I don't wonder. Moses had to make an extra big serpent out of his walking stick that conld swallow all the serpent-walking sticks of the wizards before he could make Pharaoh believe in him. What the clergymen in the North really require is a little training in legerdemain in addition to theology. A few neatly-performed tricks in which ‘ the quickness of the hand deceives the eye,' or still better, a clever representation of Professor Pepper's optical illusion, would do more in this case than all the sermons in creation.

THE observance of St. Patrick’s Day in this colony is a remarkable phenonomen, for New Zealand does not profess to be an Irish or a Roman Catholic country Indeed, statistics show that the Romanists are not the most numerous of our religious bodies, and, as everyone knows, the English nation—of which we are part—is professedly Protestant. How comes it, then, that St. George's Day and St. And-ew's Day are slurred over, whilst strangers vould imagine, from the honour paid to his memory, that St. Patrick was the patron saint of New Zealand. A good many of our schools, private and public, gave the children a holiday on that day—a most unnecessary proceeding seeing that Easter is socioseat hand, with its usual rest from lessons for pupils and teachers. As it is the accepted belief in this colony, and indeed throughout Australasia, that every possible excuse for a holiday must be seized upon, we shall, in common justice to the beueficient spirits which watch over England and Scotland, find now that St. George and St. Andrew are also accorded their due. and that English and Scotch children are being taught to duly reverence their patron saints. There is just as much reason for the observance of these two days as there is of the 17th March, and, as far as I know, St. George and St. Andrew are fully as entitled to respect as is St. Patrick. Indeed, had Ito choose amongst these three gentlemen. I should certainly take St George.