In the Smoke Room.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XVI, Issue XIX, 9 May 1896, Page 529

In the Smoke Room.

DISCUSSING the adoption of conscription in Great Britain, the Nottingham Daily Guardian, in a leader, remarks : —* It is a sound principle that every man born in a free state ought to be trained to the use of arms. . Surely freedom and independence and the right to enjoy what the courage and enterprise of the British race have won are worth all the sacrifices we are ever likely to be called upon to make, and a little more. And we feel sure that both the physical and moral condition of the nation would be vastly improved if every man in early life were compelled to devote, say, a year to military service, during which time he would be well fed and have to live under perfectly healthy conditions, while his muscles would be trained and strengthened bymilitary exercise as they never can be by the work of the office or the factory.’

The younger generation is thinking of the idea with no ill-will (says a writer in To-day). My correspondence shows me that it is being welcomed among the very classes who will have to decide upon the matter. I agree with Mr Poet Watson, that war is only to be resorted to when diplomacy has failed. But I agree with him also that war is no unmixed evil, even for its own sake. It strengthens a nation ; it proves a nation ;it brings out the manhood and womanhood of a nation. It makes us forget our petty differences, the little trivialities of our commerce governed lives. It wakes the ideal within us. It is a great moulder of humanity. It is a thing on all fours with other sorrows. No man goes forth to meet suffering ; he avoids it if he can in honour. But no man is going to deny that suffering is a great teacher, and a necessary teacher, to the individual ; that out of it he gets ‘ the far-off interest of tears.’

Someone is always finding a race of pigmies. I don’t know why, but it seems to be a kind of fad among explorers. The stories excite our curiosity, but, like the missing link, which is also discovered every once in a while, they don’t pan out very well. The latest yarn is told by a Mr Donaldson Smith who has just returned from Africa. He has been talking to the scientific people of London, and they have become somewhat excited. This race of little people, between four and five feet high, are coal black, and go absolutely naked. They don’t indulge very much in matrimony until they get well along in life, and then they settle down. They raise corn and goats, and are born hunters. When they go for a fight, they use poisoned arrows, and the poison is so subtle and so quick, not to say impetuous, in its action, that the poor fellow who is hit is sure to die within an hour. The story is a very pleasant one to read, and I wouldn’t doubt the word of a Smith for the world, but still we may as well wait a bit.

China is positively waking up. She is rubbing her eyes, and yawning, and stretching herself. The Japanese war gave her such a terrible shaking that she has determined to do something to prevent a like disaster in the future. It seems as though civilisation were being literally crammed down her throat, and she takes to it about as kindly as a boy takes to a dose of salts and senna. She has engaged the services of a lot of European military officers, who will try to bring the army up to some sort of discipline and effectiveness. She is going to build roads wide enough for two vehicles to pass each other, and for the first time in her history will be heard the voice of the teamster on his way to market. The few railroads now existing are to be repaired and others are to be built. Telephones and telegraphs are to spring up, and magical changes are to take place. Poor China ! It took an awful drubbing to make her see that stupidity can’t hold its own against enterprise, and that fifteenth century machinery doesn’t work well against smokeless powder and repeating rifles. The Uie Uarisienne has found out and proved that to be well dressed a man requires /,600 a year. The extraordinary thing is that I have been through the tabulated list of expenses, and pre-supposing that a man

started in a state of nature, and decided to be ultra fashionable, I do not see where he could much economise. Pressure on my space prevents me going into details.

The following story was sent to the London Times, apropos of the disfavour with which the bicycles of Lord Brassey and his family are regarded in Victoria. The Governor had been for an afternoon rideon his machine, and late in the forenoon lost his way in Fitzroy Gardens, Melbourne. He inquired of a stalwart Irish policeman the way out. The Melbourne police have a reputation for their free and easy manners, and the constable replied by laying his band on the Governor’s shoulder and pointing to a distant gate—‘ Yes, old man,’ he said, ‘ that’s the way out, and be sharp out of it, or you’ll be getting yourself into trouble.’

No Relation to Strength.—lt is very doubtful whether there is any close relation between the power of walking and what is properly called physical strength. A Sepoy regiment will walk a European regiment to death, and do it on food which their competitors would pronounce wholly insufficient to sustain vigorous life. A regular Hindustauee carrier with a weight of eighty pounds on his shoulders —carried, of course, in two divisions—hung on his neck like a yoke—will, if properly paid, lope along over one hundred miles in twenty - four hours, a feat which would exhaust any but the best trained English runners. Many classes of Bengalese, who are a feeble folk, seem in walking tireless ; and it is within the knowledge of us all that many comparatively feeble men can walk all day, and sit down at the end far less fatigued than men who, in a struggle, would throw them in five minutes on their backs. Weight has much to do with it, and lung condition, and, above all, a certain soundness of the sinews, which has no more relation to the strength of those sinews than the tenacity of a fibre, silk, for example, has to its bulk.

Lana, short of Leander, is Dr. Jameson’s Christian name within his own family circle.