Topics of the week

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XVI, Issue XXII, 30 May 1896, Page 623

Topics of the week

GOD SAVE THE QUEEN ! HER MAJESTY’S seven ty-seventh birthday was celebrated throughout the colony on Monday last in the usual manner, and with the customary amount of loyal enthusiasm. Perhaps I should say enthusiasm without the adjective, for it may be questioned whether the idea of loyalty enters very much into the popular celebration of the day ; or if it does, whether it is not rather loyalty to the axiom that ‘ all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy ’ than to the sovereign lady who rules over the British Empire. Of course in saying this I am not for an instant supposing that there is any lack of true loyalty to the Queen in New Zealand. I believe our sense of devotion to her is very deep ; but I hardly think it is raised many degrees above its normal temperature on the 24th of May. It is as a holiday that we honour the day just in the same way as we honour St. Patrick’s and St. George’s Day. Nobody would say that our rejoicings on these days were due to an intense adoration of either of the saints. In the same way the keep ing of the birthday is no index of our loyalty to our sovereign any more than our neglect of the occasion is a sign of disloyalty. Our devotion is not occasional, but perennial. It is rooted deep down in the hearts of the people, and very often where it is strongest its outward manifestations are the least conspicuous. Though it may not show itself after the French fashion in extravagant testifyings, it is there all the same—a loyalty for Queenship in its highest sense. The time when men believed in the divine right of kings and princes, and high-minded cavaliers were prepared to sacrifice everything they possessed for a weak, selfish, and ungrateful monarch simply because he wore the crown —that day is past for ever. The sovereign who would command the devotion of his people must gain it by something more than ‘ divine right ’ in the old sense. He must gain it by those qualities of heart and head which go to the making of good men and good kings alike. And it is by the possession of such qualities in a super-eminent degree that Queen Victoria holds her sway over the hearts of her people, and will hold it long after she has ceased to reign over the British Empire. TYPE X. THE brain women,’ says Oliver Wendell Holmes, ‘ never interest us like the heart-women ; white roses please less than red.’ Of course we all agree with the genial Professor ; red roses for us. But still I must confess that that recently-perfected type of femininity, the public tongue-woman, who claims sisterhood with the brain-woman, though her claim be the shallowest imaginable, has a strange fascination for me. She has even, in some degree, ousted the heart-woman, who reigns by love in my mind and soul, aud, I am ashamed to say it, has gained a certain ascendancy over me, aud keeps it if only by fear. For the fact is I never know what she will do next. You can with some degree of certainty prognosticate what the average sane man will do, but of women, when once they kick over the conventional traces and snap their fingers in Mrs Grundy’s horrified face, you can only say that they will do what they take it into their heads to do. Men will not smash their old idols into atoms aud leap at a bound beyond the influence of their ancient traditions. They are really timid creatures who do not break readily with their old ideas. But with the women, or at least a large section of them, it is altogether different. They can do hese things without a twinge of compunction, and look

back on the wreck they have caused with a light heart and a smiling face. We have misunderstood the ladies from the beginning. We have always regarded them as all belonging to one sex, which we were pleased to call the weaker. But now it seems pretty clear that women are divided into two sexes, by lines of division not yet investigated by physiologists, and that one of these is more nearly akin to man than the woman pure and simple. This is not a new theory of my own invention. I understand it has been mooted in Europe, and has received the attention of eminent scientists, but the difficulty of making investigations has stood in the way of testing its accuracy. The idea is that this X variety of humanity is a gradual development from the primary female stock, and is due to causes we can only remotely conjecture. It is now in a very imperfect state of transition, and outwardly shows little physical divergence from the ordinary woman. If psychology were a more exact science than it is it would be easier to distinguish the type by its mental characteristics, for it is in these that it differentiates itself from man and woman as we know them. As it is we are working very much in the dark. It has been objected to this theory of a third sex, that among the lower animals such a monstrosity as we would call it is never met with. To this the answer is that the development of man has not been on natural but on artificial lines, and as that development proceeds analogies between him and the lower animals become fewer and less reliable.

IT is interesting to think that a new variety of mankind is being slowly evolved in our midst without our being able to detect it clearly. I suppose, however, that in prehistoric ages the particular race of gorillas from which man has the honour to claim descent, never paid much attention to those specimens of their race which were slowly but surely evolving out of monkeyhood into manhood. If they had detected the change and dreamt of the results, there would probably have never been such a being as man, or such places of amusement as Zoological Gardens. Unfortunately perhaps for themselves, our Simian ancestors did not recognise the trend of events. But the question is, are we likely to be wiser in cur day and generation ? The X type we have been discussing, may it not, if allowed to go on developing and evolving, develop into something inimical to man and woman ? It looks very much as if it would. The tendencies in those women who exhibit the most marked divergencies from the normal type are painfully antagonistic to man—so much so that it seems to me most necessary that we should be on our guard. The X type may in its more advanced stages be better or worse than man, but that is not the question which concerns us. The instinct of self-pre-servation prompts us to ask another question : Will the new type be stronger than man ? If it threatens to become so then there is but one course open to us if we would not be reduced to a condition of grovelling serfdom. We must stamp out type X.

IT may seem a horrible suggestion to some people, and at first sight the naturally chivalric heart of man recoils from such a thing. But, brothers, you must steel your nerves to the work. These are not really women whom you would destroy, though they wear the outward semblance of women. I am not counselling a massacre, for as yet it would be impossible to discriminate our foes from our friends. Not all the new women are embryos of type X. But what I do urge is the formation of men’s leagues to agitate for the retention by the male sex of the powers and privileges which are being rapidly filched from us. OUR FRIVOLITY. THE conclusions arrived at by Mutual Improvement Societies in the course of their discussions on the many and various subjects chosen for debate are not always unassailable. As has most truly been said, * Even the youngest of us is not infallible,’ and one may occasionally be pardoned for daring to call in question the decisions of even a debating club or a literary society. Admitting the wisdom and deep experience of the members of these excellent organisations it is impossible to deny that their advocacy of the affirmative or negative of a question is a pure matter of arrangement, not one of conviction. Like lawyers, they are

prepared to plead or to oppose any cause, and all they really want is a peg on which to hang their polemical eloquence. Having said so much, I am emboldened to doubt the finding of a certain Auckland Mutual Improvement Society which lately worried the question, ‘ Are we as a nation likely to become frivolous ?’ and after a close contest of wits,agreed by an overwhelming majority that we are not. If the question had been * Are we as a Mutual Improvement Society likely to become frivolous ?’ the answer could only have been in the negative, for the mere fact of the Society tackling such a query showed an earnestness and a self-examination that was a sufficient guarantee against frivolity in any shape or form. But I am not at all so sure that the members were right in their conclusion with regard to the national tendency in this respect. For my part I have a very great apprehension that the people in the north are inclined to develop that love of pleasure and lightness of mind which are the characteristics of inhabitants living under a semi-tropic sun. I have had some experience of the tropics, and can say that Creoles—who, by the way, are not people with dark blood in their veins as some folk appear to imagine—become after they have lived long in the warm climate very much creatures of impulse, living for the pleasure of the moment, and more concerned about trifles than weighty matters. Love of pleasure and a certain irresponsibility are, I venture to say, distinct features among the majority of our young people, and though we would certainly not like them to be owls, yet there is a clear line of demarcation between youthful joyousness born of high animal spirits and that careless, selfish thoughtlessness which betokens a shallow nature. Of course a great deal depends on what you understand by frivolousness. Properly speaking, before the discussion opened a definition of the exact degree of trifling silliness which constituted frivolity should have been agreed on. Perhaps what I call frivolity you may think admissible fun, and what you call frivolity may appear to me to be drivelling idiotcy. That we shall ever get to the latter stage—although M. Renan supposed it quite possible for the human race to reach that point of degeneration—is to me a very remote possibility; but there is a good deal of probability of our attaining to that mental condition which I would call frivolous. PIRATES I proficiency in the gentle art of making love and -L paying delightful compliments to the ladies,commend me to the sailor. How these wily sea dogs can ‘ pile it on!’ It makes a landsman green as the ocean with envy, and almost as sick as he would he were on the billows, to see the way,the easy way, Jack can sail up to some sweet little craft, exchange signals with her, and straightway take her in tow. How is it we landlubbers have such a trouble in getting into the good graces of the female heart when Jack can do it with such consummate ease ? Surely we have had as much practice as he and a great deal more. While he has been tossing about the ocean we have had an extended innings and plenty of time to make a good match, but we don’t manage it somehow. Then Jack smacking of the briny rolls along and bowls us clean out in the first over. These metaphors, nautical and cricketal, are rather mixed, but the idea of the whole thing is enough to make anybody mixed. Have you noticed how Admiral Bowden-Smith has been firing compliments at the fair sex of Australasia from the United Service Institution in London, and firing with such a fine discretion that he is hitting their hearts even at that long range ? Oh, that sad sea dog ! Doesn’t he put it nicely ? He says, as we all say, that the colonial girls are not only frequently very attractive, but are, as a rule, well versed in household and domestic matters, which render them excellent wives and mothers. But the difference between us and the Admiral is that while we would finish there, he goes on to deplore the sad havoc the Australasian ladies play with the hearts of the young lieutenants of the Queen’s navee in these waters. He is apparently most serious in his apprehensions lest the squadron should suffer irretrievable demoralisation through the colonial sirens, and one would almost conclude that he contemplated getting the Admiralty to pass an order requiring officers on the Australasian station to have their eyes blindfolded just as Ulysses’ men had to have their ears stopped with cotton wool. There is a compliment for you !

But I ask any unprejudiced individual, is it fair? ‘ All is fair in love and war,’ the officerswill probably reply. Well, if that is going to be the position they take up, I know some young colonials who will not rest till the squadron is swept from the blue Australasian seas. It is all very well pretending that they are here to protect us, but zounds! —l wish I kuew some big nautical oath which was at the same time respectable—they are really here to thwart and attack us. When a quondam Admiral takes to singing at the Australasian lasses, * I

fear no foe in shining armour clad, but I fear of love the glances ’ — and does this at a distance of 13,000 miles, things have come to a pretty pass. Truly to me it seems that these cruisings from colony to colony are little better than piratical expeditions, and as soon as Mr Ward says the word I shall contribute my five shillings towards the cost of a fleet of our own, so that we may dispense with the squadron. A WISE FORESIGHT. r riHE establishment .of a cookery class for men in 1- Auckland is one of the signs of the times, and the fact of its being established in connection with the Technical School makes the new departure all the more significant to my mind. 1 can understand such a class being got up by a few young men in a frolicsome spirit, but when it comes to be a part of the regular curriculum of such a serious institution as the Technical School, then I begin to ponder. I say to myself this movement has its origin in some strong yearning in the male bosom or the school would never have taken it up. The authorities know well what they are about, and are far too practical to minister to any mere fad. The school is there to supply wants, not to gratify fads. What new want is this, then ? Why do Jthe men desire to master the intricacies of the culinary art ? Is it not enough for them that their mothers and sisters and wives have endeavoured to do so, though not always, it must be confessed, with the most brilliant success ! It has been more than enough for many a poor fellow. But I don’t think that the men are contemplating the making of their own dinners for that reason. They have been martyrs too long to quarrel with their victuals. I believe what they are contemplating is the time when they will be forced to cook their own dinners if they wish to have any food at ail, and probably will be expected to cook the meals of their women folk, to boot. You see the old order changeth, giving place to new ; conditions of life and society are getting reversed ; man is losing ground all along the line, and woman is advancing triumphant. The National Council of Women only passed a very few resolutions (for them), but they showed us quite enough to make us tremble for what they have got up those big sleeves of theirs. You see how they settled the baby question. Do you think, young man, whose dream of love is not quite o’er, that when they can be so ruthless and overbearing in the nursery they will be less so in the kitchen ? Banish the fond illusion, and join the cookery class, for, as sure as you live, there is a time coming when you will have need of all the culinary skill you possess if you are to live at peace in your future wife’s house. Probably we shall all have to marry then whether we wish or it not, but even if we are allowed, on payment of a heavy exemption tax, to possess our own souls, it will be necessary for us to know how to cook. lam half-thinking of opening a cookery column * for men only ’ in the Graphic, and another with household hints, also for my sex. It is well to be prepared. This woman movement is gaining ground fast. The ladies can be secretive and wily, and there is really no saying how near the day is when we shall awake to find our breakfast uncooked, our boots unbrnshed, and the whole female world on strike. Then the wise men who have learned to make stir-about and cook a chop will be at a premium.