TOPICS of the WEEK.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XIX, Issue XIX, 30 October 1897, Page 578

TOPICS of the WEEK.

A KNOTTY LAW POINT. ■ NTH U SIAST IC gardeners whose 1 J patience is often sorely tried by the depredations of their neighliours’ hens, would do well to consult Mr Justice Edwards’ decision on the legal status of fowls in this country before proceeding, as one is tempted to do. to summarily draw the necks of the trespassers. I confess I had always imagined that the latter method of dealing with vagrant poultry was countenanced by the law of the land, and such would seem to lie the general opinion. But according to Mr Edwards this is not the case. A fowl, it appears, has its rights just the same as a horse or a cow, being an animal within the meaning of the Impounding Act; and before you can legally lay a linger on the merest bantam belonging to your neighbour, that has scratched up your early peas or made a dust liath of vour earrot bed, vou must

give notice of your intention to the owner or the police. I don’t know whether this ruling would have lieen tolerated some time ago ; I rather think Parliament would have lieen appealed to against such a decision. Now. however, that our beneficent Government has taken the cocks and hens beneath its sheltering wing and has apjiointed a gentleman specially to look after them, it would probably lie quite useless to make any complaint. Otherwise. 1 think it might be argued with a great deal of reason that a fowl is not entitled to be called an animal, and further, that even if it were so entitled, it is ridiculous to extend to it the consideration the law does to the horse or the cow. It is true that Mr Justice Edwards might plead a kind of Biblical authority for this implied misuse of terms. In Leviticus we certainly do read of ’ all fowls that creep going on all fours.’ But as both in the Geneva and Bishop’s Bibles the honey bee is sjioken of as • but a small beast among the fowls,’ it is very evident either that in these early days of the world natural history was anything but an exact science or, w hat is just as likely, that the translators got mixed up in the text. It is scarcely [K>ssilile, however, that the framers of the Im[•minding Act contemplated a hen lieing regarded as an animal in the same class as the ox or the ass or the cow. Or if they did, the fact of their including hens in the same category as cattle and horses for the puqMtses of the Act, showed such a woeful ignorance of the habits of the domesticated fowl as would at once render them unfit to legislate on such a matter. Consider for a moment the wily character of the common Dorking when trespassing in a neighlmur’s garden. She makes her way through the

moat impossible looking places in the hedge, anil plies her quest for worms, seeds, etc., in a stealthy manner, except when a more than usually dainty morsel evokes from her, in an unguarded moment, a chuckle of delight. Then only does the irate gardener liecome aware of her presence and of the damage she has done, but before he can take vengeance, she is gone with a derisive cluck. Now the instinct of every sane man would lie to destroy the animal. But according to the law we can do nothing of the kind with impunity. What we must do is to serve the owner with a notice, or lodge a complaint with the police. We all know what either of these alternatives amounts to. The owner will probably swear that no hen of his would lie guilty of such conduct, that he never allows them to mix with other hens in the street, and he will conclude by asking you to [stint out which hen out of half a hundred is the culprit. And if you call in the [toliceman is it likely he will spend the afternoon trying to arrest that hen, or afterwards to establish its identity? Try him. My belief is he would laugh at you. THE MEMBERS’ VADE-MECUM. A WRITER in Australia commenting on the change that has come over the significance of many Parliamentary and political terms—party nomenclature especially—suggests the need that exists for another Johnson to re define the old words and to give some fixity of meaning to many of the neologisms. A dictionary of the kind might be very useful, but if I might suggest a publication that would be equally serviceable to members of Parliament. it would lie a dictionary containing a varied list of permissible synonyms and periphrases for unparliamentary expressions which a member could refer to when the Speaker called him to order for employing the latter. An old Parliamentary hand can usually manage fairly well to deliver a stinging blow at his opponent without provoking the wrath of the chair. In the House of Commons, where wordy warfare has, among the leaders, lieen developed to a science, a clever speaker can ent right and left among his opponents without their being able to find shelter, and the cuts are all the more telling because they are delivered so delicately. Here in our House the speakers, having only the common language of the marketplace at their command, are constantly lieing called to book by Mr Speaker when they get a little heated. Only the other day, Mr McGuire used the word ’coward ’ in a way that might lie taken to reflect on some member of the Chamber. The Speaker pounced on him, and poor Mr McGuire had nothing for it but to deny that he was thinking of any honorable member —a course that not only detracted from the whole force of his argument, but made him look foolish to the liargain. Now if he had studied the book I am thinking of, he would never have come sueh a cropper. A little later on in the same debate |ioor Mr Crowther got hauled over the coals for applying the epithet ’ ungentlemanly ’ to the memlier for Caversham’s conduct. Of course, he had to take it back and weakly substitute ‘ unmanly ’ and ‘ childish,’ words carrying very different connotations. But what was Auckland’s memlier to do? He knew no other way of putting it. With regard to that word gentleman, by the way, I think it would lie a good thing not only for jioliticians but for everybody if its jiosition and value in the language were lietter defined. It is not a matter to lie settled off hand by any means, but would have to lie very carefully considered by such a Council, for instance, as was lately mooted for the maintenance of the purity of the English tongue. So difficult indeed is it that I would not care to make any suggestions beyond that some precaution should lie taken against * the grand old name" lieing ‘defamed by every charlatan,’ as is now the case. If we could return to the original simplicity of meaning it would lie well, though it might lie awkward in

certain cases, to have to resort to archaic forms. For instance, would it not l>e ludicrous to speak of a gentlewoman as a ‘ lady gent,’ a title Spencer uses more than once in the Faerie Queene ? THE PAIRS DISPUTE. 111 H E squabble last week over the alleged breaking of the Parliamentary Pairs carries little interest outside of the House. But among memliers it wears a very important asjieet. For there is honour even among politicians, though some people question it, and for a man to break a |iair is to break faith in the most flagrant and unpardonable manner imaginable. It is probably the deadliest sin that one could commit in the House ; for jnst see what it means. ‘ A ’ on the Government benches, who wants to visit a friend over at Oriental Bay, where they are having a quiet party, is anxious to get away from the House that evening. But an important division is coming on, and his vote is indispensable. The only way out of the difficulty is to get hold of some gentleman, ‘ B,’ on the Op]iosition lienches, who also would like to lie away on that evening, and who intends to vote jnst the ojqiosite way from ‘ A.’ It might lie thought that it would be a little difficult for either ‘ A ’ or ‘ B ’ to know how they would vote until they had heard the question argued ; but, bless your innocent ignorance of politics ! There is seldom any trouble about that. Most of our representatives know in what direction they will vote on every nine questions out of ten before they leave their homes for Wellington. Now then let us supjiose that ‘ A ’ and ‘ B ’ have arranged matters between them — or, as more generally happens, that the whips have done it for them and that it is understood that they can both go their ways and enjoy themselves without the strength of their respective parties being relatively changed when it conies to voting. M ould it not lie an awful thing if either one or the other sneaked back to the Chamber and took [iart in the division ? Such an act is not only a case of going back on his friend : it is ten times worse. It is a piece of treachery that would not lie countenanced by any code recognised in Parliamentary warfare. Even in the extremest moment of danger when the ranks of the Government are wavering and the standards of the Opposition are raised in glorious expectancy of triumph no Government supporter should dare, even in a tit of loyal madness, to break his pair if he ever again ho]>es to occupy those seats of the blessed without an ugly stain on his charactet. Now you can understand what a terrible unforgivable thing it is to break a pair ; and why Mr Massey, the < fpposition whip, declared last week, that unless the Ministerial whip apologised for having insinuated that two memliers of the Opposition were guilty of such a crime, the Opjiosition would grant no further pairs for the remainder of the session. Think what that would mean for some of the memliers. But I question whether the threat could be carried into execution so long as our representatives are the ordinary sort of mortals that love relaxation at least as well as work. When Walpole was in |»wer it was actually tried, in the House of Commons, to put down the custom of pairing. A motion was made ‘ that no memlier of this House do presume to make any agreement with another memlier to alisent themselves from any sen ice of this House, or any Committee thereof ; and that this House will proceed with the utmost severity against all such memliers as shall offend therein.’ But that motion was promptly negatived, and any attempt to put down pairing in New Zealand will certainly meet with the same fate. IRR EG I LA R M ARRI AGES 4 T the session of the Church of England Assembly, lately concluded in Melbourne, one of the clergy tabled a motion asking the Bishop to communicate with the Premier of the colony, urging on the latter the necessity for an alteration in the marriage law to prevent the traffic in

marriages carried on by matrimonial agencies. Neither the Bishop nor the Assembly, however, saw their way to interfere in the matter, and the motion was withdrawn. I fancy that not merely in Victoria, but everywhere else marriages of the kind complained of are rather on the increase, and for many reasons the fact is to he deeply regretted. These irregular contracts, as Churchmen would regard them—though, strictly speaking, they are perfectly regular so long as the law permits them—are decidedly calculated to detract from the sanctity, solemnity, and binding character of the marriage vows. People united by some unknown individual amid the common, dingy surroundings of a matrimonial agency run a big risk of regarding the alliance as a very commonplace affair; anil in after life feeling less compunction in dissolving the bond. We are all of us slaves to forms and symbols in a greater degree than we even admit to ourselves; and I quite appreciate the sentiment which makes a girl look on a marriage even by the registrar with repugnance and insist in lieing Mendelssohned out of church in the good old fashion. Too often it is with no honourable intent that one of the contracting parties resorts to the hole-and-corner method of—to use a word that is meaningless in such cases—solemnising their union; and I quite believe that these marriages are a fruitful source of scandal and distress. Gf course it may happen, and proliably frequently does, that couples harliouring the most honourable intentions, have resorted to the matrimonial agency to lie joined for better or worse. All marriages celebrated in church are assuredly not made in heaven ; and many contracts entered into without the aid of priest or ritual cannot be said to have been made in the other place. One of the most curious methods of shirking the marriage ceremony is that in vogue in California, where the lovers, to escape the conditions attached to the performance of the marriage ceremony within the State, slip on board some coasting vessel and get a good-natured captain to mumble over their joined hands some words that have no legal significance whatever. Such a union is a farce, but still, for all that, it generally serves the purpose it was used for, that is, it compels the consent of the parents to a legal union of the parties.

THE TRAIL OF THE SERPENT. /"XNE would almost think that Sir Walter Buller was bent on playing here just the reverse role to that which St. Patrick played in the Emerald Isle. I see from the newspapers, that among the curiosities he has brought back with him from Fiji is a living serpent, and that he has presented the reptile to the Auckland Museum. I am surprised that so little curiosity has lieen shewn about this latest importation, and that nolnxly has questioner! Sir Walter’s motives in bringing it here. For it is no ordinary snake, but according to the paragraph from which I cull my information, a monstrosity * seven feet in thickness.’ One marvels what the Government were thinking of in allowing the brute to land. Surely the Minister of Lands—lx;tween whom and Sir Walter there is no love lost, as we all know—surely it was a time for him to cry, ‘ I fear the Greeks even when they bring gifts,’ and to have ordered the vermin to lie cast into the sea We may lie sure that the incident has been concealed from his knowledge in the House. Pending that inquiry, which is certain to come, we have a right to know whether the projier precautions are lieing taken to prevent the monster escaping, and whether—which is of much more inqiortaiiee — its mate may not have lieen smuggled into this fair land with the object of defeating all the care the Government has taken to protect us against pests social and other. You can just imagine what it would be if the breed of this terrible reptile ‘ seven feet in thickness’—bigger than a giant kauri in girth—became established in the colony. The weasels would lie nothing to it, and they

are iuul enough, lait it ia one thing tn have your poultry yard raided by a weasel, and another to Jiave your house visited by a serpent seven feet through and of a length proportionate to its girth. Our Government may have warmed vipers in its liosom. but I fancy it will draw the line at reptiles of that size. Let us hope that it was nierely for scientific purposes, and not with any political intent that Sir Walter presented us with what, at best, is something of a white elephant. A TOUCHING TRIBUTE. 4 PRETTIER story than that which has lieen going the round of the papers has not come in my way for a long time. My readers have in all likelihood een it. A native lad lately died at Waikaremoana. and among his few worldly possessions his relatives found, carefully hidden away, a little hoard of money — presents he had received from time to time from the European settlers for doing small commissions for them. Instead of appropriating the money as they would have }>een quite justified in doing, especially eonsidering that they were very badly off at the time, his relatives refused to touch a farthing, and determined to bury the treasure with their voting friend. The notes they deposited in the coffin with the body, and the silver coins — halfcrowns and florins to the number of eighty—they fixer!, by means of melted sperm candles, so as to form a silver border round the coffin. The incident recalls to my mind that poem of Browning’s about the ‘ lieautiful girl so white’ with the wealth of golden hair, who, when she was dying prayer! her friends that they would not permit her locks to be disturbed. And so she was buried in the old church at Pornic: and years and years afterwards when some alterations were being carrier! out there the workmen came upon the dusty coffin and all that remained of the lady fair. But here is the strange part of the story. Her golden hair of which she had been so proud gleamed there, coiled in great masses around the unsightly skull but when it was touched, 10, it crumbled away disclosing no eml of “ louisd'or ” which the damsel had concealed in her tresses. The meaning and the moral of this story—for there is much of both in it—l leave you to find for yourself in Browning's lieantiful verse if you are not already familiar with it. What strange conjectures may not the unearthing of that native grave at Waikaremoana give rise to in after years when the little incident, now fresh in our minds, is forgotten. THE ETHICS OF BOXING. ■it VER since a young Aucklander was 1 J killed in a pugilistic encounter, some five years ago, the Auckland police have displayed a vigilance in putting down anything in the nature of prize-fighting. As the result of this commendable attitude towards the ignoble art of offence, which is usually all that can l>e learned from such exhibitions, they summoned the other day seven young men who had arranged to give a public display of the effects of human fists on human faces. The young men called the proposed entertainment a boxing match, and if, as they declared, the contestants were to wear the ordinary boxing gloves, it was proliable nothing more was intended. But the police had apparently some reason to think that a different sort of display, to wit, a prize fight pure and simple, wason the “tapis,’’andso they interfered. The consequence was that the young men were bound over to keep the peace, which meant, as I understand, that they would have to take very good care that there was nothingin the proposed exhibition that eould give a watchful ami prejudiced constable a right to call it a prize-fight. lam glad to see that the Bench does not mean to rank prize-fighting with skin gloves and boxing with full-sized padded gloves in the same category. As for the former, lam entirely of the opinion that such contests are brutalising to those that take part in them and those that look on. If ever I should

be seized with a desire to gaze on one, the

cinematograph will he quite sufficient for my taste ; though I can scarcely conceive any sane man gazing for two hours on a screen on which is depicted the memorable contest between Fitzsimmons and Corbett, as I hear one can now do for a shilling. Boxing, on the other hand, I regard as a harmless, healthful and useful exercise. Major Broadfoot, I see, waxes enthusiastic on pugilism in a recent number of the ‘ National Review,’ but advocacy of the virtues of the ring coming from the biographer of Tom Sayers has to lie received with a grain of salt. What the Major says about training for fighting, ‘ teaching and enforcing self-restraint and planting successfully in soil not always the most promising, the seeds of chivalry,’ sounds all very well, but practical ex]>erienee and the lives of some of the exponents of the art and many of its devotees teach rather that' fisticulture develops anything but chivalrous instincts. Against legitimate boxing, when not indulged in to excess, I have not a word to say, and prol>ably it is legitimate boxing that the Major really intends to be the object of his panegyric, though his use of the word ‘ ring ’ suggests other associations.