TOPICS OF THE WEEK

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXII, Issue XV, 15 April 1899, Page 468

TOPICS OF THE WEEK

THE STOCKING V. THE BANK. DURING some bankruptcy proceedings in Auckland recently, a witness who had refused to attend and give evidence, but was subsequently coerced by the police into obedience to the mandate of the law, made some interesting revelations regarding her methods of saving money. As she earned the coin she dropped it into a little iron box, and never troubled the bank about its custody. Apparently by this method the lady had managed to accumulate a tidy sum of money, for she admitted having at one time as much as £3OO in the iron depositary. It would be instructive—more especially to burglars—to learn what amount of our private national wealth is stored in this way. When Mr Seddon introduced his New Zealand Consols Bill some years ago, he explained that the chief object of the measure was to provide an absolutely safe investment for those timorous and cautious people who, dreading banks and similar institutions, prefer like the man in the parable, to secret their savings where- they can always lay their hands on it. The Premier assured Parliament —though how he came to know has always been a puzzle to me—that there were scores of old women and others in the colony who had a ‘bit’ stowed away in the toe of a long stocking, and that these people would hail the creation of Consols with joy. But facts have scarcely borne out Mr Seddon’s statements. There has been so great a rush to take up Consols which must, mean either that the stocking hoards were mainly mythical, or that their possessors did not trust the Government any more than they did the banks. The Opposition would probably say the latter was the case, but opinion from that quarter is prejudiced. I am inclined to think that the other explanation is nearer the mark; we have not got the stockings. We are much too pleasure-loving a people to save to any large extent, and when we do save we are altogether too much of a speculative turn of mind to let our savings lie idle. While there are mines they supply stockings of an-

other kind in which those who are not content with other modes of investment may deposit their golden guineas. But though private hoarding may have gone completely out of fashion, there must lie still a certain number who, as it were, are their own bankers. The lady 1 referred to at the outset cannot be a solitary exception to the general rule. There must be others who adopt the same methods as she, but for the most obvious reasons they don’t say anything about it, and so we never know. It is the custom to deride stocking banks and private strong boxes, but from what I have seen, the people who go in for them generally come out top in the long run. Though the little hoard does not breed in the same way that it does when out at interest, it has a marvellous faculty of getting Itlrger and larger. It appears to have an irresistible attraction over all the loose coin in its neighbourhood. There is an exquisite satisfaction to the owner of the

stocking to feel it getting heavier, which I doubt if even the man who could draw a big cheque on the Bank of New Zealand experiences. And then the former has no worry about financial crises. Yet another advantage belongs to the system of private hoarding as practised by some— the lady of out text for instance. She put the money in the little iron box as it came to hand, and kept no record of her deposits, so that without actually opening the box she did not know the extent of her wealth; at least when asked how much it contained she said she could not tell. I presume she dropped the money through a slit in the lid and took pleasure in her want of knowledge. And there is a very great pleasure in such ignorance. Don't you remember the time when you had your little tin bank so constructed that it could not be opened unless it were actually broken into? Was there ever a. more delightful feeling than that uncertainty of riches; quite different from the sense of uncertainty which the millionaire feels? For while he knows his wealth he knows also the insecurity of it; but the owner of the tin bank, while he is ignorant of the amount in his possession, is perperfectly sure of its safety. You cannot have that pleasure if you go in for a bank account. So you see all things considered, the stocking- system, and the little iron box system which is akin to it, have a lot to recommend them.

IN DELICATE HANDS. A LADY teacher in Taranaki re cently wrote to the Education Board suggesting that she should be given the power to use the strap for disobedience, idleness, and continued carelessness. The headmaster of the school in which she taught was quite, agreeable that her suggestion should be complied with, having evidently confidence in the strength of her ann and her sense of justice and moderation. But the Taranaki Education Board was apparently astonished at such a request —perhaps the members thought it unladylike—and it was refused. The strongest advocates of moral suasion in schools us opposed to corporal punishment are not I think as a rule the individuals most deeply versed in the ways of that strange animal the boy. The majority of schoolmasters and schoolmistresses will certainly not be found to endorse the opinion that the young human cub of the male sex is absolutely amenable to gentle words and appeals to his feelings, his conscience, his honour. To gain the respect of certain boys it is plainly necessary for the teacher to have a strong arm and to use it himself. The tendency here in those establishments where corporal punishment obtains is to relegate the infliction of it to the headmaster, the object of this arrangement being to spare the ordinary + eacher the trouble, and also to guard against the hasty and indiscriminate use of the strap or cane. But 1 question both the desirability and efficacy of these lickings by proxy. It helps to turn the headmaster into a mere whipping machine, and presents him to the youngsters more powerfully in that light than in any other. I have heard of one school in which the master sets one day of the week apart, for whipping operations, and on that day goes through all the boys who have been guilty- of offences against the scholastic rule during tin preceding five days. This method has doubtless some advantages just as a weekly washing has, bu(t on the other hand its disadvantages are too obvious to require to be pointed out. For one thing it imposes an unnecessary punishment. on the boys to have the shadow of the rod hanging over them half the week before it descends. Why mar the youngsters’ pleasure by such a Damocles sword? In the ease of the eallous boys the thing, if it does not give unnecessary pain, is a mistake from another cause. These boys have most probably disassociated

the crime from the punishment; the cause from the effect long before they- experience the latter; consequently the benefit of it is destroyed. Punishment to be effectual should follow swift on the commission of the offence, and should be administered by the individual whose authority has been disregarded. That at least is my view. The good old method in which the schoolmaster came into close contact with the pupil not merely as a teacher but as a judge and executioner also was the best for the boys, and I can easily fancy an independently minded lady- teacher feeling herself handicapped by the method ot whipping by proxy in vogue here. If a teacher cannot be trusted to punish—provided he or she has the requisite physical strength—-neither should he or she be trusted to teach.

THE VOICE OF WOMAN. Til HE National Council of Women JL holds its fourth annual meetingin Auckland this year. Most societies of the national sort regard it as convenient to change the scene of their deliberations from one centre to another, and to this fact Auckland is indebted in some deg-ree for the honour conferred on it on this occasion. But there exists yet a stronger reason why the Council of Women should desire to be seen and heard in the Northern City. According to the President of the Council, the organisation and its aims have been much misunderstood in Auckland. Perhaps this may be due to tin innate incapacity on the part of the Aucklanders to appreciate the ideals of the Council; but that body is willing to believe that the hostile or indifferent attitude of the public of the North really arises from au ignorance of them. The Aucklanders, it must be remembered, have never been privileged to attend any- meeting of the Council. They only know of its proceedings through the medium of the newspapers, which the Councillors declare never gave them the space or the justice their speeches merited; and it is possible that they misapprehended much that was said and done. But, assuming the President speaks for the whole Council, let the Councillors but have audience for a word or two, and they are confident they can convert the scepticism of Auckland and turn its derision into praise. In that hope they may not be altogether deceived. We shall see. The power of woman’s tongue is proverbially great, and where her written or reported word

has entirely failed to move or convince, it is well known that the sex has accomplished marvels with that little instrument—the tongue. Or to take more familiar examples, what married man is there that cannot bear testimony to the potency of his wife’s local organs. Woman, they say, has no logical faculty; and that may or may not be; but no one who knows anything will venture to deny that by mere force of vocables strung together in no logical sequence whatsoever she usually manages to—if not convince—still have her own way. It is the intention of the Council to take up the same subjects as before, the idea apparently being, according to the President, that only by insistence and reiteration can they hope to accomplish their ends by getting the legislation they want. What these ends are the lady did not. state, but we understand they will be made clear in

the papers which are read, and one may be permitted to guess at them from the titles of these papers. The Council wishes to affirm its own ideas on the' subject of women’s work and wages; on the training of domestic servants; on women’s disabilities; on the economic independence of marriage; on education; on parental responsibility; all subjects on which the voice of woman is entitled to be heard. No one. I feel sure, will seek to deny them the right to speak on these matters. Hut lam not so sure that everyone will go and listen to them. Partly prejudice stands in the way, and partly, too, the Council has, unfortunately, on former occasions scarcely shown that breadth of view and sanity in discussion which would disarm prejudice. If the Councillors will take my advice, they will walk and talk with special circumspection in Auckland, for there, on their own showing, they are in the very camp of the Philistines and in the path of the seorner.

OUR DEFENDERS. AND so the Auckland volunteers were not allowed after all io win glory in the Samoan bush; but have had to return to their humdrum avocations and dream of what great things they might have accomplished had fate proved more generotis to them. How stale and narrow their little round of daily duties must now seem to the heroes who nine days ago had pictured themselves warilythreading the intracaeies of the tropic forest, carbine in hand, in search of the dusky- foe. What pleasure ean a man be expected to take in handling a pen when he feels that he might have been wielding a sword, or is he likely to feel absorbed in adding up columns of figures when he thinks that if things had gone a little differently he might now be numbering his dead. If, as a youngster said to me the other day, he could ‘just have had one buck at he Samoans’ it would be a pleasant reminiscence to cherish, but to have to lay aside one’s arms and uniform, at the very- moment when in mind, body-, and estate he was prepared for the fray is a disappointment not to be soon outlived. Yet the ease is not altogether without some alleviating elements. The public is not ungenerous in such instances. People are ready to give the young soldiers all credit for what they- offered to do almost, as if they had done it; to take the wish for the deed; and though the heroes can scarcely- expect to be made so much ot as they- would have been had they actually gone to Samoa and returned covered with wounds and glory, still they will figure with a prominence that is to be envied among- us mere civilians and their brother volunteers who did not get the opportunity of proffering their services. Have not their names already been published in the newspapers and thus known ol all men, and are they not certain to enjoy the unspeakable satisfaction

of hearing themselves referred to in admiring whispers as ‘of the four hundred.' The footballer and the athlete have hitherto divided between them • he homage of the fair sex in Auckland; but where will they lx* now. Behold tin* dancing season is at band when a young man’s fancy lightly

turns on thoughts of flirting. Alas, for the footballer and the cricketer, and the century cyclist, et hoc genus omne, their power to take captive the fickle feminine heart will have departed. Yonder my eye catches sight of a plain Kharkee tunic. The boys of the Samoan Brigade are here, and you may as well shoulder arms and march off the field you knights of the leather, willow, and wheel. You cannot whisper in the shell-like ears tales like those of Othello:

Of moving accidents by Hood and field. Of hairbreadth scapes 1* the imminent deadly breach Of being taken by the insolent foe.

and so forth. But they, although they may not actually have experienced these things, came nearer to doing so than ever you have done, and can therefore speak with greater authority. And their hearers being sweet idealists will forget that the brave boys never were in Samoa, but worship them just as if they had only returned from the field of conflict. I am thinking that Kharkee will be the only garb for a man to wear this winter in the north. Black coats and jerseys will be clean out of it. THE DEGENERATION OF DANCING.

THE approach once again of the dancing season calls to my mind some remarks published by the Countess of Ancaster on the degeneration of dancing, a theme which during this last winter at Home has been the text for much social discourse. As what applies to the Old Country is not inapplicable here, and even in this democratic land a countess will be accepted as some authority on dancing, I make no excuse for recommending the remedies which she suggests would save dancing from the desuetude and degeneration into which it has fallen, or is rapidlyfalling. She has three suggestions to make; and now all young men and

maidens give ear. The first is that the Kitchen, or Margate Lancers, well termed the ‘Bounder’s’ Quadrille, should be ostracised. The second is that the ‘valse’ should be thoroughlylearned by those who dance it. ami that those who have no ear for time and music should never attempt to dance it. And the third is that certain dances, such as the Court quadrilles, the march waltz, the Scotch dances, and one or two ‘eontredances' should be brought into fashion to vary- the programme, and also to give opportunities to those who are naturally incapable of mastering the mysteries of the waltz. There are scores of such people, in the opinion of the Countess, who scouts the popular idea that believes that everyone ean learn to dance if he or she will only- try. What sensible man or maid with any knowledge or appreciation of the poetry- of motion will seriously dispute the wisdom of these proposals in the main? Who that has sweated through the kitchen lancers, where the gentlemen were mostly boys who had graduated in the football field, and had as much grace in their actions as infant hippopotami, would not cheerfully sign the deathwarrant of that awful horse-play misculled a dance. Then how true that remark touching the valse, that only those should dance it who have thoroughly acquired it. and that those who do not possess an ear for music should never attempt it. Dear reader, how often have both you and I struggled with the girl or man—generally tin l man. I confess- who bad as much reason to attempt to gyrate in the

ball-room as an elephant. Speaking for myself. I shudder yet to think of the partners I have dragged or pushed on that weary round, praying that every bar of music would be the last—the partner who would not be persuaded that it was nice and cool on the stairs, and could not be enticed to the supper - room with visions of the sweetest of jellies and vanilla ices. What tales I could tell did not gallantry forbid me. But they are nothing to what the ladies could tell. The kind creatures are wonderfully considerate to a bad dancer—but what they must suffer. I am sure for much less il-usage than the average dancing girl smilingly puts up with at the hands and feet of some of her partners, wives have got separation decrees against their husbands. Why. in the name of Terpsichore, will the men whom Nature never meant to dance any more than she did the hedgehog persist in making our ball-rooms hideous and our girls miserable? Why- does any merciful hostess invite these misguided mortals to a dance, and why- do they come? It would really pay, in the interests of comfort and art. to take them into the supper-room as soon as they arrive—if one must invite them—and there ply them with strong waters till they are only- fit for bed.