TOPICS OF THE WEEK

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXII, Issue XXI, 27 May 1899, Page 726

TOPICS OF THE WEEK

ON BIRTHDAYS. FTJO-MORROW Her Gracious Majesty -ft celebrates her birthday, and we her loyal subjects celebrate it too. In fact, I fancy we do most of the celebrating. When mortals reach the age that the Queen has attained they are not as a rule apt to be demonstrative over the fact that they have passed another milestone on the journey of life; and in spite of all the glory and devotion that surrounds her, the ruler of this great Empire must feel very much as other mortals do in this matter. Most of us long before we get even into the sixties are quite content that others should keep our birthdays for us. If they wish to show their affection for us in that way it is all very pleasant, no doubt, for us, and we cannot but feel grateful, but what reason is there after all that we should join in a celebration that serves to remind us most strongly how we are nearing the final goal? ‘Eheu! fugaces labuntur anni.’ I know your birtndtry gifts and your birthday good wishes are well meant, my dear friend, but much as I treasure them as proofs

of your regard for, or it may be devotion to me, they are unpleasant reminders, and I am not so sure that 1 would not rather be without them. That is how I feel, and if I do not greatly mistake others feel the same. They 'would willingly see the anniversary of their birth pass by unnoticed, for when it has done so for a few years consecutively the chances are that your friends begin to lose count of your age, and you can by imputation pass yourself off as much younger than you actually are; whereas if you encourage these celebrations you inevitably publish abroad the' very fact that you wish to conceal. Here is one circumstance that should reconcile average men and women —especially women —to the comparative obscurity of their lives. They can with little difficulty keep their ages a profound secret. This persons in exalted positions can never hope to do. In vain would Her Majesty, for instance, seek to conceal the fact that she is now eighty years of age by making a wrong return in the census paper, as so many of her subjects have done. The office' boy in the census office would discover the royal weakness. Or, to descend from these high places, how useless would it be for Lord Salisbury or Mr Chamberlain to keep their respective ages secret. The latter has a wonderful appearance of cheating time. He dresses and looks like a comparatively you.-g man, they say, but all the world knows that Joe was born sixty-three years ago, and that according to the Psalmist’s computation he has only some seven years before he touches the allotted span of life. We commonplace, obscure individuals are spared these revelations concerning ourselves, and if we can only keep a young face by help of cosmetics, and a light heart by means of stimulants, we may pass as giddy youngsters fnr into the fifties.

THE PEACE CONFERENCE. THERE is good reason in the determination to keep secret the details of the proceedings of the Peace Conference, which is now sitting at the Hague, and to publish only the resolutions arrived at. However much these resolutions may assist the ultimate triumph of peace, it is. very possible that the deliberations of the delegates, if made known, would not entirely tend in that direction. For, after all, the delegates are like men habitually used to go armed cap-a-pie, who have only laid aside their armour for the time, and are certain even w’hile they are talking peace to be thinking war. I fancy, therefore, the Conference will not be all that its name would imply, and that there will be, metaphorically speaking, an instinctive tendency on the part of the delegates to clap their hands to their empty scabbards. This was no doubt the fear which was in the minds of those who expressed some apprehension lest the result of the Conference might have the very opposite effect to what was intended and hoped. The secrecy of the proceedings certainly lessens that risk very much; but it is still not inconceivable that the meeting will break up with the delegates in a much less amiable frame of mind. In the narrow circle of domestic life, conferences to ensure a more peaceful understanding among the members of the family are frequently the reverse of successful, and so I cannot help thinking that may be the case in regard to this international family gathering. At least, I would not be inclined to prophesy sanguinely concerning it. The probability is that the end of it will be a bundle of finesounding resolutions worth practically nothing until translated into fact. Is this not about all one can expect from a gathering of men who have met to cry peace, peace, when there is no peace? Yet we may be mistaken, and it may come to pass that radiating from that little circle at the Hague there may be spread abroad in circles ever-widening, to the very ends of the earth, the more humane instincts and impulses of mankind till

‘ universal peace Lie like a shaft of light across the land, And like a lane of beams athwart the sea.’

AN ENVIABLE CALLING. CHILDHOOD is- modest in its ambitions. In my early years I know I was quite content with two careers which I had sketched out for myself. The one was to be the proprietor of a lollie shop, or if that were impossible, an employee therein; the other was to be a bus driver, or, better still, the driver of a locomotive engine. Fate hasdecreed that up to the present at least neither of these early hopes should be fulfilled. 1 don’t know what may be in store for me in the future; but with that strange ‘hardening of the heart that brings irrever-

ence for the dreams of youth,’ I have really no ambitions in the old direction. If fame and fortune are to be won I shall seek it in other fields less alluring to the youthful imagination, no doubt, but as a rule much more

productive of solid advantage. And yet I confess that there are times when I feel attracted from the sober paths of everyday breadwinning. For example, at the present moment I own to a feeling of regret that I did not take up cricketing as a profession. The life of a professional cricketer appears to me to be a particularly enviable one, and by no means onerous. There is pleasure, fame and money in it. As compared with the average, nay, even the most successful novelist or poet, the crack cricketer has a glorious time of it. If it is a question of amusement the latter has certainly more fun handling his bat than the poor scribe has driving his quill. If it is a matter of money—well, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred— I. fancy you will find the cricketer makes the better bargain with Mammon. And as for fame, what novelist could hope to have his latest achievements trumpeted in the ends of the earth by the cable man as the doings of the Australian men in England? Popularity! Why even Kipling is not in it with Iredale or Gregory and the rest of them. I happened on one occasion to be speaking with one of those demi-gods of the cricket field—an Australian who had been chosen to go to England with a crack team and went. I don’t understand how he ever condescended to speak with me at all, but I suppose great minds must occasionally unbend, and I had met him in a weak moment. Shall I ever forget the way in which he painted the privileges of a boss cricketer on tour. A royal progress was nothing to the receptions these lucky dogs enjoyed. My teeth positively water at the recital, and I vowed then and there that if ever I had a son and heir I would make him a professional cricketer; that from the cradle he should have no other plaything than a bat, and that his study and his playground should be a cricket- pitch. I do not see why I might not in that way launch the boy in a profession where he would reap both fame and money combined to an extent he could look for in few other avenues, and I myself might also shine with his reflected glory and be pointed out by an admiring populace as the father of the great cricketer X.

THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER. THE Sunday newspaper, though a firmly established institution in the United States, is not likely yet awhile to get a standing in other Anglo-Saxon communities. Only the other day two of the most enterprising of English journals, the London ‘Daily Telegraph’ and the ‘Daily Mail,’ started a Sunday edition, but their action evoked such an outcry that the ‘Mail’ has seen fit to discontinue the practice. As a newspaper man, and net a newspaper proprietor who may hold very different opinions, 1 am very glad that the innovation received little encouragement. I sincerely trust that colonial newspapers will be slow to imitate the American journals in the matter of Sunday editions. At the same time I am afraid that the prejudice against a Sunday newspaper will never be so strong here as it is in the Old Country, where in many families the mere reading of a Saturday newspaper on Sunday was looked upon as a most sinful and reprehensible diversion. Among Presbyterians particularly this feeling was very rife. In Scotland, for instance, the stronghold of Presbyterianism, the newspaper held an honoured place in the family circle during six days in the week; but on the Sabbath it was regarded with quite another eye. Had it been printed in the infernal regions and edited by the Prince of Darkness himself, it could scarcely have been treated with such scant courtesy. The flavour of secularity which clung to it was intolerable to the pious mind, and for it to be in evidence at all was looked on as something almost immoral. Consequently, it was always hidden away beneath the sofa, or somewhere out of view, and it was only bv an oversight that always called down a stern reprimand on the offender that you ever came across a newspaper in a Presbyterian household on Sunday. How fallen from that high standard are our colonial Presbyterians. Am I right when I say that the secular newspaper jostles the Bible and ousts a great deal of special religious literature from the table? I am not all certain that a Sunday newspaner would meet with the same opposition here that it has encountered at Home, and as a poor

rewspaper man who would not gain, but lose by the innovation, I am far from anxious to see the experiment tried. Let us hope it never will be. Surely the amount of general reading matter which the Saturday editions of our journals supply should last the public over Sunday, and as for news, thank Heaven we do not yet live at such a feverish Yankee rate that we cannot wait till Monday to hear what is passing outside our own family circle.

CAPTURING THE FEMALE VOTE. HAS it ever occurred to you that our politicians of every colour strangely neglect to cultivate the female vote? They go out of their way to curry favour with all sorts and conditions of men. They flatter in turn the working man and the capitalist just as it suits the occasion. They bow down to the trades unionists, or speak encouragement to the free labourer. They condole with the farmer on the disadvantage he labours under as compared with his fellows in the town, or sympathise with the town dweller on the. hardness of the fortune that has condemned him to pass his day far apart from the green

fields. On every hand the wily politician strives to commend himself to the male electors, but it is rare that you find him making the same exertions to gain the favour of the feminine section of his constituency. One would think that he had quite forgotten the fact that, roughly speaking, the latter exercises half the voting power in the colony. This insouciance with regard to the female vote, where it is merely a survival of the time, not so very long ago, when rhe ladies had not the political privileges they now enjoy, is bound to disappear soon; but in many cases I am afraid it has its origin in the belief that The female vote is practically a second edition of the male one, and that by securing the latter you make sure of both. I should strongly advise all politicians who want to make their way at the next election to have done with that theory. No doubt there is a great deal of truth in it, but that will not always be the case, and even now it in no way interferes with my contention that there is a political fortune awaiting the man who knows how to win the female vote. Look you; it has never been systematically tried by anyone yet. Here and there a politician may have made a sporting offer for feminine favour, but none, so far as I know, has deliberately set himself to woo it with the deadly earnestness of a lover. The success which has attended those who made even passing and partial attempts promises well for the man who devotes his whole soul to the task. There is Captain Russell. When he goes on a platform he never fails to charm the ladies with his courteous address. Yet he cannot be said to go out of his way to please them. Fortunate it is for Mr Seddon that the gallant Captain is not more ardent in his attentions. I am perfectly convinced that if the Leader of the Opposition were to set himself to capture the female vote he could do it. Mark this, every aspirant for political honour, and take my tip for it, that if you want to climb to the top of the tree the shortest cut lies where I have indicated. I have not the time now to explain at length how the political aspirant should prepare himself to succeed on these lines, but I am very sure he should not make political questions his first care. He should cultivate a particularly gentlemanly manner that invariably appeals to the

feminine heart. He should show a depth of courteous consideration, tempered by a masculine condescension for feminine affairs generally. Without laying himself open to the charge of womanishness or old motherliness he must have a keen sympathy with all that appeals to woman —married and single. To play the role with absolute success he will require to have a knowledge of many things men now regard as beneath them—an acquaintance with and appreciation of even such trifles as tea gowns and the proper trimming for spring bonnets, for instance. What trifles! I hear someone contemptuously explain. My dear young friend, or old friend, allow me to know better. Trifles they may be, in a sense, but I can assure you there is a Premiership awaiting the man who can turn these things to the right use. Once again I say it, and let every politician from the North Cape to the Bluff give ear, there is a political fortune awaiting the man who captures the female vote.

THE GARDENING FIEND. IF you have a garden which you value beware of entrusting the care of it, even for a brief half hour, to the man who does odd jobs. These individuals, who tell you they can do a bit o’ rough gard’nin’, are to be dreaded more than the caterpillar that creepeth by night for the devastation they spread in their path. They are the horticultural nihilists who can, by their terrible art, convert the fairest garden into a howling wilderness in a few hours. It was, I understand, by the exertions of one of these that Lambton Quay, Wellington, was last week shorn of one of its few arboreal adornments. There stands by the Union Bank in the Empire City a small enclosure planted with shrubs — a little oasis in the desert of brick and mortar. For twenty-five years it has ben a refreshing nook in the street, and now it is no more. For it appears that instructions having been given him to trim them, the man instructed misunderstood the directions, and promptly swept the shrubs away altogether. I cannot vouch for the accuracy of the explanation of his conduct, but this I know that ninety-nine out of every hundred of the so-called ‘odd job men’

would have acted as he did. It seems to be the most natural thing in the world for ‘the odd man' to devastate when he gets into a garden. His first instinct is to destroy, and no amount of warning you give him can curb that instinct entirely. You cannot be too explicit with him, and you will generally find it wise to spend half the day in minutely explaining to him the work he is expected to do during the other half. And then the overwhelming chances are he will dig up the footpaths instead of the flower beds, or ruthlessly destroy all your flowers while he tenderly spares the seeding weed. You tell him to be careful in digging not to cut up the bulbs, and you find that he has made mince-meat of them. Or you particularly instruct him not to move a delicate heath and you discover that he has dug it up, left it with its roots exposed to the sun for the greater part of the day and slyly replaced it in the driest part of the bed. If yon wish your flowers watered he immediately seems to consider it his duty to throw' buckets of water with all his

might at the delicate petals. If you want a fruit tree branch pruned he invariably cuts off the fruit-bearing twigs and leaves the tree under bare poles; if you desire that it should be root pruned he understands you no better. A rather wide experience of these raw gardeners has taught me some of the principles on which they proceed. Their ideals go no further than the bare road where they doubtless learned to handle a spade, and their object when they are introduced into a garden is to reduce it as nearly as possible to the condition of the aforesaid road as far as bareness from vegetation is concerned, and unless you stand over them from daylight to dark it is what they generally manage to accomplish.