Notes Notions.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXII, Issue XXI, 27 May 1899, Page 733

Notes Notions.

In another place (as they say in Parliament) in this issue will be found the results of the funny story competition, which closed in the middle of last week. And, 1 may at once iiankly confess that I heartily concur with the remarks of the puzzle editor as regards the unsatisfactoriness of the result from the standpoint of quality.

So far as quantity went there was almost too much of a good thing. 1 speak feelingly, having had to assist in the opening and classification of tiie jams. but in the ponderous stack of contributions, there was a heartbreaking paucity of even passable ‘■jot: mots,’ or humorous stories. ♦ ♦ ♦

No condition having been laid down as to originality, it was only to be expected that a proportion of old jokes would make their appearance, but the most pessimistic editor, hardened by years of search for new jokes in the comic columns of his contemporaries, could scarcely have expected so curiously complete a collection of antediluvian anecdotes as those which were forwarded in answer to this competition. And it is not merely that the majority of the stories were of the pre-Adamite period, but that they were so mercilessly murdered in the telling.

The whole thinig is of course unimportant, and would scarcely have called for comment save to remark that the entire lack of pains or enterprise shown by the hundreds and hundreds of contributors on this occasion is not a bad indication of a very characteristic point of modern colonial character. One will admit that a sovereign, with the chance of half a sovereign second prize, is not happily a matter of very material moment to the majority of readers of the ‘Graphic’ or even most of the residents of this colony. At the same time, it is no very great labour to think of one of the hundreds of modern good stories one has heard, and to write it on half a sheet of note paper. A pound for a hundred words where originality is not insisted upon is not bad pay. Yet look at the selection published and confess that laziness and mediocrity have decided that even so small an exercise of trouble and intelligence as was here needed was by the great majority voted not worth while. ♦ ♦ *

The ‘don’t care,’ ‘too much trouble,’ curse was upon this infinitesimal matter, as it is the ruin of many and many a great movement, and because it is the ruin of other more important movements I have alluded to it here. * * *

The Sir George Grey memorials in both Dunedin and Auckland have fizzled and spluttered along hopelessly damped by nothing else than this very curse of ‘don’t care.’ There is a constant howl over the inferior class, of men representing the colony in Parliament, but what is responsible for such a state of affairs but the ‘don’t care’ curse again. + ♦ +

Naturally, if the educated, the upright, and the responsible classes are too lazy to do their duty in working for their country, their places will be filled by persons of a pushing, if less particular, disposition. The truth is, that young New Zealand cares for nothing much save out-door amusements and horseracing. Neither did his forbears of the last two decades, and for this we are beginning to and shall still further pay the penalty.

The human mind, like the human body, is a creature of habit. Accustom it for a couple of decades (is we have done) to ignore all subjects of thought save horse-racing, football, and athletics, and you will soon produce a generation absolutely incapable of taking an interest in anything else, even when their material interests are seriously involved. Boys will be boys, and young fellows young fellows, bait there comes a time.,, when . it is becoming to put away childish things, and to take our share of the white man’s burden.

Our tendency, nowadays, is to jeer at those who do the work (including our rightful share thereof), and to furiously denounce any political Sampsons who may arise. Realising that such men are the direct result of our carefully cultivated impotence, we yet call them despots, because forsooth, we have forced upon them our share of the burden of State, as well as their own. If anyone believes this an exaggeration let him take the first ten young men of his acquaintance that he meets, of even the ages from 25 to 35, and start a conversation on any of the big questions of the day in European or local politics; or let him discuss Dickens, Scott, Thackeray, or even modern literature and travel; let him touch on music or art, and with nine out of the ten he will find he makes little progress. But change the conversation to horse-racing, cricket, or athletics—what a deluge of information, theory, reminiscence, and personal experience will descend on his devoted head. It is not, of course, that such subjects are not worthy of discussion, but that when they absorb the entire thought of the most vigorous years of mental training, the results are apt to be disastrous. ♦ ♦ ♦

When the historian of the nineteenth century sits down after the manner of his kind to summarise the particular features which characterised its last days, few events will loom larger or more strikingly than the great wave of revived religious feeling which, rising towards the end of ’9B, swept over England in ’99, its effects being particularly noticeable, and, indeed, notable, in the Metropolis.

From the earliest times, long before the Christian era communities, specially highly-civilised communities, have been subject to sudden revivals of religious feeling, but that now passing over England, and which has so specially shaken London, is entirely different to any which have preceded it, and is in its way unique. Heretofore revivals have usually been the result of one master mind. Sometimes a king, with spent passions, enfeebled fame, and a craving for a new sensation, has taken up religion, and the Court, and then the country, have perforce followed, as was the case with the great Louis, of France. Sometimes a great preacher has taken a vast community by storm, as when, in answer to the thunderous demands and denunciations of Savonarola, the Florentines, impressionable and emotional, showered their jewellery, finery and worldly gewgaws on the sacrifical fires in front of their magnificent cathedral, or when, as in our own days, Moody and Sankey profoundly stirred the great lower middle class, while a single magnetic personality has constructed a vast religious organisation from amongst the very dregs of the submerged tenth of our latter-day civilisation. The present revival is akin to none of these. There is not at the back of it either a monarch or a religious enthusiast, and it does not, as so many previous revivals have done, follow as a revulsion on a period of religious decadence and neglect. It is in no sense a revolution therefore. Rather, the river of religious feeling has been rising so gradually that few have been aware of what was happening till now; it has overflowed its banks, when, doubtless there will follow such beneficent (and indirectly as material) results as occurred of old when the ancient river of Egypt overspread itself with its fertilising deposits over the surrounding country.

After all, the old truths remain truths, however the world may change its manners of thought and its customs. Cast thy bread upon the waters and it shall return to thee after many days. No doubt the splendid renaissance of religious fervour now being witnessed at Home is the result of patient work and unrelaxing effort on the part of some whose work at the time looked absolutely wasted. No doubt faith with them sometimes waxed faint, and the ‘what is the good of it’ spirit which we give into so easily here in New Zealand must frequently have attacked them—obviously in vain. Now, however, they have their reward. Ever since the national conscience was touched and the national mind set thinking by the splendid Recessional of Kipling there

has been growing a national revival of religion which has found its outlet amongst the Anglicans in a crusade for greater simplicity of worship, amongst Catholics and Dissenters in increased enthusiasm, and amongst all sects in an expression of opinion which forced two of the most wealthy and powerful organisations in the Metropolis to abandon their schemes for a Sunday issue. lam a keen antiSabbatarian; but the fact that religious feeling in London has been of a strength sufficient to stop the Sunday issues of the ‘Daily Mail' (and no doubt the ‘Daily Telegraph’) is in the highest degree satisfactory. It shows that the thin edge of the wedge —rational amusement for Sunday—need not be dreaded after all. ♦ + ♦

Londoners believe in a rational Sum day—a Sunday with music and open museums and art galleries and gardens, but it sees clearly that to allow a weekly paper to publish on all seven days would quickly mean that theatres, shops, and subsequently factories and offices would quickly follow the seven days a week work theory, and that the day of recuperation would be gone for good. We have not, indeed, perhaps, had this year a cable of more far-reaching, though indirect import, than that which announced the relinquishing of the publication of the ‘Daily Mail.’

I must crave pardon for the length at which the foregoing subjects have been discussed, and should, perhaps, also apologise for boring readers of columns intended to be of the lighter order with subjects of some seriousness, but one cannot always be laughing after all.

It is extremely satisfactory to note that the agitation in favour of greater facilities for obtaining, and cheaper prices for Australian and New Zealand wines is spreading generally all over the colony. It is really surprising how many papers scattered over the colony contain correspondence on the vexed question. In the course of the week the writer of these notes glances through hundreds of exchanges papers, published in townships and villages from Gore to the farthest North, and not a week passes but one finds half-a-dozen letters complaining of the ridiculous prices charged for wine in this colony, and the great moral and physical benefits which would follow the introduction of light wines as the national beverage, in the place of the tea, beer, and spirits regimen which now prevails. The majority of the temperance orators who fulminate most strongly against a system which would allow New Zealand and Australian wines to be sold in all fruit shops, eating houses, refreshment rooms, and grocers’ shops have never travelled in Europe, and do not know—since they do not choose to believe —the incontrovertible fact so often repeated, that wine drinking countries are invariably sober countries. Drunkenness is so rare in France as to be curious, and in Italy it is almost positively non-existent. The same may be said of Spain and Portugal, though the majority of the wines there are of a heavier nature than those of France or Italy, even before they are fortified for the British consumer. Most excellent New Zealand claret can now be obtained, and within a year or so the extensive vineries now being laid down all over the colony, but especially in the Kaipara district, will pour thousands upon thousands of gallons of light character wines on the market. The temperance party will have thus placed before them a work of much usefulness, and which will. conduce immensely to the national sobriety of this colony. Let them see that the wines sent down pure from the grower remain pure, that they are not doctored and fortified with ‘distiller’s spirit’ and flavouring essences. At present many of the so-called New Zealand wines are little better than poison. The juice of one class of grape alone is made by doctoring to produce port, sherry, reisling, claret, hock, Tokay, frontignae. or any sort of beverage you may please to call for. The temperance party should make this sort of thing—which prevails largely—impossible. If they did this, nnd made it possible to obtain a light, cooling, yet slightly stimulating and cheering beverage, at a nominal price, they would not merely

notice a decrease in the number of ‘drunks,’ but a very material alteration in the appearance of the rising generation—the sallow, dry, yellowy skin, the pimply, blotchy complexions which disfigure so many would disappear with the tea demon, and the result of moderation in everything be seen in elear complexion's, glowing health, and increased mental activity.

On a recent trip of a coastal steamer (relates a Bay of Plenty paper) a dog jumped overboard. The owner called out ‘Man overboard.’ The worthy captain stopped the steamer, manned and lowered the life-boat; the crew, equally as humane as the captain, pulled as hard as their brawny arms would allow them towards the dark object struggling in the wafer. It is said that when the boat returned to the steamer, and the crew gravely assisted the dog on board, the captain made certain observations which were painful and frequent. + + +

The story of a Justice of the Peace, who, sitting on the bench for the first time, felt his incompetency owing to his lack of knowledge of what was required of him, was well told by Mr J. Hutcheson, M.H.R., in his address last week. Aided by the Clerk of the Court, the Justice in question passed sentence on an unfortunate dipsomaniac. But afterwards he wrote to the Justice Department applying for a copy of the Justice of the Peace Act ami any other matter which would give him a rudimentary knowledge of his important duties. But he received a reply stating that he could, on application to the 'Government Printer, obtain what he desired for 15/! Here Mr Hutcheson accidentally let fall that he was the J.P. in question. His first impulse was to at once resign that position; but he pondered for a few days. Then he sent, in his resignation as a protest against the haphazard way of doing things, and not giving Justices an opportunity of making themselves to some extent at least fitted for their position. ‘But the Minister suppressed that resignation—it has not been gazetted —and now I don’t know whether I am fish, flesh, or good red herring.’ That, was a about a week after his return to Parliament, so that it would be seen that he began ‘kicking early.’ But his action had one good result, for now every Justice of the Peace is supplied with a copy of Mr Haselden’s book specially compiled for their guidance. (Applause.)

Common assault is always a rather expensive mode of taking it. out of some one who has exasperated you, and if you proceed to the assault in a somewhat, unusual manner you have generally to pay for it rather severely. For instance, in Gore the other day, Mr J. W. Poynton gave judgment in a peculiar assault case. It was a claim for .£2OO damages by Winifred Healy against W. Y. Perry, hotelkeeper, of Winton. Plaintiff' said defendant interfered during a verbal altercation butween her and the defendant’s wife, and assaulted her ‘in the way he would punish a child.’ ‘Although 1 cannot, find that the assault, caused serious or permanent injuries, and although the defendant must have been exasperated by the plaintiff's remarks to his wife,’ said the Magistrate, ‘I think substantial damages must be given against him on account of the sex of the plaintiff, the indignity to which she was subjected, and the relationship of master and servant, then existing. Judgment will be for £55 and costs.’ Perhaps the writer is very wicked, but though the whole matter was very wrong, it must also have been very funny. The Magistrate's speech and the careful way the exact, nature of the assault is wrapped up is worthy of preservation. ‘The way he would punish a child’ is decidedly good. ♦ + +

There is no doubt that in his official jteregri nations through the colony, the Governor kept his eyes and ears extremely wide open, and that it was a very trivial detail that escaped his attention. 1 notice for instance, that as a direct result, of his visit to the Thames, and an inspection of the Gid Men's Home at Tararu, there has been an official enquiry into the affairs of that institution. It would appear that in showing His Excellency round,

the caretaker of the Home mentioned casually in answer to queries that the inmates of the Home who worked in the garden received ‘two cuts of bread a day,’ and an extra allowance of tobacco, while those who did no outside work were only allowed ‘a cut of bread and a half a day.’ The fact struck the Governor strongly and (naturally) unfavourably, and he stated to the Mayor his opinion that any inmate of the Home, whether he worked or not, should not receive more food than another, and that there should be no restriction whatever in this respect. He was certainly of opinion that while there might with propriety be some restriction as regards the supply of tobacco, there should be none with food, as every inmate should receive as much as he required. A criticism of this sort from so exalted a personage naturally resulted in an enquiry. This took place last week. The Mayor of the Thames echoed the sentiments of the Governor, and so did everyone else. The cook of the institution and several of the inmates were called in and examined, when the fact was elicited that although the Committee had regularly visited the institution every month in company with the Chairman, no complaints whatever had been made, the whole of the inmates being apparently quite satisfied. The only grievance, it appeared, was that one or two of the old people had lately complained of the insufficiency of the butter upon their bread, and also that sometimes the latter was stale. The majority, however, expressed themselves as being thoroughly satisfied with the treatment they received, while both the caretaker and the cook explained that the only time the bread was stale was upon Mondays, as of course that left on Saturdays had to be used. Evidently, the inmates are not badly dealt with, but. the alacrity of the Governor in dropping on the one weak point is worthy of notice as showing how real is his interest in even petty details of the social life of the colony, and how ready he was to notice the possibility of an abuse. Few colonies have, we believe, so ‘Jive’ and so valuable a Governor. ♦ + 4> Why not have aviaries in our public gardens for the exhibition of our beautiful New Zealand birds? The question is again being ventilated down South. Editor Jones, M.L.C., remarks truly that the idea is so admirable that it should commend itself to the public. Yet we are all so busy that the best and wisest suggestions frequently escape our notice, and the suggestion about an aviary had almost

met with that fate. However, he says we have rescued it from oblivion, and would be glad to learn what those who understand the subject have to say in regard to it. It seems to us that an aviary in our public gardens would be advantageous in several respects. It would be pleasant to all to see and hear the birds; it would be a means of education and of inducing thought and appreciation of the beautiful; it would enable the authorities to protect from utter destruction the native birds, which our colonising processes are depriving of their natural retreats. The cutting down of the forests and undergrowths and poisoning operations have visibly diminished the number of both native and imported birds, and, if aviaries were established in convenient places, those birds which it is deemed desirable to preserve could be protected. At present the Herodian policy of universal poisoning kills the innocent benefactors with the guilty depredators. In all of this the ‘Graphic’ cordially agrees. The aviaries at the Botanical Gardens in Sydney are always attractive, and why should we not go one better than Sydney?