Topics of the Week.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXIV, Issue XV, 14 April 1900, Page 681

Topics of the Week.

AUCKLAND’S DARK UOUJU

If indeed the darkest hour comes before the dawn, better times must of a surety be in store for poor drought-stricken, dirty, distracted, discredited, and drainless Auckland. Verily, her misery is almost greater than she can bear, her burdens heavier than she can support, and her whole case so parlous that one can but extend to her pity. For years upon years that quaint animal “the average citizen’’ has sat with half-closed eyes, heavy with “laissez faire” and goodnature, regarding with half-amused and sleepy smiles the vagaries of successive City Councils, and their perennial policy of meddle and muddle. Elections have come and gone. They have possessed no interest for the average citizen, who has philosophically remarked that other people should look after such matters, he having no time save for dollar scraping, sleeping, or dram-drinking, according to his individual taste. But on a sudden —after only half a score of years of successive warnings—the average citizen has been roughly and unmannerly awakened, and what is worse, kept awake, and as is usually the case with persons rudely awakened, or kept awake against their inclination, the average citizen is vastly indignant, and (in that he should have been cross thirty years ago), unreasonably cross. For the first time the disadvantages of sleepiness have been brought home to him with some sharpness. For a great part of the twenty-four hours he has no water at all for any purposes whatsoever. For four or five hours of the day he has a strange milky coloured fluid, and for the other eight a water, or fluid, which follows closely the prevailing fad, being of a fine pronounced khaki colour, and of that consistency which led an enthusiastic Irishman to pronounce his beer as meat as well as drink. Moreover, his money-making tastes (which are serious) have been cribbed, cabined, and co-nfined by the inconsiderate cutting off of water for bis lifts, etc. Meanwhile, the stench of his streets has grown more ami more weird, wonderful, and ostentatiously offensive, the disease breeding dust has flown in clouds denser and yer more dense, his attempted loan has proved a dead failure, ami the howl of the drainless is. loud in the hind. Therefore, and because of ail these accumulated aggravations, the average citizen is awake, and being so is obstreperous. There are no limits to his present activity of mind, there is no difficulty, no problem, which his penetration and perspicacity can fail to solve —in theory. The “city is in the deuces own plight,” he will be you, but he is not the man to let it stop there. No, indeed! There is work—or talk —to be done, and he is the man to do it. “Det us then be up and kicking, Those who’ve led us to this fate, Still avenging, still pursuing. Yet strictiy guard the two tob rate.’’ Thus one imagines he may carol c,f a morning as he vainly attempts the matutinal tub in the turgid fluid, which is so humorously termed water in these sad days. And the enthusiasm with which the unhappy Council accepts such kicking and advice would reconcile one to far greater inconveniences than those the citizens have already suffered. 'The harder the kicks the better they like it. Having- ranged themselves in the most tempting postures, they await the onslaught with patience, endure it with equanimity, and having anointed the place with a report, begin again de novo. Reports are what Councillors really hunger for. For them they will do or dare anything, even as will the dipsomaniac for drink. Many people imagined it was a policy of cheese paring, or economy, that led to the abolishment of the office of a. city engineer precisely at the lime when it seemed as if he would be most wanted. Alas! what, innocence. Far from it, mes enfants, but it is obvious if you have a. competent engineer who is willing to do all the work required for a. moderate fixed salary, you cannot, engage expensive experts to furnish special reports, and worse still cannot listen to the profound wisdom of the men in the street, or the pronouncements by the still more sapient person the “Constant Reader” who writes to the correspondence columns. Wherefore, of course, it was necessary to get rid of a troublesome person, who would

have always been in the way with some plan, whose idiotic efficacy would solve the problem out of hand.and left the Councillors with nothing to potter at. For, as everyone knows, to potter is the supremest joy you can give an Auckland City Councillor. That is why he adores reports, for reports mean pottering, and pottering means further reports, whereby as close an approach to perpetual inaction is achieved as the breast of Bumble van desire. The picnic potter for the discovery of a. water supply has perhaps seen its best days, but as an annual or bi-annual outing it had few equals. Still, there is “balm in Gilead,” for cannot a Councillor and an official or so potter most delightfully over the laying down of a pipe service for an auxiliary supply, and even when in the dim and distant future the water supply is fixed up. why there is always a path to be sanded here, or a lamp-post- to be erected there, and it would be a poor Councillor indeed who could nut find a host of material for an infinity of pottering and reports in either. But to drop exaggeration, and speak seriously, the position of Auckland is by no means pleasant for her citizens to contemplate. She is without water, without drains, and her system of refuse removal is a constant menace on public health. Her attempt to raise money for the carrying out of these absolutely necessary reforms failed in an ignominious manner, only a small portion of the £50,000 required iveing tendered for. It is now announced that the money will be used where most urgently req ui red. and this, there is only too much reason to fear, means its being frittered away in drilxblets. Decidedly, it is a da.rk hour for Auckland. Perhaps, therefore, the on? before the dawn. Anyway, all her friends will so pray. ® ® ®

A BLANK YEAR. M. Borchgrevinck. of the Antarctic Expedition, who paid a flying visit to the Bluff the other day, when en route to England from the polar regions, bad exciting news to bear, as well as to tell. 1 think I would envy him his ears more than his tongue, even had the latter not been tied for the time by agreement with his publishers, b or., though it is doubtless ver\ pleasant Io recount strange adventures of which one has been the hero, it is questionable whether there is not a greater pleasure still in regaining, after a long absence, the full current of civilisation and hearing- all (hat has occurred while you were away. To come back again from those terrible polar solitudes and silences and to list once more to 1 he busy voices oi the world, with its myriad actions ami its myriad interests, is comparable Io nothing - so much as to arising from the dead. The charm of such a reentry into life has always appealed to mankind, as witness the popularity of tales of the Sleeping Beauty ami Kip Van Winkle type. 'Things moved much more slowly, however, in the world of their day than they do al present, ami the sleepers had to be allowed to sleep many decades in ordvj to give lime for 1 hr great changes to occur which were to bewilder them when they regained consciousness. Bui one short year sufliers now to raise a crop of fresh manels in the fertile soil of the nineteenth century and if you only retire for eighteen months or so beyond earshot of the world’s highways you can promise 1 hat a wonderful store* of surprise will be waiting for you when yon return. M. Borehgrevinck and his companions only left the world for a year, but in that short lime they, in a way, realised what it is “To sleep through terms of ndghty wars And wake on science grown to more To secrets of the brain, the stars, As wild as aiifcht of fairy lore.’’ What is described as one of the most noteworthy experiences of the party is their feeling, when, on arrival at Stewart Island, liny heard 1 he news of 11n* world. In this tired age, when many are almost kept alive by tin* shock of novel sensations in succession, it might be a decided boon if there were some corner of tin* world where the telegraph ami post are unknown, hedged round from every flying fact and rumour, cut off in effect from tin* planet as tin* moon is in reality from 1 he earth. There one could betake himself and, enduring

the solitudes and the society of linnself for a year or two, come lutck <u»d drink, in one huge draught, the concentrated accomplishment of the hurrying world. The absence would need not to be a very long one, or the effect on the returned recluse might be actually dangerous. No one who daily watches the papers of the world can pretend to anything but a very superficial knowledge of it. How. then would it fare with the individual who lost entirely touch with civilisation for five or ten years? Could he stand the strain put* on his faculties by the recital of what had taken place while he was away? Could his memory grasp, could his imagination realise. could his faith credi* the marvellous achievements of those years, to him so barren and empty? Would he ever catch up with his follows and feel abreast of the time? l T ule.ss one follows the example of M. B<»r«-ligro-vinck and hies him to Antarctic icefields it would he difficult to make the experiment with absolute hope of success. For where, save under the shadow of the poles, does one get beyond tin* hum of (he world? Even Central Africa and desert islands are not sound-proof in that respect. But, as it is obviously impossible for the majority oi us to follow ♦he explorers example, and go South, we must look to science to devise some means by which we can. without undertaking adventurous journeys, rest safely on a shelf in our own homes, lid led to prolonged unconsciousness bv some kind narcotic. ® ® ®

THE MADNESS OF VANITY. The youth Sapido. who at tempted the life, of the Prince of Wales at Brussels last week, was assuredly neither a Boer nor an anarchist agent, though popular .imagination would love to make him out one or the other, and he Himself, poor wretch, would gladly slake hiis thirst for notoriety by posing as the two in one. Bad as Dr. la*yds may be he was quite innocent of the business I am sure, and though the anarchists have a dangerous fancy for striking at heads which rise very high above the common level to which they would reduce everything, I don’t think the death of the Prince of Wales had been determined on in any of their secret conehvcs. Pernicious literature wroug'ht Sapidos ruin. In Great Britain there is a class of publications which represent (hr deeds of highwaymen in such an alluring light that youthful readers are sometimes le<l to emulate t lie actions of the Knights of the road with unexpectedly unpleasant results to themselves. On the Continent the youthful imagination h;is even a more hurtful diet to fv« <1 on if it feels so disposed. In the anarchist literature of the day murder in high places is glorified as a virtue of the finest character. 'The assailant of His Royal Highness had tilhd his mind with these diabolical doctrines, just as he had -stuffed his pa<*l;rts with the cheerful lit-eiaturr that expounded them. He was in tit humour for slaughter when. 1 he night before the attempted assassination, he attended the proBoer meeting, and what he heard tlierr doubtless gave a tine finish to his blood-thirsty desires, lie went to the conference convinced of his mission to kill. He left it. I presuim*, equally c(Hiv incid that the British w ere a people to be wipt<l off th? face of the earth. 'The contract in its entirety was of course too much for him Io undertake single-handed, but lie could do his little best. AVe may he sure that that morbid brain burned with the sense of his own heroism when he marked the Prince of Wales for his victim. With all the overwhelming vanity and thirst for fame of madmvi of his class, he saw himself the idci of the hour the champion of Europe, maybe, for who knows what wild ideas may not hive posse* svd hie diseased imagination. It is pretty certain that the anti-Brit ish vapourings of the continental press gave rise in his mind to the most extravagant anticipations of the tumours vvhi- h grateful Europe would l»c>tow on the murderer of the heir apparent to the British throne. He will have plenty of time now to bewail the ing'atitmle of Europe. ® ® ®

THE PATRIOTISM OF ItiNORANCE. II would have been foolish in the Bendigo magistrate to have punished the boys who were charged with insulting behaviour to the German flag flown by the German Club of (he place. Il would have been doubly foolish in the Beilin authorities had they taken any particular notice of

the affair. The boys hauled down the flag in the exuberance of youthful patriotism and evidently confounding the Boers with the Germans. How frequently do you find ignorancr of this kind and a pertervid patriotism together, even among adults. Indeed, the ardour of a good deal of the patriotism now on view is the result of that ignorance. The unthinking of all nations are always the victims of it, and the British are not a whit better than their neighbours. Hatred of foreigners is among these people the invariable complement of love of one's own country. It is inconceivable in their eyes how a true patriot can do anything else than hate a foreigner, and wlien it happens that they have a quarrel with a man of alien nationality their opprobrium is heaped on men of all alien nationalities indiscriminately. The feeling is precisely the satin* as actuated the Bendigo hoys. Boer or German were much the same to them. How very boyish the great majority of us are in that respect. Were it not for our ignorance there would lie a good deal le-s of the patriotism of the common kind abroad. If we knew the foreigner, and he knew us. there would be removed from both sides a thousand misconceptions which form the fertile medium for quarrel and hatred. Almost invariably when t’ne average Englishman comes across the average Frenchman or German, and the two are decent fellows, they get on very well together on the basis of common humanity, and forget for the moment their respective nationalities. But when they get back again into their own national circle they are soon again the slaves of tribal tradition, and ready to disparage, or even villify the foreigner generally. Ihe patriotism that stimulates itself by indulging an unreasonable haired oi foreigners generally is a poor affair. (an it be right to give the name of virtue to a. quality that is so completely opposed to Christian ethics? It is because of the tendency of patriotism to foster unbrotherly feelings between diverse peoples that the Socialists have condemned as a vice of the worst, character what we have regarded as one of the noblest of virtues. But there is an exalted patriotism which, while it makes a man devoted to his native land above all other countries on earth, does not blind his eyes io the good qualities of other nations, or harden his heart against them. That is the patriotism of the wise. ® ® ® THE HABITI AL I .J’NKABD. In a recent divorce case in ( hristehurch. the Chief Justice defined the term habitual drunkard. A precise statement of the conditions under which the term can be justly applied to an individual is rather badly wanted. What between‘the rabid prohibitionists who are disposed to call every man who takes his glass of beer to dinner a habitual drunk, and the constant tippier of sound constitution who can polish off his dozen or more nips a day without feeling inconveni enced. one gets a little confused as to the proper u c e of the epnhet. Io be n habitual drunkard in me severe eyes of the law does not. it appears, require that one should be helplessly or hopelessly inebiiatcd every day or any day of the week. Neither is it necessary that one should be what the policemen call “drunk and incapable." It is enough that your libations, whether small and frequent, or large and not so frequent, are sufficient to derange your health or to interfere with the transaction of your business, or the discharge of your duties. That, briefly, is how the law defines habitual drunkenness. But does it cover all ami every species of the habitual drunkaid'.' 1 am afraid it does not. Our ancestors defined seven distinct stages of ordinary inebriety, and then it was always questionable whether they had exhausted the variety of tin* vice. In the same way the phases of the complaint when habitual are numerous. One frequently comes acro.-s men whose potations are manv and deep, who are patently guilty of excess, who are habitual drunkards in any common acceptation of the term, and yet go on with their business or their pleasure with the average degree of sm*er>-. They would resent the application of the term to themselves, and under the legal definition it would he hard to allix it to mem. But flu* poor wife ami family whose home has lost its native charm, and who have to put up with countless inconveniences and causes of grief, suffer all the same. They are sacrificed to the inadequateness of a definition. Vet how it i> to be made adequate one scarcely sc-<*s.

FAMILY AFFECTION IN THE COLONY.

Jt may be that a certain proportion of exceptions are necessary to prove the rule, but it is none the less amazing that in New Zealand, where family affection is fo pronounced a characteristic of the people, that we should hear with such comparative frequence of cases where the law has to step in to compel sons and daughters in comfortable positions t.o support their father and mother. There has recently been quite a sequence of more or less shocking instances of this sort, including one somewhere down South where the unfilial one remarked airily that he had subscribed so liberally to the Patriotic and “More Men” Funds that the small matter of a starving mother was quite beyond his means. In Auckland during the last few days a case was brought up equally—well, shall I say peculiar—but lacking the saving grace of humour noticeable in that just noticed. The sons were several in number, and all “comfortably off." yet they absolutely refused till compelled by law to subscribe to save their unfortunate mother from being described in the language of the C ourt as “a destitute person." In such a ease there is. of course, no permissible excuse. That set up by the ’’comfortably off" brothers was that the old lady was prone to gambling, and they feared if they gave her money she might devote it to unrighteous purposes. Poor old lady—such shocking bad luck in the matter of those who should have loved her might lead her to tempt fortune in gaming. “Unlucky in love, lucky at play" is an ancient and popular dictum. and the misery of her neglect and destitution might assuredly make the mother ::f these “comfortably off” — ahem. gentlemen - hope that in gambling ventures her luck would be colossal. But even if this were, true, how lame, how admirably characteristic of their type, was the excuse. Was it not possible to have provided stores, house-rent, coals, or the half a dozen necessaries of life which could not be gambled with. One hopes there are few such sons in the world, and few mothers to have to endure the bitterness of their neglect. So far as this colony is concerned, filial obedience* ami regard of rhe old command as to honouring the father and mother arc perhaps not conspicuous characteristics of the people, but the abnormal degree to which family affection is developed in New Zealand is the first thing that strikes those who come here to settle, and every year and every day they live in the colony there seems to arise some new instance of this characteristic to marvel at. In the main I d. not doubt that the extravagant lengths to which family affection and family worship is carried amongst colonial families is for good: but it must be also admitted that it has certain drawbacks and disadvantages. The family, its sayings, its doings, its individually delightful component parts, and its immaculate w hole, is no doubt an ever fresh subject for conversation, but is it not apt. to be narrowing? The custom almost universal amongst married ladies (with mothers living) of spending Holidays. Wednesdays, ami Saturdays with mother, .and hrving dear nr .flier to visit them on Tuesdays, Thursdays. and Sundavs, is so amiable that be would be an unnatural brute wh ' should object, and yet. and yet. has not even so admirable a weakness its dangers? Is it not prone t«» make “the family" semethiug of an idol, to which everything must be sacrificed? Closelv

allied to the colonial habit of family worship is the cat-like affection .we coiouials exhibit for our original place of residence. Englishmen, I . fancy, are far lefcs prone to this virtu?-— for Ido count it a virtue. They are proud of being Londoners or Liverpudlians,

or Manchester men; but if they go away they are not miserable Now, a Wellington man in Auckland can only be compared for discontent to an Auckland man in Wellington, and the same thing holds good of every place in the colony. The trait is a good one, but one would like to see it emerge from the cat-instinct stage to that where our men and women wotdd be willing to do something to prove their affection for their native place. At present there is not much tendency that way in any of our cities. And thus, getting back to the point from which we started, is there not just a danger tb.at some of this family worship is of the cat description, too? If so, it would certainly account for such cases as those to which 1 have alluded. There is often, it seems to me. a lack of willingness for sacrifice for the old people, added to a tendency to make them useful. It should, 1 think, be firmly implanted in every child's mind that just

as for many years his parents, have supported him it is for tile children to make themselves competent to support their parents in old age. It will no doubt be urged that so elementary a law of social ethics is already universally inculcated,. Perhaps it may be. but it occasionally seems evident that the lesson has been very imperfectly learned.