Topics of the Week.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXV, Issue XX, 17 November 1900, Page 914

Topics of the Week.

k Jockey’s Life. A sensational event of last week—fortunately act attended with such fatal results as was at first feared, will perhaps cause the public to reflect that despite current fiction a jockey’s life is not by any means all "beer and skittles.” In New Zealand, at all events, there are no such magnificent doceurs, presents, and retainers as make a fashionable jockey at Home a financial magnate —in fact; I believe that few men in this colony work harder for their living than some of our leading professional riders. No doubt the occurrence to which 1 refer—when a well-known and popular jockey attempted his town life—was the direct result of the frightful depression which must attend on extremely severe wasting. Poor Fred Archer, as we all know, used to suffer the ghastliest of physical and mental tortures owing to the outrageous severity of wasting treatment to which he had time after time to submit himself during his eareer, and in a moment of delirium he ended a life which to hundreds of thousands must have seemed mare to lie desired than that of any nobleman of the Empire. With a train of jcourtieiß not exceeded by an oldtime monarch, with a prince’s income, and with a popularity’ and fame statesmen sigh in vain for, Fred Archer’s life, “on paper” (as they say in the language of the turf) looked “the best of good things,” yet taking his sufferings into account, his perpetual and maddening dyspepsia, and the horrible melancholia, which rendered his later years miserable, what was the worth of the money he could not enjoy, the position gained at such painful loss, or the popularity with which he was surfeited? But apart from the suffering by wasting, the absolute work of a, jockey in riding is little understood by the public. In a steeplechase, or even worse, a hurdle race, the jockey, all ean plainly see, takes his life in his hands, but most of us fail to realise how much a flat race may take out of a man in a big race. It looks so easy from the stand, but time after time at Ellerslie or Riccarton, or any other racecourse, you may see men in the last stage of physical exhaustion after a big struggle. Nor, as we ktiow' from many a •sad fatality, is the risk to life and limb by any means light in flat racing. The smallest mistake, and a.n accident may occur which will mutilate or terminate the career of half a dozen horses and riders. The general tendency, therefore, to look upon jockey's as people who make their money with absurd ease is scarcely justified. Like many another profession, the only side the public see—or care to see— is the bright side. Salvation Army Self-Denial. Close on thirty thousand pounds the result of the Salvation Army selfdenial movement for the colonies alone. The figure is enormous, considering the multitudinous calls on public charity and benevolence, and it shows, I think, that a certain amount of more or less good-humour-ed “chaff” notwithstanding, the publie are quick to recognise that the Salvation Army has done and continues to do a great and useful work, a work which no other religious organisation has ever done half so effectually, a work which few of them could with wisdom imitate. Most of us have at times felt a certain irritation at their methods, and it must be admitted that an excess of zeal on the part of the Army not infrequently leads to an abuse of the ordinary rights of citizenship. Even religion, and the highest of motives do not justify a man or a body in making themselves a general nuisance. But, much as we may be offeuded on occasion, w? tolerate from the Salvation Army deeds and means, whose existence we should not for a moment allow had we not such absolute faith in its bona-fides. Even in this case of the £30,000 for self-denial. The greater proportion of that , large sum has come from the pockets of people in no way connected with the Army, ft has been subscribed entirely in small sums, mainly by people who af-

feet to scoff at the Army, but who, if asked a straight question, will admit the service it has rendered to the community, and who thus practically demonstrate their true belief and their trust. The figures making up the total are not without interest. New Zealand is easily first with £8740, and of this sum Auckland was the heaviest subscriber with £2732, Wellington following with £2368, Dunedin with. £2320, and Christchurch £l4OO. New South Wales follows New Zealand with £5930, and Victoria comes after with £5154; Queensland, South Australia, West Australia and Tasmania following in that order. One cannot but wonder if the large amount subscribed by New Zealand is due to greater piety or to increasing prosperity, but in any case there is cause for congratulation. Auckland, too, is either obviously more generous or has more to be generous on than Southern cities. The comparative smallness of the Christchurch collection is somewhat astonishing, but is, perhaps, accounted for by the fact that it is perhaps the most severely Anglican of all the cities of New Zealand, and it is notorious that the undenominational bodies have ever been far less prejudiced against the Salvation Army than the Anglicans. The secret of their success is in their appeal to the most primitive of impulses and emotions. Having done wrong, it is pleasant, more or less, to confess to the same, especially when confession instead of revilings brings a joyful remission of prospective pains and penalties. No doubt, many who repent and reform in haste backslide at leisure, but a certain percentage are “permanent cures,” if one may so phrase it. And even in the other case it is surely well to reclaim a man or woman from viee for even a fractional portion of life rather than not at all. Precisely how the money is spent and controlled I do not know, but believe it is handed honestly, and, this being so, and the value of the work done so unquestioned, I can only hope that next year the sum collected will reach the fiftieth thousand. The Real Conquest of Chir a. M. de Bloch, in a recent article in the “Revue de Revues,” endeavours to show the unpromising character of China as a market for European productions. The Chinese need very little, and from their conservative nature he does not anticipate, they will develop new wants that Europe can supply for many years to come. This condition of things he attributes to the low’ status of women in the Celestial Empire. “Place the women of other nations in the same position as Chiuese women,” says he, “and it will be at once seen that commercial activity is reduced one-half.” It seems that the ladies of China, unlike their European sisters, have no weakness for variety in dress, or for personal or household adornment generally. The same simple cut of garment that served their ancestors thousands of years ago is a la mode to-day, so that if a fabric is only tough enough a lady may go attired in her great grandmother’s frock without being considered a guy. In their dwellings the furnishings are apparently of the simplest kind, and when a Chinese household has got its few necessaries it never seems to occur to these Celestial housewives to add things for appearance sake. No doubt from the point of view of the European, in search of a market this absurd simplicity is to be severely condemned, but. one cannot help thinking it must add greatly to domestic felicity in China There the seasons bring no extravagant demands on the husband’s purse. That multum in parvo, the Bummer bonnet, is unknown, and the cold of winter is not made more, unbearable to the poor man by petitions for fur-lined cloaks. In the furnishing of their households there is no lavish bedeckings and no foolish emulation among the Chinese matrons. Mrs Lu Chee does not covet Mrs Hsu Ting’s pink silk curtains nor the Chesterfield in her drawing-room. There is no piling Pelions of furniture on Ossas of Turkey carpet. And this is the ideal state which the

Powers would do away with. We forced opium on the Chinese; in the same way it is now meant to force on them the frivolities of Paris and a passion for Chippendale, velvet pile, rugs, and all the rest of it. That, indeed, will be the real conquest of China, when Europe has developed a taste for all her fineries in the hearts of half the population of the vast Empire. The thing is not to be achieved by force of arms. Rather is it to be accomplished by missionary enterprise on new lines. The Chinese ladies must be won over to the faith that is in Regent Street or the Rue de Rivoli. To win over the Chinese male population is probably an impossibility. We know how conservative the average European man is in regard to dress, and how comparatively careless in respect to his own and his household’s adornment. As the embodiment of conservatism the Chinaman is bound to be still harder to deal with. But his conversion is not necessary. If his womenkind can be secured, the rest is easy. Of course, there is not a little danger in regard to that first step. This introduction of heretical notions into the bosom of the national family life, and breeding of discord there, may cause a social upheaval in the Empire beside which the Boxer rising would be but a triiie. 0 0 0-00 As Others See Us. It may be a good thing to be able to see ourselves as others see us, but that is always premising that they do not miss-see us. The judgment of our neighbours on us is just as liable to be incorrect as the opinion we have of ourselves, unless the neighbour brings a better and less prejudiced mind to his task. To the eye of a writer in Le Matin, a well known Parisian journal, the colonial troops in South Africa are the scum of mankind and robbers of the worst sort, particularly the Australians. It could scarcely profit us to accept that view of the colonials, which is so ludicrously false as to be scarcely worth noticing. I notice it merely as an instance of how opinion is formed in the French capital. The irresponsible journalist of the Matin had set- himself to write an article, and he meant that it should have come snap in it if possible. Probably he had exhausted all his vocabulary of denunciation on the British people in former articles, and he was at a loss for something fresh to say. Then the brilliant thought struck him, “Why not go for the colonials, those oversea Englishmen who speak of upholding the glory of that hateful Empire?” No sooner thought than done. The British were bad, but their colonial progeny of whom they were so proud were ten times worse. Instead of redeeming the wickedness of perfidious Albion they accentuated it. And the Australians whose nation building has been flaunted in the eyes of Europe —well, what could you expect of a nation whose soldiers were robbers of the worst sort? To the French, acutely conscious that their own great attempts at colonising have been a failure though they entered the field as early as ourselves, it must be galling to behold the magnificent evolution of Britain’s Colonial Empire, the independencies waxing great and populous, and the vast confederations taking form. There is no denying the evidence of these facts or shutting one’s eyes to their significance. The Frenchman discerns plainly the meaning of all that successful expansion and ever growing unity. Nothing apparently can stem that material progress. But what after allis material progress if the personnel of the state is rotten? What are those colonies, what the great confederation of Australia if their people are allied to the scum of mankind and robbers of the worst sort ? I can fancy this description of the colonial troops having immense vogue on the boulevards. Those boasted colonials! Pshaw! mere canaille! Doubtless there is some satisfaction in such a view, and the average Anglophobist in France with his very elementary ideas of anything beyond France will accept the dictum of the Matin and repeat it with relish. So in Paris, at least, our troops,and we through them, may achieve a reputation quite other ’ from that the colonial has made for himself in the Empire. Well, it may keep us from becoming inordinately conceited.

McKinley or Bryan. We are not really eery ranch concerned in American polities, and the Presidential elections which took piece in the greet Republic last week interest ns more as a spectacle than as a*i event whose issue can affect us. The general attitude of the United States to Great Britain is not determined by the political colour of the President, and there is much the same chance of their policy being friendly to the Empire whether it is McKinley or Bryan who occupies the Presidential chair. The pro-Boer and antiBritish cries were for the most part merely election dodges got up to capture votes. It does not follow that if Mr Bryan had got into the saddle he would have in any degree justified the hopes so assiduously fostered in the breasts of the Irish and foreign element of the population that is hostile to Great Britain. Likewise, it is possible to attach too great importance to the anti-imperial policy which Bryan affects. Our interest in the struggle has mainly to do with it as a spectacle of popular feeling of Which there, is nothing similar to show in any English speaking community. We are always disposed to regard the citizens of the United States as sharing the great national characteristics of the Anglo-Saxon race. The average American one meets with is very much alike in his ways to the average Briton, and we expect that what refers to the individual will hold good in the case of the people as a whole. Not that we forget the differentiating influence of climate, country and outward circumstances, as well as the admixture of other European blood with the first pure stock. But it is difficult for us to conceive that any ordinary influence can change the virtue of the original type, and as for the alien element in the Republic it is rather curious how one assumjes that it has became absorbed by the Anglo-Saxon, and its objectionable features have disappeared in the process. The scenes witnessed at the polling places in the States last week scarcely bear out our assumption. It only requires the arousing of the temper of those millions to red heat, and the difference between them as a nation and the British as a nation becomes apparent. Then the dangerous flaws stand revealed. How utterly unEnglish are the incidents which marked the elections or the sentiments that inspired the contest among large masses of the people. The insolent tyranny of Tammany Hall, having for its tool the chief of the New York police, and using the constituted forces of order and government to assist gross dishonesty and corruption, the flagrant abuse of authority for party purposes in other places, the riot, the deliberate resort to arrnjs, the civil war and murder—these are the features in the great election which mark a big difference between our British methods and those of the Republic. Much more full of meaning than any question of silver or gold currency, Imperial expansion or stay at home policy, is the existence of this lawless spirit in the population as evinced on these recent occasions. What does it mean and what does it presage in the future? To me it seems very ominous, although I am aware 'that the Americans themselves treat it very casually. o o O O o Above Grammar. “Grammar,”’ said Moliere, “knows how to lord it even over kings,” but had he lived in New Zealand to-day, he would have felt compelled to add “but not over the Hokitika Court.” The other day when a case was being argued there one of the lawyers took occasion to poke fun at his opponent’s grammar. The august Bench felt the remarks as having an application to himself, it would almost seem, for he irately rebuked the first lawyer. “Mr Parkins,” said he, “addressing that gentleman, “if you are one of them what thinks grammar runs this Court you are barking up a wrong tree. If I hear any more such remarks I’ll fine you five pounds.” This reminds one of the famous story of Kaiser Sigismund, who, when he was reminded at the Council of Constance that he had been guilty of using a wrong gender, exclaimed, “I am King of the Romans, and above grammar.” Mere politeness as a rule ensures what the Hokitika justice would have effected

if necessary by a fine — a courteous disregard, namely of the grammatical blunders of our neighbour. Who is there so cruel as to look too critically on his friend’s syntax, far less to point out his blunders ? We agree to shut our eyes to them. Similarly he is a rude fellow who would pointedly take exception to another’s pronunciation. Some, indeed, are so keenly anxious to avoid giving offence to the mispronouncer that they will actually adopt for the time his form of the word rather than seem to notice his error by pronouncing the word aright. I know w gentleman whose singularly genial disposition led him to play fast and loose with the aspirate if he happened to meet anyone who was not always sure of his aitehes. That perhaps was carrying courtesy a trifle too far. And indeed a good deal might be said against the common politeness that refrains from correcting a man's grammatical slips. Might it not be kinder to set his feet more securely on the slippery paths of syntax so that on future occasions he might not fall when his fall would perhaps excite ridicule ? It may be that a sense of our own deficiencies in the same direction keeps us from picking noles in the conversation of our neighbours, for even where folks are not uneducated they are careless speakers, and slips in "grammar are of everyday occurrence. In the matter of pronunciation there is better reason still for holding our tongues when someone puts the accent on the syllable of a word that, we have always understood was the non-acceutuated syllable. Beware of rebuking him. Eashions change and authorities differ, and though you may be sure that your way is the right way, and are prepared with half a dozen dictionaries to back you, there is no telling that he may not have behind him an equal, weight of authority. The fact is that there is more than one way of pronouncing many words.

A Satisfactory Bank Holiday. Appetite we all know is a most excellent sauce, and certainly the cold, wet, tempestuous spring we endured must have added an extra zest to our enjoyment of the perfectly glorious weather which prevailed almost everywhere for the recent holiday. Three or four such days make us forget all the disappointments and disagreeables of the past two months or so. With the sun shining as it did on Friday last, with so blue a sky. with so light a breeze, it was impossible to remember seriously that the last sample of “our glorious climate” was the raging of a violent storm of almost blizzard-like coldness, which did almost incalculable damage to the tender young fruit, the rising crops and most of all the tiny young shoots of the sprouting vines, which our experts say play so large a part in the commercial prosperity of this colony. The week end was indeed perfect, and gave one another opportunity for observing that colonials do not take their pleasures sadly, whatever an Englishman’s reputation may be. A brighter, happier set of men and women than one saw (wherever one lived) than those setting forth on excursions, or going in for some other form of pleasure-seeking, on the Prince’s birthday, it would be hard to find. Even the professional racing men, the men in whose faces the lines of so many conflicting passions are so indelibly marked —even these to my fancy seemed softened and brightened by the superlative loveliness of the atmosphere and their surroundings. Truly, however much we may grumble on occasion, and whatever our opinions may be as to our “forty pieces of silver” Legislature, truly one must admit there are few places more delightful than New Zealand as a field on which to play one’s part in the battle of life. The very manner and style in which the masses take a public holiday here is eloquent of the brighter and happier conditions of life which prevail. A bank holiday in England is one of the saddest spectacles, especially in the large cities such as London, Liverpool and Manchester. Capacity for reasonable, clean, intelligent amusement does not exist amongst the “submerged,” or even the average factory hand. Appreciation of beauty is not to be expected from thoae to whom beauty is an unknown quantity, but one is almost disposed to des-air when one sees

what George Gissing aptly describes as the Bank Holiday saturnalia at the Crystal Palace. Excess, drunkenness, inanity reign supreme. True enjoyment, as our people understand it, there is none. Drink is the Sovereign. A feature of our holidays in this colony is essentially in the lack of drunkenness such as you see at Home. The denunciations of intemperate demagogues notwithstanding this is an absolute and positive proof we are not the tippling colony they would make out. It is on a public holiday such a vice, if it exists, shows itself most plainly. Our chief cities always strike me as “show places” for a visitor from London on any Saturday night. The well-dressed, prosperous crowd, the absence of pinching poverty, and the freedom of the streets from drunkenness or any other form of vice, are truly amazing to the Home bird. But even better is a public holiday, and of many fine public holidays I have seen none excel the recent Prince’s birthday.