Topics of the Week.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXVII, Issue XXI, 23 November 1901, Page 973

Topics of the Week.

Sir Hector’s Mission.

Why did Sir Hector Macdonald come to New Zealand? I cannot believe it was merely for a pleasure trip, that before lie had been a few days back from the war in Great Britain, he should have packed his portmanteau and sailed for Australasian waters. His own Scotland had claims on him before this part of the world, and had inclination determined his movements the natural place to have found him would have been his native heath. Jt seems a much more reasonable presumption to hold that he came here at the call of duty, not of pleasure, and under direct orders of some kind from tthe Home authorities. Now, what were, these orders? Did our martial ardour need stimulating;? The seven contingents, our contribution to the war, is an answer enough to that. Was he sent to examine enr preparedness for war? His remarks before leaving Auckland might be construed in that way, but then he did not give himself the time, and moreover it was not altogether in his line to determine such matters. The most likely suggestion is that gallant Mac., if he came on business at all, came to have a look at our raw material. Australasia’s South Afric.n contingents were good, very good, but how were the authorities to k "W

whether in spirit and physique they did not represent the choice samples ? Had we much more of the same sort of thing, and how much? were the questions. And who so well fitted to judge our true capacity in that respect—better fitted than we ourselves—than Fighting Mac., the general who had been a ranker, and who knew she army not merely as a machine, but as an aggregation of human individualities? Here was the man, the very man for the work; a man who came and went most unostentatiously, who required no elaborate examination to tell him what he wanted to know, but at a glance could find his facts. In his rapid passage through Australasia where he mingled with the people as no other army celebrity could have done, the gallant General proba ly got the hang of things military, and our true fighting potentialities better than any one else would have done. And whether he came for that, purpose or not. we are pretty safe in believing that if the Home authorities want to learn more about u they have in Sir Hector the man who can tell them.

City v. Country.

The management of the Auckland Agricultural Show, which took place last week, made a concession to the non-agricultural portion of their patrons by giving on both days of the exhibition the riding, jumping and driving competitions, which have formerly been confined to one. This new arrangement is equivalent to a confession on the part of the management that the public as a ride, that is to say the city-bred publie, are not interested in monster bullocks, milch cows, fat sheep and pigs infinitely more prepared to die from the butcher's point of view than the most blameless among us can pretend to be. The eity folks do not take that absorbing pleasure in the contemplation of the peaceful, eyed kine as the countrymen one sees lingering lovingly at one pen after another, as he slowly makes his way along the line. . All cows are very much alike to them, and the distinctive merits of the Berkshire or the Yorkshire porker are lost on them. It seems in a way a mistake for the country to hold these exhibitions in town, seeing the unappreciative character of town patrons. But I suppose it is chiefly on account of the central advantages which the city affords that it is chosen. All roads lead to the city, and it is the most convenient place for the country to congregate in on such occasions. The popularity of the Agricultural Show is said to be waning in Great Britain. That, I fancy, ,> s due t° the decline of interest in matters agricultural among

the community which every day becomes more and more a purely manufacturing and industrial one. The cities continue to absorb the country population, and while the first generation of boys and girls who leave the farm for the factory, and counting house may still visit an agricultural show for the sake of the pleasant memories it recalls, their children, and still more, their children’s children, will probably find a music hall much more to their taste, and racy snatches of popular songs more melodious than the mellow low of kine. To these town dwellers the fresh country and its pleasures are unknown. But it would be absurd to expect the same sort of thing in an infant colony like this, where for years and generations to come the country and not the town must be the predominant partner here. We. town folk make a mistake to get out of touch with the country thus early. One of the daily papers has taken the occasion of the show to sound a warning note in this matter, and it is a text on which we cannot keep harping too long or too loud. This is an agricultural and pastoral community, and the cities which have grown so marvellously need not think that they are the colony. As town dwellers, let us recognise that if the future of New Zealand is to be great it can only be the country that makes it so, Lind if our descendants are to be associated in that future we should be careful to turn the thoughts of our sons in the direction of the farm.

The Latin Faith.

The declaration of the Chief inspector of Schools that “Latin might with great advantage be entirely withdrawn from the course of study that ministers to a modern liberal education” will be received with general satisfaction by that section of the community—a small one in the colony —which is condemned to hard labour among the dry bones of that dead language. What would we in our youthful days have thought of an inspect or w ho ventured such scholastic heterodoxy? If w? could have credited his sanity, and. even if we could not, he would have been hailed as a sort of grammar school Messiah. 1 am speaking of that period in the school course when Latin is indeed a dead tongue to its youthful students —a period from which I fear very few of them ever emerge—ami when it is impossible for them to conceive that a people ever lived who could find pleasure in discoursing in such an intricate lingo. We know now that as a fact they did: nay more, some among us who have forgotten the declensions can wax quire eloquent on the beauties of the Latin tongue and the overwhelming advantages of a classical education. When the Chief Inspector’s suggestion to sweep away Latin and substitute French in its place in the high schools came before the Auckland Education Board the. other day one of the members exclaimed, “I believe in Latin.’ a confession of faith which a second member piously repeated. Perhaps these gentlemen were entirely sincere. but yet that "I believe in Latin” has been so long an article of the educational creed that, like some of the. articles in the Church's creed, we have got into the habit of repeating it parrot-wise without thinking what we are saying. How many a devout believer in Latin has one mot who had as much knowledge of either the letter or the spirit of the tongue as be had of Sanscrit ? But it had been his father’s creed before him, and he had inherited it with the family patrimony as so many. alas. inherit, not merely their religious beliefs. Nine-tenths of those who tell you they believe iu Latin could not construe a Latin sentence to save their lives; and’surely this without works, is dead. How long are wo to perpetuate this humbug? Let us bo honest. Let each man a<k himself

what use he has inaxle of the pain-* fully acquired smattering of Isvtin he carried away from school. 1/ct him test the value of it at the next l«atin quotation he comes across, and 1 question whether there are five per cent, who can conscientiously say they yet have some tangible result of all their long study to show. If they had been taught Latin to a purpose the position would be entirely different. but since they were not, and their children are not likely to be any better off. don't you think the fnsj>ector's suggestion to substitute Erench might be worth acting on? I don’t suppose that even when the latter language receives the place of honour hitherto held sacred to Latin the immediate result wall be a race of schoolboys chattering French with the ease of a Paris gamin, hot, as a. writer in the ‘’Star’’ points out. the chances in favour of the study of French as against Latin being continued so as to be of adual educational and practical use to the pupil are enormous. , o o o o °

The War Holocaust.

A Paris correspondent of one of the Home dailies has taken the trouble to compile from the French journal, "La Patrie.” its statistics on the Boer war for the last two years. If only the readers of the paper had gone to the same labour the result could hardly have failed to shake the confidence of ’the greatest Anglophobist among them in Ihe representations of the Paris press. The “Patrie” reported in its columns J lOl battles. Examining the accounts of these conflicts one by one, ami adding up the totals, our investigator found that according to ‘‘La Patrie’’ 204 Boer officers and men lost their Ihes in the engagements, while 317 were captured. On the other hand the total British loss was: killed. 3,189.180 men, including (>O,OOO officers; ami captured 190,000 men ami 8000 officers, h’or The 2160 guns we lost we had only 14 Boer weapons to show, iiml against 7 decisive victories to our credit we’ tiad to enter 1094 crushing defeats. No Boer generals were killed by “La Patrie,” but Ihe journal sacrificed 71 British of that rank, ami with a. refinement of hate despatched five of them three times, and one. General Methuen, seven times. General KellyKenny had innumerable horses shot under him, and three heads shot off him; and Lord Koberts left behind him five legs and nine right arms. Obviously, therefore, the latter was only a travelling trunk when he departed by steamer from the ('ape. ’This is a sample of the journalism on which the I'reneh people feed. Is it a wonder that Kruger's emissaries should meet with sympathy ami financial support if the French newspapers support their falsehood*- in that fashion? Surely the Boers would be a race of heroes indeed according to these figures. Beside them how modest appears Lord Kitchener’s weekly report, with its paltry hundred Boers placed hors de combat. The heaviest item he has to show is cattle iiml horses, and though t he« are so considerable as to make us sotm times suspect that the same animals have been captured twice over, the numbers in the aggregate can hardly be up to the "Patrie's” estimate of British dead, which has converted South \lriea into a charnel house, and may be said to have already given permanent occupation of the country to the hated Briton. Colonia! journals are not free from error, and the obscurity of the war cables leads to ns many errors as the perfunctory typesetter <»r the gamesome linotype. but they escape the deliberate falsifications: of the editor's desk, and mete out a rough justice to foe as well as friend. O O V o o

A Husband Trust.

The latest development of hr syndicate is the husband trust, and it belongs to that home of trusts, America. The fertile brain of the New Jersey girl originated the idea, which is simply a spinster combine for tl.r purpose of effecting t hr marriage » f its members. H is hardly necessary to say that the trust is a «rrret one. or as much secret as a feminine organisation could be. 1 don’t mean n nasty hit by that. for. ik a fart, io be successful, the trust’s object* ih.im be

kept dark. Men may be simple creatures as a rule, but matrimonially speaking they are not to be caught without careful stalking. The trust lias a club, ostensibly a ladies’ club, for the social intercourse of its members, and to this chib the unsuspecting man is introduced. He goes once and likes it. He goes twice; he goes thrice; and then probably he finds himself taking a more particular interest in one of the ladies. But, as we all know, that phase may be a very' long way off proposal. Don't we know how young men are always taking a particular interest in some girl, enough to awaken great expectations in her fluttering heart, and it all comes to nothing. Now it is just here where the trust comes in and saves the situation. The young man is given to understand, in a proper, decent sort of way. of course', that, could not possibly wound his feelings, that on his actually marrying the club will make it its business to assist him in buying clocks, pianos, carpets, babycarriages, sideboards, and so forth. With such before his eyes it is useless for him to plead the common excuse that he is not in a position to wed, and the usual result is that he finds himself married before he has altogether grasped the situation. I have always been disposed to look upon women’s clubs as entirely unnecessary- things. There was no sufficient, raison d’etre for them. But an organisation of this kind is not open to that objection, and I don’t see why the American originator should not have imitators. The principles of the “combine” are—up to a certain point, of course —as applicable to the matrimonial market as to the Stock exchange, or railways, or mines, and should prove as successful in the one as in the others, provided, of course, the ladies are prepared to hold fast by these principles. The members of the syndicate must be absolutely loyal to one another, and there must be no envy and jealousy- on the part of those who don’t go off quickly towards those who do. It must be a case of backing the favourite right up to the winning post. And she, in return, when she leaves the course

to take her ease in the meadows of matrimony, will not be so ungrateful as to forget her stable mates. As a matron there are hundreds of ways in which she can help the spinster cause, and there is no reason why’, after marriage, she should not continue a working member of the trust. o o o o o

Behind the Veil.

Paris has condemned the veil. Tn the very temple of fashion itself sentence has been passed on the thing by the health authorities, who, I understand, are disposed to enforce obedience to their ruling that the veil must go. The crusade is not a new one. Doctors have long cried out against those dotted absurdities with which ladies adorn or conceal their faces. We have been told time and again that to walk down the street with an assortment of black spots shifting hither and thither before your eyes is to invite all sorts of maladies to these- organs, and, in short, to court blindness, or, at least, a squint. To this objection the Paris health authorities have added another against the veil. It is pointed out that in its minute meshes noxious germs—our old enemy- the deadly microbe again—get entangled and remain there until the fair wearer all unconsciously inhales them into her system. These are arguments against the veil which probably' count little, however, with the average female. She who risks curvature of the spine by wearing high-heeled boots, and ruthlessly displaces half of her internal organs by- painfully tight-lacing herself is not likely to discard so small a wish of her apparel as a veil, though it is proved to be the direct cause of blindness and the indirect cause of a score of diseases if she thinks she looks well in it. Unless she can be persuaded that her personal appearance s.lifers by' tne use she does not trouble aiiout her health. And it would be hard to say' that in many, cases the charm of a feminine face is not greatly- enhanced by' the gossamer which conceals natural de-

fects, softens artificial touches, and gives a misty indefiniteness to the countenance that leaves the romantic male mind to imagine beauties where all is plain enough. But just on the ground that it lends itself to deception quite as much as for hygienic reasons man would like to see the veil done away with. What mortal male is there who at some period of his life has not known bitter disappointment on account of a veiled lady? Innumerable are the veiled faces one sees and pronounces charming, only to discover when the gossamer is removed that they are commonplace, and probably ugly. A further inconvenience which results from veilwearing is the fact that it adds enormously to the difficulty of recognising the wearer—a difficulty already sufficiently great from the varied head-gear that ladies affect. It might influence the fair sex in the right direction to know that men look with no partial eye on the veil. They are beginning to understand its deceptive character and suspect the lady who does not show her face to the world. I believe in the East it is the custom among certain peoples tor the bride not to reveal her visage to her husband till after the marriage knot is actually tied. Were this pig- in a poke sort of arrangement’ —- pardon the metaphor, ladies —admissible here a good many- Western women would not linger so long in the matrimonial mart; for the veil, as w<e know it, is capable of effecting greater transformations than the Eastern covering, which merely conceals. But, as no man in his senses marries a woman for how she looks when she has a veil on. it is probably- waste of labour on the part of husband-seekers to adopt the device.