Topics of the Week.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXIX, Issue XI, 13 September 1902, Page 656

Topics of the Week.

Popularising Politics. Our only Mr Witheford is going to ask the Government io arrange for a steamer to take members of Parliament to the Cook Islands before the next sitting of Parliament. I suppose the idea is to give our legislators some idea of these recently acquired portions of the colony, the presumption being that without that knowledge they must legislate at a disadvantage. But if there is anything in that view then it is much more urgent that members should be taken round the colony, seeing every district and getting to understand its needs—the North visiting the South, and vice-versa. Probably, however, Mr -Witheford’s suggestions spring as much from a genius for the art of entertainment as from any consideration for the legislative needs of Barntonga. From Mr Witheford’s point of view, existence that is not enlivened by steamer excursions, picnics, and champagne suppers is a cruelly tame affair, and he feels that when the session is ended members would enjoy a little trip to tropic seas. Unfortunately, the Acting-Premier is more of a worker than an entertainer, and it is possible he may not see the use of the trip. Comparisons are odious, but one cannot help contrasting the Mouse as it now is with what it might be were Mr Witheford at the head of affairs. The Parliamentary proceedings would never be dry then. There would certainly be a l and in the Mouse of an evening, and light refreshments in the ante-rooms. Out of session the Government, steamers would lie kept busy taking the favoured legislators here and there and everywhere. There would be something in standing for Parliament if Mr Witheford were Premier! The member for Auckland does not say whether the members of this, or the members of the next Parliament, are to of the Cook Island party. If he has not forgotten the approaching election, he must see that there is room for choice. Evidently. for its utilitarian value, the trip should be given to the incomers rather than the outgoers. But members do not legislate for their successors in these little things, and also it is always more pleasant to assume that ‘'they are all coming back.” So I presume Mr Witheford designed the excursion for the Bouse as now constituted. When he did so, however, he certainly forgot that when Parliament rises members will be much more anxious to get back to their constituencies tnan to go on any pleasure jaunt. Most of them have work enough at home to make their calling and election sure, and it would be a much-worried pleasure party at best if they consented to make the trip. The Skirts of Beauty. The Auckland Women's Political League has an object well worthy of its energy in the abolition of the trailing skirt; but why should the organisation neutralise the value of its efforts by throwing the onus of reform on to the shoulders of man? At the recent meeting of the League the unanimous opinion was expressed that ladies sinned in the matter of the trailing skirt in order to please the male sex, and it was pointed out that the only effective argument against the transgression would be if gentlemen were to object to walk with ladies whose dresses touched the ground. I greatly fear that if reform is dependent on gentlemen making

use of that argument the prospect :1s not hopeful. Only a husband or a brother is likely to use it. but then

as women nowadays do not dress to please their husbands or their brothers, remonstrance or threat from either quarter would liayc littl • effect. He would be a strange man indeed who would deny himself the society

of a lady companion in a walk down the street because the hem of her garment touched, or even .swept the pavement, and a brave man Who would venture to propose to her a radical change in her attire as the price of his companionship. It isn't fair, in the first place, however, to lay the fault of the trailing skirt to man’s account. He has no special predilection for it. As a fact, he has always been more partial to the vision of a twinkling pair of little feet, and the sight of slender ankles, than to the pseudo-classic sweep of the modern train. In its dirt (collecting aspects he abhors it as he would a trouser leg that bedraggles itself in the dust and mud. See how he has sacrificed the fashionable to the cleanly mode in the case of that indispensable garment, until the cleanly has become the fashionable. I am referring to the turning up of the trouser leg, a practice which, originating in the muddy' winter streets, continues throughout the driest summer. As a direct means of pleasing man the trailing skirt is a failure. As an indirect means of pleasing him there is perhaps something to be said in its favour. It effectually conceals shortcomings in the matter of feet, and is useful in correcting the inartistic lines of the natural form—that is to say, its chief value lies in its power of concealment. It is, in short, an agent of deception, and the sooner the men can be got to regard it in that light, the sooner will it disappear. A much more effective means than that suggested by the Women's Political League would be for the male sex to show obtrusively their suspicion of the foot that hides itself beneath the ample garment, and the ankle that is never visible. In selfdefence these would quickly emerge from their concealment: even the downright ugly ones preferring honest exposure to the imputation concealment might suggest. o o o o o A. B. Worthington Again. Once again the notorious Worthington is attracting the? attention of a much wider circle than that of which he invariably manages to be the admired centre wherever he goes. As usual, he enters the sphere of wider publicity with a lauy. The ocher day he was arrested at Sydney and remanded to Melbourne on a charge of obtaining, by means O-f false pretences, £1095, from Miranda de la «Taveney, of the Victorian metropolis. This is the second occasion since Worthington left his deluded followers in Christchurch that he has found himself in ‘trouble. and the surprising thing' is that it is only' the second. Most miarvellmls. indeed, is the immunity scoundrels of this c'ass enjoy- How the common burglar or swindler must envy them! The latter, with half the, counts against them that might be brought against Worthington, finds an argus-eyed police watching them wherever they go, and their least suspicious movement sets the wires a tingling with messages. But the misdemeanours of a Worthington might have been committed in another world, or a prior existence, for all tlhey seem to tell against him when he seta to work in some centre not a thousand miles from the scene of his latest escapades. He deludes, and is found out in one city, and the story of his fraud is .sown broadcast by the press. Yet the next month he bobs up serenely in soane new place and pursues his old course quite undisturbed by anyone. Worthington had scarcely established in Christ.burch that imposing tabernacle of Jds pseudo religion, “The Temple of Truth,” when the entire former career in America of this “muchly married” man was ruthlessly exposed, the disclosures nothing injured his popularity, and it was only when he had tried beyond credence the credulity of his dupes, and stood revealed by his own aets the unblushing fraud he is, that he found it more advantageous to leave

than to remain. In Sydney he seem* to have fallen on his feet, and become the respected minister of a Unitarian Church; and he might have continued in the position bu-t tlluat he appears to have entered into other and, in his case, one may reasonably s,; gK e - s t> questionalble -business. That his present trouble will be the end it would >be foolish -to imagine. Whether he comes unscathed out of the hands of Miranda de la J.uveney’s lawyers, or is laid by the heels for a season, this ultimate triumph is assured, liven within the limits of Australia he -will find scope for years to eome, and by the time he has worked, out the mine of gullibility’ there is in that continent, a new -generation of fools who knew him. not of old in the States will l>e ready to receive him with open arms. Tirus could he conveniently tour the world for many more years than are allotted man, while individuals, honest beiside him, oscillate through life ‘between a precarious freedom and durance vile. o o o o o A N&w Menace to Temperance. From New York comes the news of the formation of a company, with a million dollars capital, to compress wine and spirits into tablets. This is merely the extension of a process that has long been most successful in the ease of drugs, and later has come into use in connection with certain foods. But it is obvious to anyone who gives the matter a thought that the application of the tablet system to alcoholic liquors opens up a range of possibilities which never could exist in the case of drugs or food. In the case of the latter tabloid preparations can never come into general use so long- as the human stomach retains its present dimensions. It requires quantity, as well as quality, to satisfy its cravings, and though explorers and others in straits may obtain from a lozenge sufficient nourishment to carry them through some arduous undertaking, there is no danger of tablets or tabloids taking the place of roast beef and mutton, and the thousand and one delicacies which make eating a pleasure. With beverages the case is quite different. With the addition of water alone the lozenge can in a moment be converted into the identical liquid, and without the water the palate can extract from the dissolving solid the same virtue as from the original article, and scarcely less pleasure. I do not suppose that the whiskey jujube, the brandy lozenge, the rum comfit, etc., will supplant entirely the parent liquids; the flowing glass will still flow at convivial gatherings, and healths be drunk, not munched or Slicked. But the great field of the new manufacture will be among communities where temperance principles have obtained such a hold that drinking, even in moderation, is looked at a little askance, and intemperance ranks as the blackest of all sins. The habitual drunkard, who is lost to appearances, will still prefer his liquor in liquid form, though he may find tablets handy to meet the inconvenience of the early closing law. It will be the honest man who likes his glass, but out of deference to his public opinion does not like to take It, who will lie the great patron of the drink tablet. In the corner of his waistcoat pocket may lie concealed a couple of bottles of whisky, or whatever his favourite tipple may lie, and without exciting the suspicion of his nearest and dearest friend he can take his nip and enjoy’ it. Of course the lozenges will be of different degrees of strength, so that the man who takes his glass neat, and the one who likes it “filled up” with water, are catered for. In conclusion, I would point out that the temperance party has never had to grapple with a more insidious foe than this drink tablet. The convenient form in which the temptation offers itself is a great danger. The tendency “to finish the packet” when one has taken “just one lollie” is a tendency to which most of us will plead guilty, and there is reason to fear that the same tendency which in the ease of the innocuous saccharine preparation- does no harm might have disastrous consequences where spirituous tabloids were the attraction. .. i. . .

No Place Lika Home. The heavy toll of life which the renewal of the volcanic outbursts has exacted in Martinique last week is evidence of the large numbers of the unfortunate inhabitants who have elected or have been forced to stay on the terrible island after the catastrophe which overwhelmed St. Pierre, and destroyed over thirty thousand lives. One’s first thought- is that, in every case, their remaining there must have been compulsory, for it is almost inconceivable that anyone would voluntarily stay on an island 40 miles long by 15 broad courting death from a volcano more awful than Tarawera. As a fact, there are many who would have gladly left had the means been allowed them, but the authorities did not feel capable of undertaking the deportment of a population of nearly 200,000 gouls to some place of safety’. To transport an army like that, with all their household gods, would obviously be a serious task, and when the means of carriage had been arranged, there still would remain the no less difficult problem of where to take the refugees. In the case of the villagers of Mornerouge, which was engulfed in boiling mud last week, this difficulty of knowing what to do with them led to their destruction. It appears that in August last, after the first terrible outburst, they abandoned their district iff a panic of fear lest it should be the next to be overwhelmed; but the Governor of the island, his hands already full, refused to shelter the fugitives, and compelled them to return to their homes, which have now become their graves also. From other accounts, however, it would seem that many who had the chance and the means to leave Martinique have not yet done so, and continue to stay on, notwithstanding the awful risks confronting them every day. It is not to mere foolhardiness, but to the attachment the place which has been their home exercises over them that this is due. “Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home,” and if we substitute “dangerous” for “humble” the sentiment of the song is no less true. Though’ nearly a fourth probably of the inhabitants of the island have lost their lives, and the place is crumbling into the sea, and Mount Pelee shows no signs of calming down, and the highest seismic authority considers the island should be evacuated, thousands voluntarily remain simply because some little piece of this trembling soil is their own, the centre round which their daily pleasures, and work, and ambitions, and their fears have revolved. There is the magnetism that even the very fire from heaven cannot destroy. You would find the same thing here in Auckland if Mount Eden were to take it into its head to burst forth. No doubt the villa owners would make tracks for a place of safety when the boiling mud or roasting cinders began to fall on their roofs, but up to that moment they would stand faithful guardians of their property; and a month after the awful crisis had parsed you vvcmld find plenty of people ready to buy building lots on the roofs of the submerged suburb.