The Club Smoking Room

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLI, Issue 16, 14 October 1908, Page 4

The Club Smoking Room

By

HAVANA

NOWADAYS,” commenced the padre, “we seem to have lost a great deal of the old British self-reli-ant spirit. We are calculating, prudent, and cautious, but we are seldom venturesome. I have noticed this in every walk of life. If any body of men get together for the purpose of starting any society or association, the first thing they look for is a Government subsidy. If they ean’t get a subsidy from the State, they elect a number of patrons and vice-presidents, who are generally not at all interested in the project in hand, for the sole purpose of extracting a few guineas. In the old days we used! to call this sort of thing “ cadging,” and any club guilty of such practices was looked down upon. People took a pride in doing things for themselves. I don’t say they did things any better; I don’t say that things supported by private enterprise were superior to State-managed institutions. That is not my point. What I dk> say is that our national character was stronger, we were more enterprising, there was more of the bull-dog and less of the lap-dog in our composition.” © © © “ My dear padre,” broke in the cynic, “ please do not air such utterly out-of-date and heretical views here. Think what would happen to us if we had to do things for ourselves instead of getting the State to do them for us. We are promised all sorts of good! things when once the State controls everything. It is going to wash our diehes for one thing, it is going to run our newspapers, and do our advertising, and give us a four-hour day, and make us all good and healthy and wealthy and wise. Everybody will have all he wants; there will be no competition, the land will belong to everybody, and no one will have to exert himself or do anything he doesn’t want to do. Don’t you realise that we needn’t bother about character or morality or anything else because the State is going to do it all for us? We shall be spared all the bother of having to think things out for ourselves, or wondering what are the best books to read or the best pictures to buy. The bobby on the beat is to be our literary censor. He will go round to our booksellers and purge their shelves, and we shall all be singing that beautiful ditty of childhood’s days:— “ If you want to read a book, Ask a policeman. A proper moral book, Ask a policeman. Every member of the Force Is a judge of books, of course, So, before you buy a book, Ask a policeman.” © © © “Do you know,” replied the dominie, “ that I never had any idea before how wicked we all were, and how easy it ■was to make people good. Just fancy how all these centuries men have lain in Stygian darkness, believing in individual effort, and pluck and grit. What fools we have been when we could have passed a few laws, and hey! presto! we all of a sudden are changed, in the twinkling of an eye, as St. Paul says, and the corruptible puts on incorruption. It is much to be regretted, however, that the prosecution of a bookseller in Christchurch, for having sold one of Shakespeare’s works should have been dismissed by the Great Unpaid. How can we hope to rear a race of good and pure men and women if we allow the works of such a writer to be sold and perhaps read in the Dominion? What moral lessons are we taught by the gruesome plot of Macbeth or the tragedy of Hamlet compared with the good we could get from such beautiful lines as “ Twinkle, twinkle, little star, How I wonder what you are.” Shakespeare not only contains many passages that are are not in accord with the high moral sentiments of our own day, but th« mere reading of any form of drama fam-

iliarises our young people with things pertaining to the stage. Robert Montgomery, in his poem entitled “Satan,” has shown us how those who go to the play begin by believing they can stop at seeing good plays only, but they never do stop there, and having imbibed a liking for the theatre, they easily fall a prey to the devil. To urge that Shakespeare has done goodi to many, and that thousands have derived benefit from his plays is nothing to tfte point. If it ean be shown that a single human being has received harm from anything, then that thing ought to be absolutely prohibited.” © © © “We sadly stand in need of more laws,” answered the politician, “and laws that should be strictly enforced. We cannot hope to cleanse and purify our national life and build up strong, manly characters as long as we allow any temptation.-) to remain. What a subtle form of temptation is provided by statistics. The residents of Petone have resolved to combat this growing evil, and propose that it shall be made a criminal offence to manipulate statistics in connection with the local option poll. If it is to be made a criminal offence to influence votes at any time by any form of ‘fraud, falsehood, misrepresentation, or deception, printed or otherwise,’ we shall have fewer political speeches, and that will be something gained. The worthy people of Petone evidently know something of the methods by which many issues are decided. They are like the factory girls who refused the jam at a Sunday school treat. They said: ‘No, thank you, lady; we come from where it is made.’” © © © “Few people,” suggested the merchant, “realise the immense amount of temptation placed in people’s way by the habit shopkeepers indulge in of exposing goods for sale in their windows. Many a man has been tempted to steal by seeing valuable articles so displayed; many a woman has been tempted to covet by seeing a fascinating row of beautifully trimmed hats. Surely Parliament could pass a law prohibiting this practice, and so remove temptation from the path of thousands of our fellow creatures. Having

recently attended a public banquet, I can speak feelingly on another evil that calls for legislation, namely, the habit people have of over-eating themselves. The exact quantity of food each person may cat should be clearly defined by law. The bills of fare at publie restaurants should be inspected. It is a wonder that none of our legislators have directed their attention to this all-important matter. 'lnfants’ food’ should be substituted for the highly indigestible steak and onions we so often see on the dinner menu. But it is useless to expect to make people really good by legislation unless we supervise their home life. Many people ruin their eyesight by sitting facing a light instead of placing thq light at their back. Others keep late hours, not a few hurry over their meals, some keep copies of Shakespeare and Fielding on their shelves. It is to be feared that this is not all. French novels and pictures by Lord Leighton are smuggled away in odd corners, and the head of the house has been known to take what he calls a nightcap. These evils can only be rooted out by a rigid and systematic censorship of our homes. If we are going to make people good by Act of Parliament, let us do the thing properly, and start with the home.” © © © “There is one thing,” replied the professor, “that some of our novel writers should feel thankful for. Hardly anyone had heard of Victoria Gross or Hubert Wales or Elinor Glynn before. Now, hundreds of orders are being sent Hom? for their works; they have had quite a boom and a better advertisement than could be provided by a whole column of ‘The Times.’ Such a lot of people have said that they must send to London for the books just to see what they are like. I wish to goodness I could get someone to condemn my book on Conic Sections as immoral. I might -make my fortune then. At present most people merely condemn it as being dull. Mr Bishop’s episcopal censure is much more valuable from a trade point of view than Randall Cantuar’s archiepiscopal benediction. The country will be flooded with books sent out gratis by enterprising publishers in the hope of securing a good advertisement. ‘No cross, no crown,’ will be the motto of the trade.”