The Week in Review.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLV, Issue 17, 26 October 1910, Page 1

The Week in Review.

NOTICE.

The Editor will be pleased to reOeive for consideration Short Stories and Descriptive Articles, illustrated With photos, or suggestions from contributors. Bright, terse contributions are wanted dealing with Dominion life and questions. Unless stamps are sent, the Editor Cannot guarantee the return of unsuitable MSS.

Morbid Curiosity.

/Y \ ® JAMES ROWLANDS has askfl I ■ ed the very pertinent question; 2 ) J F “Why do English people take / more interest in the Crippen Case than in the Inter-Parliamentary Conference?” When we read of there having heen over 4,000 applications for the 100 seats available at the trial, of all the streets being thronged wherever there was a chance of seeing Crippen, of music hall managers competing for Miss Le Neve’s services, of the elaborate precautions taken by the police to guard their prisoners and prevent a popular outburst, we cannot help feeling that public interest in this very sordid tale teompJetely eclipses public interest in momentous affairs of State. The London “Times” supplies the following answer to Mr Rowland’s question:— “We cannot, nowadays, look on at bodily torture; (but there is a large public that will go to any trouble to witness mental torture, and that cares nothing how much it may increase that torture by its curiosity. To this public the Crippen ease is a godsend. They hail it as children hail a Punch and Judy show ®r a circus procession. They will wait for hours to catch a glimpse of the accused, and they will add to the excitement of the spectacle by hissing and groaning. It matters nothing to them that the case has not yet been tried. They have come to see a murderer, and •their pleasure would be spoilt if they •doubted that Crippen was one. So they do not doubt; and they hiss him as they would hiss a villain in a melodrama, indulging their sense of righteous indignation as well as their curiosity.”

A Modern Scoop. Lamentable as this tendency on the part of the public may be, it is still more lamentable that certain papers, for the sake of gain and notoriety, should exploit the sufferings of this unhappy pair. “Answers” has recently made what It calls a “scoop” by publishing Miss Le Neve’s life story, as told by her father. When “Answers” was first started, it confined itself to the usual type of harmless paragraphs telling its readers how long It would take an express train to get to the moon, and how many men in different professions had bald heads. It increased Its circulation by competition, into which the clement of luck largely entered, nnd for which large prizes were offered. A pound a week for life was

offered, for instance, to the person who guessed most correctly the balance at the Bank of England on a certain date. Every copy also carried a railway insurance for £l,OOO, which was advertised in the couplet, “When you travel by the train, stick to ‘Answers’ might and main.” It professed to be a paper for the home, and doubtless served a fairly useful purpose in providing reading for those who like snippets, and have no taste for anything serious. Pure Bathos. But the laying bare the secrets of the home life of an unfortunate family is pandering to the worst and most vicious tastes of mankind. The utter bathos of the following declaration by r Miss Le Neve’s father is simply nauseating, especially in view of the fact that the main purport of the declaration is to be found in the concluding sentence that “Answers” has secured the sole rights of publication. Tire declaration is addressed “To the readers of Answers,” and runs as follows: — “I have chosen ‘Answers’ to 'be the medium of publication for the life-story of my unfortunate daughter Ethel because it is essentially a home paper, and the sad and pathetic, but intensely dramatic narrative I have to unfold is essentially a story for the home. It is because I ask the great British public to refrain from judging too harshly the daughter in whose innocence my belief has, from the first, been unshaken, and because I crave, with all a father’s yearning, a little sympathy for my daughter, my wife, and myself in this our bitter hour of trial, that I hare, after long and earnest consideration, decided to publish the story of Ethel’s life in ‘Answers.’- And I certify that my story has been given to “Answers* and Answers’ alone.” The Mission of Journalism. That Mr Le Neve has been well paid for the exclusive rights of his “sad and pathetic, but intensely dramatic narrative,” we can well believe; that any good purpose has been served by its publication, it is impossible to imagine. It is almost inconceivable that any father could so far forget parental instinct as to drag to light the intimate relations of home life; but having done so, he might well have omitted the clap-trap about a “Father’s yearning for sympathy.” Journalism has a high mission as a teacher and leader of public opinion. It occupies the position of the drama and the pulpit of other days. That it should lose sight of this mission in a desire to pander to man’s morbid curiosity, is nothing less than deplorable, and must in the end react disastrously on papers that lend themselves to such things. We are, perhaps, a little prone in New Zealand to consider we lead the world in everything. But there is one thing oh which we can rightly congratulate ourselves, and that is that with one or two exceptions, we have a clean Press. In nothing does the Dominion stand so high as in the quality and tone of it. newspapers, and this shows more than anything else that our people are of * healthy and whdHkome mind.

A Sharp Frost. In October we begin to look for spring weather, and feel that we are getting on towards summer, and we do not look for sharp attacks of frost. It came, therefore, as a great surprise when Hastings was visited with eleven degrees of frost, and all the fruit crops were damaged in consequence. The peach crop was swept completely out of existence. In Hastings district alone the ripe peach crop is worth £lO,OOO, and every penny of it vanished as completely as if fire had swept the district. On the great Kaiapoi orchard, where stone fruits are grown almost exclusively, the crop would have been worth £3,000, and now it is not likely to be worth as many pence. The plum-i grown in the district, worth about £3,000, are also mostly destroyed. It is estimated that about £lO,OOO damage was done, and all the orchards on the Heretaunga. Plains were affected. Everybody will sympathise with the Hawke’s Bay fruitgrowers in the serious loss which they have sustained by reason of this unprecedented freak on the part of Jack Frost. <3* The Poignancy of Poverty. Mr. Lloyd George, addressing the Liberal Christian League at the City Temple, indulged in some vigorous criticism of the English social system, and declared that for the causes of the destitution, unrest, and discontent common to free trade England and the protectionist continent, we must, look beyond mere fi.cal questions. “Mr. Chamberlain’s tariff reform,” Mr. Lloyd George said, “has rendered an outstanding service by calling attention to the crying evils festering amongst us. I never realised the poignancy of poverty until I administered the old age pensions. Out of 420,000 adults who died annually five-sixths had no property. Of the £300,000,000 passing annually at death, half belongs to under 2,000 people, a fact which betokens the organic diseases of the British system.” The speaker went on to refer to the fact that the civilised countries spent £500,000,000 annually upon the machinery of war, and said that if Britain’s burden were removed, she could pay the wage-earners four shillings more weekly without interfering with lhe profits of capital. He condemned the devoting of millions of acres to the pre-

servation of game, and the habits of the idle rich who lived only for amusement. His counsel to the people was to enlarge the purpose of their politics, and then adhere to their purpose until the redemption was accomplished. Professor Haslam and the University. Professor Haslam, of Canterbury College, has expressed dissent from the views of the professors and educationalists who recently signed a petition to Parliament, stating that the University administration and education in the Dominion are unsound. In the first place, the professor contends that no proof has been brought forward that University administration is bad, and the fact that many students go Home to study medicine is due to the difficulty of obtaining hospital experience rather than to any defect in the university teaching. The petition to Parliament laid special stress on the fact that sound learning was not promoted for the development of professional training in medicine, education, law, and applied science. Professor Haslam shows how Ihe first defect can only be remedied by the growth of population, and the last defect is probably largely a question of finance. It is an open question as to how far it falls within the scope of university work to provide strictly professional training in law and education, nor is it very clear what the phrase professional training means. Really practical training can only be obtained in the office and the actual schoolroom.

English Examiners. The system of English examiners finds an enthusiastic supporter in the Canterbury professor, who urges that New Zealand should have the best examining talent that can lie obtained. He points out that many persons had contended that the present method of < xamination was expensive and cumbrous, but, when the subject was inquired into by the senate, it was shown that it would be at least as expensive to have the examining done in the Dominion, and there was no doubt that it would be much ■more cumbrous. There would have to l>e a board of examiners—one examiner from each college in every subject. They would have to meet together for a considerable time at great inconvenience. At

Cambridge. prrhap« three or four examiners lived in the *anie st’reet, <n<! they sometimes took several days discussing the proper place for the results of one student’s examination. That kind of thing occurred in connection with every subject. He might also have pointed out that our present system secures absolute impartiality and that the high position of the English examiners adds prestige to our degrees. Defects there doubtless arc in our university, but we doubt if the defects are as serious as the framers of the petition to Parliament would have us believe. At any rate our students eeeni able to more than hold their own against students from other lands. The Big Hat The case in which Miss Blanche EardJey, the novelist, sued Mr. Frank Curzon for refusing her admission to the theatre owing to the size of her hat has had a strange sequel. Mr. Dann, a Press agent, and his wife are suing Mr. Curzon for Lt* 152, including Miss Ea rd ley’s fees, in pursuance of an arrangement made to secure a big advertisement for Mr. Curzon by arranging the whole incident. This second suit has probably secured for Mr. Curzon more advertisement than he deeired. hats are not so modern as snany people suppose. Late in the eighteenth century the feminine coiffure -ame portentous. The whole history of the century was reflected in the lady’s head-dress, which became a rebus. Everyone has read of the coiffure a la circonctanee which mourned.the death of Louis XV., with a cypress behind and a cornucopia resting on a sheaf of wheat before; of the bonnet a la Belle-Boule, which exhibited a frigate under full sail in honour of a naval engagement with the English; of the coiffure a la Mappemonde, which displayed on the wearer’s head the live divisions of the known globe: and of the bonnet an Parc Anglais, with shrubberies and lawns, rivulets,' shepherdesses and sheep; and of the coiffure a ITnoculation, vhieh represented small-pox by a serpent. medical science by a club, and the result of their encounter by a rising sun and an olive'tree in fruit. We have not quite come to that extreme yet. but we are approaching it. The frigate in full Sail could easily be converted into a Dreadnought."and the idea of turning a hat into a representation of some'public garden offers great scope for the milliner’s talent. The advertising possibilities of the big hat have been demonstrated 4»y Miss Eardley, and there seems no reason why spaces should not be let for advertisements.* The hat could thus be macle to pay for itself —a consummation devoutly to be wished in the interest of long-suffering husbands and fathers. . * * A New Luxury for the Criminal. ' One <>f the quaintest things in the lust "English Review" is the plea put forward by Mr. W. S. Blunt for public executions. He thinks the prisoner himself prefers a public to a private execution. This is how he maintains this singular position. J‘l must,” he writes, “add a word of protest against the modern practice of executing prisoners condemned to death within the precincts of our gaols. My experience of a prisoner's feelings after he has been kept for even a short period in the solitary confinement of his cell leads me to be sure that it is a great aggravation to the penalty of death that fee should be denied the right, always .extended to sentenced men in former times, of dying in the open air and in tiie presence of his fellow-men. Like many often so-called humanitarian reforms, the abolition of public execution yas brought about very much less in the interest of the condemned man than to eparc the feelings of those who condemned him, the soft-hearted public which, while it consented to his death, was shocked at being forced to see him die. To the man himself, shut in for weeks by the four walls of his prison, with nerves J instrung by solitude and that perpetual onging for a sight of trees and fields and contact once more with the busy life he formerly’ enjoyed, it must surely have lessened by a great deal the pang of death to be set for one last half-hour in the light of day outside those walls, and thus get a breath of the open air of heaven and with it the courage to endure his pain, even were it in the presence of an angry mob rejoicing to see him banged.” Mr. Blunt seems to think that it would be cruel to deny the man the pleasure of figuring in the limelight for •nee in his life.