The Week in Review.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLV, Issue 23, 7 December 1910, Page 1

The Week in Review.

NOTICE.

The Editor will be pleased to receive 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. ■Attacks on the Premier. VERYBODY will sympathise with JI Sir Joseph Ward in regard to the attacks recently made upon him. The Premier referred to what he described as a bitter, cowardly, secret, malicious attack made on him through his business in 1896, and averred that the Opposition provided money and paid a man who did the work for them for the purpose of trying to ruin a political opponent. As regard his own private business matters, Sir Joseph was able to •show that it had pa : d 20/ in the .-£, and that one asset deemed valueless had fetched £9OOO, and another £45,000. He was in a position to prove that none of the leading business men in different parts of the world had withdrawn business from him, and that was one of the strongest answers that could be given to his slanderers and maligners. As regards a well-known pamphlet to whch the Premier made allusion, Mr. Massey denied having made any use of it whatever, and offered to resign and retire from political life altogether if anyone could prove that he had anything to do with its production, or that he knew of its preparation prior to its being put on the streets of the cities. Other members of the Opposition denied being connected with it, Mr. Fisher saying that he regarded the inuendo that the Opposition were associated with the pamphlet as a “ cool, frigid, and calculated lie.” V7hat We Owe to Sir Joseph Ward. There can be no doubt that no one, calling himself a man, would attack the private life of a politician for party ends, and we can well believe that no member of the Opposition would associate himself with anything that savoured of hitting below the belt. Sir Joseph Ward is evidently feeling the effect of the strain of political life. He is said to be ageing rapidly. No longer is he the equable, jovial Sir Joseph of old. He is not a man who can bear age well, still less can he bear it when the cares and worries of office are crowding thick upon him. It has been noticed that his eyes are often very tired, that in his ruddiness there is often a bluish tinge. The Premier has done a great deal for New Zealand. In postal affairs he has been facile princeps, and without any undue boasting we may fairly claim that our Postal service is the best in any colony. Our credit !• high, our laws are just and humane,

and we owe not a little of this to our present Premier. Politics at best are a thankless game, and politicians seldom earn much reward. We might at least spare them abuse. What Is Your Age ? One of the most difficult cl ruses in the Licensing Amendment Act is that which enacts that it is illegal to serve with liquor for consumption on the premises persons who are apparently under the age of 21 years. The d'fficulty lies in the word “ apparently.” Any person could name a score of youths of whom it would be difficult to say whether they were 20 or 21. Nor is it sufficient to ask the youth whether he is twenty-one. The law says that he must not be apparently below twenty-one. How about dwarfs? They often wear knickerbockers, and are apparently below twenty-one years. Yet there is every reason to believe that they have passed the allotted span. Also, who is to be the judge. A referendum might be taken by the votes of all the members present in the bar. The referendum has been described as the most democratic method of settling any disputed question. The safest way would be for each thirsty youth of twenty-one years to carry his birth certificate with him, or failing that, his certificate of baptism. Nothing is more difficult than proving your age. This has been found a crux in connection with old age pensions. Even with all th e registers at their disposal, the Government often finds it hard to get the correct proof of age. How much harder is it, then, to judge of age by appearance? Who is to say whether a youth is getting on for twenty-one or just twenty-one? It is another pitfall for the licensee. J* A Happy Marriage. We hear so much of unhappy marriages that it is particularly gratifying to read of a marriage that hae in it all the prospects of happiness. A beautiful Austrian lady, named Eugenia Adams, inherited a very large fortune on condition that she married. The Austrian was staying in Washington at the time, and didn’t know anybody who would make a suitable bridegroom. She didn’t want to lose the fortune, and she didn’t want to marry any of the men she knew. Accordingly she hit upon the ingenious idea of advertising and offering a large sum of money to any man who would marry her, and leave her immediately the wedding ceremony was over. Forty needy Americans responded to the invitation, and from amongst them she selected a man named Harvey Brown, a stalwart from Vermont, who possessed excellent testimonials as to character. The pair got married before a magistrate after both had signed an agreement that after the ceremony neither would “attempt to see, visit, molest, or annoy” the other, and that neither would “solicit any aid by money or other assistance from the other, or would attempt to assert marital right in any way.” After the ceremony they separated with a hearty handshake, and Brown, who had never seen the bride until an hour before, apparently felt some regret, which the bride seemed also to share.

A Quaint Custom. There is one quaint custom in the Lords and the Commons which is to be discontinued about which small regret will be felt by either side. It has been the rule for over a century that the leaders of both Houses of Parliament, or in the case of the Commons, the Home Secretary, should write with their own hand a daily precis of the day’s proceedings for the use of the Sovereign. In these days of accurate press reporting there is no longer any need of these daily letters. When the custom was started —at the command of George IH., who asked George Grenville to furnish linn with daily reports of the debates relating to the conflict between the Parliament and John Wilkes—the reporting of the proceedings was an offence at law, and the King had no other means of obtaining prompt and reliable information. Pitt, Peel, Palmerston, Disraeli, and Gladstone all wrote these personal despatches, most of which are still preserved in the Royal Library at Buckingham Palace. Victoria is said to have found Disraeli's the most amusing; and no doubt they were. Another thing that amused Her Majesty was the mistake of Lord Randolph Churchill, who inadvertently enclosed a quantity of tobacco in the dispatch-box in which he forwarded his letter. The Value of Flowers. The carnation and sweet pea carnival in Auckland brings to mind the part played by flowers in our daily life. Men have written in praise of gardens from the earliest days. In the Book of Genesis we find that God Almighty esteemed the life of a man in a garden the happiest he could give him, or else he would not have placed Adam in the garden of Eden. The word Paradise itself means a garden, and is a Persian word showing the delight the old Persian kings took in gardening. It was an Assyrian king that planned the famous hanging gardens of Babylon, making gardens not only within the palaces, but upon terraces raised with earth, over the arched roofs, and even upon the top of the highest tower; planted them with all sorts of fruit trees, as well as other plants and flowers, the most pleasant of that country; and thereby made at least the most airy gardens, as well as the most eostly that have ever been heard of in the world. The gardens of the Hesperides and that of Alicinous are mostly the creation of fancy. Hainer•ton, in speaking about landscape painting, advises all landscape painter* to

study botany, urging that botany gives the greatest possible distinctness to the memory of all kinds of vegetation. The Horticultural Society's carnival encourages rivalry and a spirit of emulation in the oldest and the most beautiful of all the arts—the art of gardening. J* The Wildebeesten. South Africa has designed a brandmew coat-of-arms, and the “Wildebeesten,” who appear in the coat-of-arms are a new species in heraldry—a science which is so strong in zoology that it recognises many animals not known to South Kensington. The improbable springbok (another of the authorised South African emblems) figures already as supporter in the arms of Viscount Milner, as well as in the crest of the house of Randles. Among other South African animals, the rhinoceros (Viscount Colville of Culross), the hippopotamus (Speke), the zebra (Kemsley), the giraffe, technically known as the camelopard (Crisp), are all represented in crests or coats of arms. So is th* ostrich, which almost invariably appears in heraldry with a horseshoe, or a key, or a piece of old iron in its beak: this by wav of concession to the popular belief in its dietetic preferences. <* Bridge and Theatres. John Drew considers bridge is demoralising (Society and injuring the theatres. He declares that in England there are people who would rather play bridge than eat, and be says that he ■had a personal experience of this last year. He was invited to dinner at a house in England, and he noticed that the people hurried through dinner with almost indecent haste, and that th* men remained only a few minutes in the diningroom after the ladies had left. Then out came the cards, and everybody was expected to play bridge. His views on the mission of the stage are interesting. He says that the stage is not the place for sermons. It is not the province of the drama to preach. A play to be a good play must have a moral of course. If it didn’t, it would not amount to anything, but the moral must be subordinate to its inherent interest as a play. Preachy plays never succeed. People don’t go to the theatre to be preached at; they go to b* amused. A drama should be a mirror of life as it is, faithfully reflecting its virtues and its Tices. And often the simple portrayal of the vices of society

vilhont any attempt to draw a moral therefrom will do more good than railing at them or preaching against them. Ha thinks the cleverest plays come from •France. and he bestowed espeeial praise on a recent one-act faree built around the difficulty of administering a dose of medicine to a spoiled child, and he paid ■ high compliment to the masterly way in which so many of the French writers weave a plot and build up a situation. If an English writer had written the play, and named tae spoiled child George, the Censor would have discovered some hidden political allusion and banned the play accordingly. i.i d* J* Servants and Pianos. Speaking in Dublin at a meeting of the Irish Women’s Suffrage Association. Miso Bellingham Todd, in the course of an address on -The Duties of Mistresses and Servants,” contended that domestic servile more nearly approached a mild form of slavery than any other occupation. The conditions under which a servant lived ilid not compare favourably with the environment of the shopgirl or clerk. One was called “a menial,” ami tho other “a young lady.” One never knew when her work was done, while the other had stated hours. Mistresses, said Miss Todd, ignored the revolution which had taken place, and treated servants as still being of an ignorant lower class, 1 when they should lie put on the same * footing as business girls. Miss Todd ■ iwas of opinion that servants should be given the use of a piano. The difficulty in regard to this last suggestion is. how [far those for whom it is intended would .be able to use it. Probably most of jjthem would prefer some other form of amusement that would be less distract- , ing to the other members of the household. ■A Ji A New Profession. A new profession has been found in -’America—that of a farm doctor. Air. i C. 11. Yates, a’ graduate' of Yale, has -gone in for a close study of farm's and r their ailments. “Soils and vegetation have ailments calling for a doctor’s care ■ just like people,’-, said Mr. Yates, “and I go about my work very much as an ' ordinary physician does. In the ease of 1 new land which has never been farmed I I first look over the land and find out what kind of farming the owners want to do. I doctor the land so that it will grow one particular product to the best advantage. Farms have to be visited every week at first during obBervation. I stock tho farms with cattle as the owner desires, or such as will thrive best in that particular locality. .Many who are inventing in farm lands have a mistaken idea that all soil will grow the same products and that cattle will thrive equally well everywhere. As an illustration let me mention two farms lam now doctoring. One of fortyacres io owned by a man who is interested in hunters. He needs a grazing ground, well covered with clover and timothy. He must have a spring or brook running through his pastures. He must have a certain amount of shade on his pastures. He must grow fodder, and he must have fences for the training of hunters. The other farm is to be devoted to dairy products. Here the land .■will be treated differently. The fodder grown will be of a different variety. The buildings will be arranged in a way far different to that for the horse farm. In dairy farming everything must be so ordered that the utmost cleanliness will prevail at all times. Farm hands and foremen have to be instructed in the care of the soil, cattle and vegetation just as hospital nurses have to undergo special instruction before they are qualified to assist in caring for patients in a hospital.” All of which sounds very true, and it looks as if Mr. Yates had discovered a new and lucrative profession.