Current Topies

New Zealand Tablet, Volume VIII, Issue 414, 18 March 1881, Page 1

Current Topics

AT HOME A&D ABROAD.

THE BOERS

The proclamation issued by the Boers of the Trans- 4 vaal in justification of their rising, states that they have never acknowledged themselves to be the subjects of Her Majesty ; that Sir Bartle Frcre tried to persuade them to desist from their resistance, but in vain, that he was forced to acknowledge their objections to be more general than had been represented, and that the leaders in the movement against annexation were the principal people of the country. He received from them a memorial to the Queen in which it was stated that the people would not be subject to her Majesty, and he said their representations were worthy of serious consideration by Her Majesty's Government. They believed they had found a defender in him ; but, at the same time, in a private letter to H.M.s Secretary for the colonies he had written that he " regretted not to have sufficient artillery to chase this camp home." Her Majesty's Government, misled by him, had returned no answer to the Boers' memorial. Sir Garnet Wolseley had declared the feeling of the English Government to be that as long " as the sun shines the Transvaal will remain British Territory." This the people answered with the resolution passed by a general meeting that as there was no hope of recovering independence by peaceful means, the Yolk sraad should be convened to proclaim : '• That the people declares that with the help of God, it demands a strong form of the S. A. .Republic, respect for the laws, the prosperity and progress of the country, and that it promises man for man to co-operate for that purpose, and to defend the Government until death. So truly help us, God Almighty." An official notice of this, given to Sir Garnet Wolseley, was answered by the accusation of high treason brought against Messrs. M. W. Pretorius and F. Bock ; accusations, however, only intended to frighten. The attitude of the people has, meantime, been misrepresented ; they had determined to pay taxes only when compelled, but it was officially reported in England that they contentedly paid them. Hence the English Parliament allowed the annexation to pass unchallenged. Like reports from Pretoria deceived Sir George Colley who declared last October at the opening of the Legislative Council in Natal, that order was supreme in the Transvaal, and that the taxes were universally paid there. The people were angered extremely at finding the enforced payment of taxes by them employed as a weapon against them, and on all sides declarations were signed that they would either wefuse to pay, or only pay under protest. These declarations made the Government in Pretoria fear their untruths would be found out, and in consequence they prosecuted for the publication of sedition the editor who published them. Small collisions were caused by the people's nnwillingness to pay, but the leaders of the people did everything to prevent a public disturbance of the peace. With the approval of the Colonial Secretary and Mr. Kruger it was decided to try if the people's meeting, which was near at hand, could bring 1 about a peaceful solution of the difficulties.- The Government of Pretoria, however, has thought good, two days before the meeting, to publish n proclamation leaving no choice between treatment as rebels or the exercise of the rights of a free people. "We declare before God, who knows the hearts, and before the world : Anyone speaking of us as rebels is a slanderer ! The people of the South African Republic have never been subjects of Her Majesty, and never will be." The proclamation goes on to announce the appointment of Messrs. Kruger, Pretorious, and Joubcrt, as a triumvirate ; and promises protection to all well behaved inhabitauts of the country, and forgiveness to all burghers of the S. A. Republic who have for a time deserted the part of the people. It, nevertheless, precludes from pardon those who assume the position of open enemies to the people and continue to deceive ihe English Government by false representations. It reserves to the said Government the right to maintain a consul or diplomatic agent in the country to represent tbe interests of British subjects. Meantime, although there is reason to suppose the insurgents have been represented as guilty of greater barbarities than those really committed by them, there cau be little doubl but that they have done some vciy

ugly thing 8. Bishop Jolivet of Pietermaritzburg, who was detained by them for a fortnight at Potchcfstroom, declares not only that he was himself well treated, but that the ill-treatment of the English inhabitants reported of was without foundation. No better behaviour he says, could be witnessed among an equally large body of armed men, without regular drill or dipcipline, of any nation. Still their attack upon the men of the 94th regiment, even if it were not a flagrant breach of the rules of civilised warfare, as there are some reasons to believe, must be regaTded as extremely questionable. There aTe more versions than one of the affair, but whichever way it is represented, it cannot hut be seen that the soldiers -were taken unawares and mercilessly shot down before they were able to stir so much as a finger m their own defence. Again, nothing could be more savage than the manner in which Captains Lambart and Elliott, who were supposed to be travelling towards the Free State under the protection of the insurgents, and released upon parole, were forced by their escort to attempt to ford the Vaal river in the dipth of a stormy night, and then, before they had gone more than ten or fifteen yards out into the current, fired upon, Captain Elliot being killed. Nor is it to the credit of the Dutch farmers generally that they refused to give Captain Lambart so much as the drink of water which he begged from them here and there as he passed by their houses. Again, the attack upon a hunting party of fifteen Englishmen by about 300 Boers, in which five of the hunters were killed, speaks very badly for the Dutchmen. More especially since one of the men killed was shot in a most cold-blooded manner — as he was standing unhorsed and having thrown down his gun — by a Boer who afterwards boasted of the feat. In the fight at Boomplaatz, moreover, a Boer who was closely pressed by an English officer, threw down bis gun and begged for quarter, but the moment this was granted picked up his gun again and shot the officer in the back. Barbarous also was the treatment of a drummi r boy, belonging to the 94th regiment, who was marched for a distance of thirty miles with his head bent down and fastened to a cord tied round his knees, in order that be might serve as an example to his comrades, and insure their obedience lest they should fare in like manner. On the whole, then, quite enough seems to have occurred to throw doubt at least on certain opinions expressed by some of the speakers at a meeting held at a place called Murrayeburg, where it was afitrmed that it did not greatly matter how many soldiers were killed — men paid to fight, and concerning whom no one knew or, cared anything ; bnt that it was quite otherwise with regard to Boers respectable men all of them, with families. — Nevertheless it would seem that soldiers also may have families, for we are told that the women and children of the 94th regiment arrived at Natal from England just in time to hear of the sad reverse suffered in the Transvaal by the regiment alluded to.

BRUTALLY MUBDBRBD.

A British subject has been brutally murdered, and in cold blood, by President Banjos, of Guatemala. Will England, demand an explanation, or enforce any penalty because of it? It bas been her habit to do so in such cases; "we remember several instances in which she has done so. The Abyssinian war was undertaken in the cause of English subjects, who were missionaries, imprisoned b/ King Theodore. China and Greece have been made to pay heaTy fines for the murder of English subjects committed there. Are President Banjos and the Republic of Guatemala to go scot free ? We suspect they are, and yet a brutal murder has been committed by them on the person of a British subject. Why then shall the murder go unanswered for? Only because the murdered man had been a Jesuit priest The Jesuits have been banished from Guatemala, but this priest, Father Gillett, went there expecting to be uninterfereel with because ho did not go for the purpose of performing any sarccrdotal function, but merely to recruit his health, which had been impaired by his labours in British Honduras, where his piety, eloquence, and learning had gained him the respect and admiration of all classes belonging to the coinmumtj', and of the members of all creeds. He had hardly arrived in the country, however, when he was laid violent hands on, loaded with irons, and thrown into a dungeon, from whence he was taken only to be marched almost naked and barefooted, between noon riding on mules, over the mountains for a numbed mikb tv Guatemala city, where ho was publicly shot on the

morning of January 17th by a firing-party of soldiers, and fell pierced by seventeen bullets into his coffin, which had been placed in front of him. The secret societies have done their work well this year so far— here they have given a martyr to the Church, as in the case of the Jesuit father ; there they have executed God's judgments upon a persecutor, as m the case of Czar Alexander, and still they prove their identity with the kingdom of the devil, and ttoeir method of action continues as it was from the beginning ; they fight against God, but their vain battle is made use of for the promotion of His Glory as it was of yore.

CIVILISATION HINDERED.

We have just seen how the secret societies deal with religion in Central America, and we know they have not the less opposed and persecuted it in South America, We find the following example of heir evil influence thew, with its harmful effects on the march of civilisation, given in the Edinburgh Review for July, 1836. The reviewer speaks as a Protestant, and the manner in which he accounts for the success of the Catholic missionaries is, as our leaders will discern, fanciful in the extreme : his claim, moreover, that Catholic missionaries, who have civilised the world, must exhibit as the chief fruits of their labours two petty States in South America is absurd, but his testimony in favour of what they have done, as well as to what the secret societies, or the Revolution brought about by them, have prevented them from doing, is still of considerable value. First, then, speaking of two Indian villages, named respectively Cchiza and Tocache, he says :: — ♦• These villages, containing eacli about two hundred inhabitants, with a church, owe their comparative civilisation to the labours of the Franciscan missionaries, whose meritorious exertions in Eastern Peru have been sadly hindered by the Revolution." A few pages further on, and in reference to another village, he speaks as follows : " An Indian village, ciintaining two thousand inhabtants, collected together from different and even hostile tribes, jet living in the completest harmony with one another, reclaimed from their wild and roving habits, decently clothed, and yielding in all things a ready obedience to their spiritual teacher, is certainly an agreeable object— in the depth of the forests, too, and a hundred miles beyond the actual dominion of the sons of Europeans. It is to Paraguay and to Eastern Peru that the Roman Catholic priesthood can refer most triumphantly for proofs of the success of their missionary labours. Their manifest superiority over the Protestant missionaries is due to their celibacy. They learn to regard the weak and simple Indians as their children. Liberated from the austerities of the cloister, their affections expand, and blending with their religious zeal, fill them with philanthropic enthusiasm. In the course of the last century, and even down to the period of the revolution, the province of Maynas was virtually ruled by the Franciscan monks. Their missions were numerous and flourishing in that fine country, and were no wise interfered with by the civil authorities of Peru. Their hierarchy extended also to the Pampa del Sacramento, or country lyiug between the Huallaga and the Ucayli. Indeed, even as early as the (seventeenth century, or a hundred and fifty years ago, missionaries were established in the country of the Piros, a region untrodden by Europeans of the present day The revolution, which separated Peru from the Spanish dominion, inflicted a severe blow on the missionary establishments of the interior, for the loots of the Spanish-American hierarchy were fixed in the mother country. Besides interrupting the flow of the ecclesiastical revenues, the struggles of the revolution prolonged a state of insecurity, the feeling of which subsided very slowly, and completely annulled, while it continued, every attempt at amelioration. Padre Plaza assured Lieutenant Smyth that the intimation respecting the proposed expedition of the latter was the first official communication he had receded from the Government of Lima after a silence of nine years. He had repeatedly called attention to the neglected state of the missions, and to the injury likely to result to the Hepublic from the relapse of the natives to their former barbarism. But his remonstrances remained unanswered ; nor did he, during that long interval, leceire any salary, so that, for the support of himself and the mission, he depended almost wholly on the trade which he managed to carry on with Tabatinga and other towns on the Marannon." We find, then, that the much-boasted Revolution has done its best to hinder the spread of civilisation, and to impede the labours of those who were engaged in successfully promoting it.

ANOTHER BOLD SCOTCHMAN.

Anotiikb notablp Scotchman has been encouraging " sedition " in Ireland. It is Professor Blackie whom we now find come to the front with words that, were he only an Irishman in Dublin, would at once havo sent him to prison. Fortunately for himself, the Professor i 8 a Scotchman, and in Edinburgh, and this is also fortunate for the cause of Ireland, since it shows that it is not only designing Imhinvn anxious to rise to notoriety and importance by protending a zejl for the welfare of their country, who presume to advocate agitation and make excuse for violence, but that a man of established

reputation and high abilities having no connection with Ireland, and clearly seeking for nothing by sympathy with her people, can nse stronger language when speaking of her than most Irishmen, even of the extreme party, would venture to do. Professor Blaclcie, then, the other day, in the coarse of a lecture delivered by him on the " Scottish Covenanters," took occasion to compare the present condition of Ireland with that of Scotland in the reign of King Charles 11. At that time, he said, the Scotch had '■' got into the state in which Ireland was just now. Having no protection from the law, and no hope there, they resolved to do justice to themselves, They would declare war partly in the open field, aud partly it might be by assassination." In Scotland, tinder King Charles 11., however, an attempt to coerce the people with respect to their religion was the cause of their troubles. It was in such a straggle that the Bishop of Orkney was wounded, and his would-be assassin advanced by the people to the position of a heTo ; that Archbishop Sharpe was murdered by men who considered they were striking a blow as well for heaven as for their country, and that outbreaks and violence too manifold for mention occurred. In Ireland, on the contrary, religion hardly enters into the matter, or does not do so directly, notwithstanding the effort made by means of the Orangemen to introduce it as the chief question of the day, the bone of contention par excellence. Protestant tenants are amongst the loudest complainants, Catholic landlords are among those the mo'-t vehemently denounced. But where Scotland, under King Charles 11., meets the Ireland of to-day as on a common ground is that the Government of the King was resolved to oppress her, and to oppose to all her remonstrances coercion only, just as we now see Her Majesty's Government resolved in the case of Ireland. Professor Blackie rightly says there is no hope in the law, and as for the people's attempt to do justice to themselves by constitutional means we have seen how it has been treated. Nevertheless, we are hardly prepared to follow Professor Blackie to the extreme to which he goes. He is thus reported of — " If it had not been for the monstrous system of governing Ireland by confiscation and absenteeism there would not have been a single good man shot in Ireland at the present moment. It was the rude revenge of nature, and when the law was not the minister of God for righteousness, but the minister of the devil for lawlessness, he wanted to know why he should be called an assassin for taking the sword in his hand and getting that justice at his own hand that he could not get from the authorities who ought to give it." It is, indeed, true that to the account of mis-government there may be laid every agrarian crime that has been committed, but still we should hesitate to excuse assassination under any circumstances. Nothing can justify the taking of life, by any. one acting on his own responsibility, but the actual immediate defence of life, or its equivalent, in every other case we must consider that to kill would be to murder. All the claim we make i 8 that an agrarian murder — a murder provoked as such an one is by cruelty, by gross injustice, by the infliction of absolutely unbearable wrongs on the man who commits it — is not a crime that so much stamps with degradation as any other murder. We claim, moreover, that people who understand this may connive at the murderer's escape from justice, and even aid him in it without incurriug the suspicion of an indifference to crime or a sympathy for the criminal as such. Their feeling is pity only, and frequently the desire as well to insure to one who sorely needs it, time for repentance. The Scotsman has taken Piofessor Blackie to task for his " extraordinary and dangerous language," but he abides by what he has said, and has even added emphasis to it.

SIT AN REBUKES SIX.

The Times correspondent writing from Berlin on January 14th, relative to a certain anti-Jewish, meeting, says, "Dr. Henrici, the anti-Semitic leader, devoted his violent eloquence to disparag* ing "both the moral and physical qualities of the Jews, speaking of them as deformed in mind and body, and unfit to intermarry with German Christians. Then, finding no more arguments of this nature, he attacked the English Press for its comments on the subject, and said that it had better turn its attention to Ireland and leave German affairs alone."' It is very amusing to find Satan and sin [mutually rebuking one another in this fashion. " The cowardly German doctor, who is ardent in advocating the persecution of a people unable to defend themselves, reproves the cowardly English Press that devotes its powerful abilities to keeping in misery and subjection an unarmed and defenceless people. And, on the other hand, the cowardly Press has reproved the cowardly German. But "where shall wisdom be found?" In that section of Germany that exercises the wicked folly of the tyrant towards the Jews, or in that proportionally much larger section of tbo English press that exhibits the wicked folly of the tyrant towards Ireland ? In the eye of both of them there is evidently a beam. Can we hope that tither of them will awakea the other to a knowledge of its own particular blemish'/ Meantime uninterested parties may look on and laugh, but neither the Jew nor the Iribhman can decently join in the'merriment ; the sight of oppression should always be a grave one to those who have themselves suffi-red from it. Let us hope the day may come ere long when it will be felt to be a shameful one by those who now inflict it, or advocate its infliction.

PERNICIOUS FOLLY.

A "Washington non-Catholic paper speaks as followß concerning the effects produced by the educational system so much vaunted at the present day: — "As to education, per se, being eithei a necessity or positive advantage to the mass of humanity, and an accessory of virtue or happiness, there are grave doubts. According to the theorists in the Senate, when every male and female citizen of the United States maybe insured a collegiate education we shall have reached the acme of civilisation, the perfection of self-government and the summit of human happiness and powsr. According to history and every day experience nothing could be farther from the fact. The colleges all over the land are filling the country with ' gentlemen ' at the expense of labour. The refinement of the high school and seminary system is crowding the American world with ' ladies ' at the expense of the kitchen, capable wifehood, and healthy, honourable motherhood. These gentlemen and ladies of education, cnlture and refinement, are flocking to the cities hy thousands every year, crowding the professions and seeking employment congenial frith, their acquired tastes. The hum-drum life of the farm, the toil of the shops and factories and the quiet drudgery of humble family cares are no longer in accordance with their intellectual acquirements. In no city in the Union is this more conspicuous than in Washington. The departments are full of gentlemen and ladies made by the high-pressure educational plan. For every one in place tbere are one hundred pressing for admission. Ask any Congressman. He will tell you of the hundreds of applicants, male and female, 'of fine education and cnlture, who are besieging him for employment suitable to their intellectual rank. The dread of physical labour drives men to drunkenness and crime, and women to prostitution. The asylums are fall of them, and for every educated pauper within the gates, a hnndred walk the streets and shiver in the garrets of the city. These are some of the products of a process which takes men from the plough and bench, and puts them in a sphere where success a,nd happiness is limited by nature : which takes women from, the kitchen and needle, and happy motherhood to fit them for parlours where there are no parlours, and intellectual lives to which the avenues are already choked. It is a false idea that is held out, that happiness, usefulness, and prosperity are necessarily incidental to a high degree of culture, which ma.kes our system of education a failure. It is not education itself, but its misdirection. Human happiness does not come of colleges, nor virtue of the high school. Beyond the common school the field of necessity rapidly converges. The proposition of the Senate educational bill, to enter upon a systematic endowment of colleges throughout the country, is an attempt to stand the educational pyramid upon its apex." It is quite evident that the state of things described in this passage •we quote has of late years made most undesirable headway in these colonies also. Everywhere the dread of physical labour is made clear by the number of youths who are to be found anxious to obtain office •work, and there is every reason to believe that the greater part of the children who attend the schools, at least in the towns, are sent there with the intention of having them fitted for clerkly employment. This is undoubtedly one of the chief dangers ahead in the path of the colonies' progress. We doubt, however, if the evil may justly be set down to the account even of the secular system. The effects of the secular system -will be that youth destined to disappointment and want will be bent out into the -world without the moral training necessary to enable it to support the trials and difficulties into which it will indubitably be thrust, and that it will be strengthened by the school in the foolish notions which it brings there with it from home : but we are inclined to think that the evil originates rather with, oveiindulgent or otherwise silly parents, than with the system of education — bad as this is and calculated to develop and encourage the evil. We see the best reasons to suspect that the old-world foolish contempt for handicraft employments and trade of every kind prevails among us here, though perhaps secretly, to a. most lamentable extent— and what is worse still it is among tradesmen themselves, or people who have made their wealth by means of trade, that it sefins to prevail the most, for these are the very people who refuse to train their (Aoldren in the way in which they themselves were trained to their p» 'fit, but bring them up with the ambition of sitting at a desk and moving through a very small society with smooth hands and the Bmal. amount of gentility that their serai-genteel aurroundiugs may demand of them. It is to this spirit that we attribute for the moM part the excessive abundance of a worthless element thaf floods thtcolonies and promises to degrade and ruin them. The schools, indeed, are admirably fitted to encourage and give it its highest development, but it does not originate with the schools — it is the remains of the old-world servitude, and worn out feudalism.

THE LATE CZAB.

The unfortunate Alexander 11. Czar ot Russia hairnet his terrible fate at last. For some time he had led the life of a wild beast, hunted continually by men who were determined to destroy him, and ou Bandaj, 13th mat., while ho was ongaged in witnessing a paiadc of

his troops in St. Petersburg, the second of two bombs thrown from among the spectators, and the first of which had exploded without iajuring him, shattered his legs and inflicted other mortal wounds upon him, causing his death in less than two hours from loss of blood. This death is one filled with evil augury, for not only .have the secret societies been inspired with fresh life and vigour by this successful termination of their long pursued plot — a result that will be in no manner interfered with by the fact of the actual murderer's having been, arrested on the spot, so that ye may almost certainly expect to see immediate fruits of the deed shown iv other European countries ; but a monarch of peaceful inclinations, so far as foreign realms were concerned, has been taken away, and his place will be supplied by one reported to be of very contrary dispositions — a prince of large ambition, said to be most desirouß for the possession of Constantinople, and of known enmity towards his powerful neignbour Germany. These many years it has wanted but a little spark to set all Europe in a blaze, and it would seem that there is new imminent danger of the want being no longer felt. Meantime this Czar has gone to his account, notwithstanding his peaceful dispositions towards other kingdoms, with bands blood-red. Under him the Catholic subjects of Russia were cruelly persecuted ; apostasy was forced upon them at the "bayonet's point. They were murdered in the very shadow of the altars of God. Hideous outrages were committed against them, and sacrilege that no Catholic cau so much as think of without a shudder. The Czar has gone down into his grave all covered with innocent blood, and that his death has been frightful, seems to us who remember of what nature were the deaths of other persecutors in nothing removed from the usual course of God's dealings with the world. Still there is also a light in which his death, at this particular time, may cause us some uneasiness for the prospects of Catholicism in the Russian dominions. Of late things seemed to have taken a favourable change there ; the Czar had evidently begun to realise that in contending against the Church he was fighting against the wholesome power that could alone secure peace to Europ e generally, and effectually resist the spread of the system that was threatening his life, and that now has taken it. He had, accordingly} begun to manifest a disposition to meet the kind advances of the Vatican halfway, and grant new conditions of existence to his Catholic subjects. Will his successor enter upon the course which he had apparently deter mined to pursue ? Time only can tell us this ; but, as we may be convinced that it was self-interest only and no true enlightenment that was Czar Alexander's guide, we may hope that tie Emperor who now begins his reign will take at least a like view of matters, and, if on political grounds only, give peace to the Catholics of his empire.

A Gi-IXAXT SCORE.

Mb. Bence Jones boasted lately that twenty valiant youths, the undergraduates of an Oxford College, had volunteered to go over and fight for him against the mere Irish — the authorities of the college, moreover, said Mr. Jones, had given their consent to the expedition. Noble youths, noble dons 1 While Britannia still reckons as her own such sons, she must continue to rule the waves. No water-spout shall ever over-whelm her ; no " buster " from any point shall ever cause her ship of state to founder. But does it not a little dia the vision that rises up before the mind at the contemplation of the devoted offer in question to remember that our noble undergraduates from Oxford would have carried revolvers of the best possible make and finish, while the peasantry they went to fight against might have counted themselves fortunate in the possession of neat shillelaghs? — that ia supposing them to have accepted the challenge of the gallant score, and entered upon a shindy. It is, however, a pity that Mr. Bence Jones balked these glorious scions of a manly race in their aspirations ; he went away to England, and thus prevented their expedition. And now, we find, they bid fair to be a second time disappointed, for the talk . of making with speed a peaceable settlement of matters in the Transvaal, we doubt not, will again interfere with th.eir desires. Martial undergraduates prepared to start on a filibustering expedition would, as a matter of course, be anxious to substitute oje opportunity for another in any part of the world, and we should have been sure to hear of their feats amongst the Boers, had not the whole matter given a promise of coming to an untimely cud. There will be twetity monumental brasses tbe less hereafter in Westminster Abbey, and possibly some favouieJ museum raaj by-and-bye exhibit twenty excellent revolvers that hay, been blessed by Oxford dous — uuleas, of cow*;, some safe little aff.iir offers and affords an oppoitunity for victory and renown.

TEE DIFFKKENCE.

Is tie great god Terminus, then, about to retrace his steps? It would seem that it is uugrattful to him to continue his dwelling in » difficuli country, wheie there are to k>e tound some thousands of letermined men, well armed, and trained from their iufaicy in the art of sharp-shooting — with a facility too for picking out the officers of an opposing force, aiid shooting thorn by preference. All this, It

appears, makes an aggrieved people very respectable, and persuade! even Johu Bull that his god Terminus is an intruder, and that his worship had better be cultivated m some other locality. Not, of course, that Britons have the least disposition to exhibit tbemselveß in the light of slaves. Such they can never become, but it is better that they should keep up their numbers as living freemen, than lie as dead freemen sacrificed to any deity on the field of glory. Prudence is much the better part of valour, and it ia a good thing to find that Jobu Bull even is capable of exercising it when the occasion offers. There are so many occasions wheu he can act as a hero without paying very dearly for it, that he may well afford , once in a way, to act like anything else in order to save his skin. John Bull, then, we find is gushing over with peaceful intentions towards the Boers ; he recognizes that he has made a mistake there, that he has been guilty, indeed, of something savouring a little like injustice, and he is inclined to give ear to the remonstrances that he reads all over the Press generally. He is now going to send Peace Commissioners to the Transvaal to enter into negotiations with the Dutchmen, and we shall find that these will get back their independence after a little palaver, and in the very middle of a great blast of British enthusiasm. The Boers will be all the fashion now for a season, and we shall hear all kinds of fine things concerning them. But let no one suppose John Bull has been in any degree cowed by what has taken place. Can he not proudly point to many glorious conquests of late years ? Did he not send out a contingent to help Garibaldi in "opening Italy to the Gospel?" He did nothing of the kind during the Franco-German war, but then there was no question of the "Gospel," and the pleasurable excitement of fighting on tie side of power must have been wanting. Then there are the Abyssinians for him to point out as a monument of his prowess, and the Ashantees, and the Afghans, Kaffirs and Zulus, all kinds of barbarians in fact, whom he has licked, to the great increase of his glory, and without anything to speak of in the matter of loss. But with the Boers it has, so far, been different ; there has been considerable loss there, and nothing at all to speak of in the way of glory. Decidedly the great god Terminus must now begin most opportunely to retreat. It is, however, only in one direction that thi s will take place ; the ged advances elsewhere, and has hut now taken up his station in Afghanistan. In Ireland, also, he remains firmly planted, and his foot is to be kept down there with all its accustomed heaviness. The country is in all respects the very opposite of the Transvaal, and therefore no injustice can possibly be discovered in anything that may take place there. There are no sharp-shooters to be found ; the people, on the contrary, have been carefully hindered from the possession of arms, or from learning how to handle them. An old rusty fire-look there may perhaps be here and there, and that most probably would only be discharged with greater danger to the man firing it than to the one aimed at, or some insane blacksmith may now and then be found who has manufactured for an insane customer that semi-barbarous weapon the pike, which would be about of as much use against a regiment of soldiers at the present day as the traditional pinch of salt would be in the hands of an urchin aspiring to the capture of some fowl of the air. There are, in a word, some five millions of people totally unarmed, and openly exposed to the oppression of a people armed to the teeth, and four times out-numbering them. It is greatly to the glory of John Bull that we hear him so frequently threatening them by means of his various organs. "If you dare to lift so much as a finger in your own defence I shall tighten my grasp upon your throats and choke you once for all." Such is, however, the langnage used towards men whose indignation is roused at seeing the means by which they should buy bread to feed their families dragged from their hands to support idleness and luxury ; the language used towards men who object to the payment of no very heavy taxation is different. But, as we said, the one can distribute some thousands of sharp-shooters over a difficult country with which they are well acquainted, while the otber stands on the open plain without either armour or defence, and in the presence of overwhelming numbers heavily anned — " Yoila la difference." But, nevertheless, the temple of the great god Terminus, however well established, is profane and foul.