CHRISTCHURCH.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIII, Issue 29, 13 November 1885, Page 17

CHRISTCHURCH.

(From our own correspondent.)

November 10, 1885. Whbthbb Sir Julius Vogel's denunciation of the extravagance of the Education Department will bear any sort of fruit is a question hidden in the womb of time. There are some faint indications of good, however. For instance, it has been declared apropos of thejcircular ,of the Education Minister, that the localities must bpgin to make provision of some kind towards the cost of school buildings, and that the best method would be to retrench the capitation paid for children below a certain age. Neither the doctor nor the mother are, we are told, in Javcur of the practice of sending children of five to the schools to lie neglected on the floor. But these authorities are remarkably careless in the matter. The mothers, in fact, are, as a rule, very glad to get rid of the little ones for a few honrs, while the doctors cever trouble their heads about matters which do not concern them. The Education Boards on their side are only too glad to get the £4 per head. Thus the mothers and the Education Boards are in league. I hear of Catholics being asked why they do not take up this unduly early school age as a legitimate grievance ; also why they de not oppose the system of cram as most injurious and destructive. The only reply that ought to be made is very clear. Catholics have one grievance at present and one alnne. Bemove that, and we shall belp to attack all the others. Possibly Buch help would be the only real attack on some of those minor evils. But be that as it may, one thing is certain : Catholics cannot begin at tbe wrong end by attaching evils, the removal of which brings them bo nearer to their main object.

Mr. Richardson has been on a tour through his constituency, but be bas not been under the impression that his colleague the Treasurer left an opening for him to ppnak. It is shrewdly suspected that Mr. Richardson was rather pleased than otherwise. Those who have heard him try to address the House of Representatives tell me he is inaudible. Even on the West Coast Railway he had nothing to Bay, even to dsputations.

The popular enthusiasm for politics bas been killed temporarily by a surfeit. Sir Julius gave us so much ; he inundated us with a deluge of philosophical reasonings, which will float us for many months to come, though it overwhelmed us just a little at first. I was present in the theatre when he delivered that remarkab'e address, which was a very good essay, fit to be inserted in a heavy magazine for the information of cultivated readers of a speculative turn and possessed of plenty of leisure. But it seemed rather cold comfort to a very large audience, very anxious to be pleased. No doubt when they have studied all these fine phrases about the depression and its relation to '• the metal gold "—they really never heard that gold was anything bat a metal, and, between ourselves, I think even, the most enthusiastic Vogelites in Mr Howland's band of partisans would not believe Sir Julius if he said it was when the public has studied these phrases, and mastered the various elaborate complexities of an argument arranged with some literary and very great dialectic Bkill, the public may find some great reason for rejoicing. This le, perhaps, the reason why the speech is to be circulated in pamphlet form. At the time the cheers were very feeble not like those which that veteran orator, bir George Grey, is in the habit of drawing from the same people. Mr. Boucicault's little company now performing here is a treat to see. His own acting of the Irish character is delicious in its perfect finish, its briskness, and its variety of mood. He was not pleased because one of the critics declared that he was older than he had once been as an impersonator of the brave Irish " boy " of the green mountains and glens, and showed it too. But actors and dramatists are very much like other people. Charles Mackay, L.L.D., of London, writes in the Independent on the absurdity of casing the English and Scotch people " AngloSaxon." He shows that the term is of recent origin, and wa3 utterly unknown in Shakespeare's and Spencer's time. la the time of the Hanoverian Georges, who were Six >ns, the term " SaxoT " came into use. As for the Angles, Dr. Mackay calls them "an imaginary people that never existed." The word is derived, he says, from the Gaelic An-Gael, signifying " the G. el or the Cdts." Rngland was called " Anglia" by the Roman centuries b-fore the inventiou of the German "Angles." The Irish word Sassenach has no relation whatever to the word Saxon, but simply means a robber and an assassin. Still, though neither Saxons nor "ADgles," the average AngloAmerican will go on prxiudly calling himself an " Ango-Saxon."— POot.