Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIX, Issue 52, 2 October 1891, Page 1

Current Topics

AT HOME AND ABROAD.

But, good friend " Civis," it was an invention of THE TBTJB somebody. We d? not charge it to the Tory papers FIGURES. as you suggest, because we do not care to follow bad

examples and run a risk of calumniating our neighbours — even the Tories we ndiiit are our neighbours, though rather of the nature of the priest aad Levite, towards any decent Christian, than of that of tbe good Samaritan. Someone inven.*d that statement concerning the expenditure of the Evicted Tenants' fund, and, according to the rnle of mud-throwing, some of the uncleanness sticks. The official statement, published recently in the National Press by the treasurer of the Irish National Federation, gives the toUls up to December 31, 1890, as follows : — Collected, £125,000 ; law, £7,220 ; tenants (cash), £76,418 ; building houses, £13,281 ; building New Tipperary, £29,552. Our readers will perceive, if they make the necessary calculations, that the expenditure was considerably in excess of the receipts. The lawyers, however, even those of them who, according to our good friend " Civis' " charitable hint, were Irish M.P's. received nothing like the sum of £30,000. The money paid in law expenses was £7220, evidently that only demanded by necessity, and, everything taken into account, not an exorbitant sum. We do not know that our publication of the truth will do any good. la fact, it had been already published in our columns. When mud is thrown and sticks, it is hard to scrapa it i ff. But it can do no harm, in the face of a repeated falsehood, to repeat the truth, and doubtless a wise sort of person like our friend " Civis ' will know bow to make use of it, even if it be only by keeping out of its way.

Ju&T like them, the dear creatures, and Mr D. qdite As it Pinkerton, M.H.R., is to be congratulated on bis should be. return among us as a pet of the petticoats. " A

large number cf persons," says the Oi3go Daily Times of Saturday, " a considerable portion of whom were of tbe fair sex, assembled on the railway station last night to welcome Mr D. Pinkerton, M.H.8., on his return to Dunedin from his Parliamentary labours in Wallington." Place anx dimes. Miss H. L. Nicol, Secretary of the Women's Suffrage Committee, first read an address, and then Pir Robert Stout, who had given precedence to the ladies, read another. But is the Women's Suffrage Committee cf greater importance than the National Liberal Association, of which Sir Robert Stout was the representative? If not, why did Sir Robert Stout give first place to Miss Nicol? Surely it savours of the old superstitiou ) of the obsolete belief in the superiority of the sex, to make way for them, or was it Miss Nicol herself, who, with the courag6 of her convictions shoved to the front? If not, Sir Robert, by his action, palpably contradicted his professions. Like Tennyson's old farmer in relation to his parson, we will admit, however, if only for the sake of argument, or, perhaps, to avoid argument, that both Miss Nicol and Sir Robert Stout paid what they ought to have said. Miss Nicol •expressed her thauks to Mr Pinkerton for his Herculean labours— though the Augean stable of men's monopoly remains uncleansid — and added an expression of confidence that such a man as tha hon Member must necessarily prove a successful champion of the right. Sir Robert Stout also gave a word of thanks to the Member, but shook his fist in the face of tne Legislative Council. Sir Robert will now set the example to the world of a single Chamber. But what is it for which Mr Pinkerton really deserves acknowledgement ? He has returned from Wellington, leaving the colony somewhat in the position of Mahomet's coffin, except that the coffin in question had heaven as one of its attractions. We do not know that the colony hag any particular relation to the empyrean. If, indeed, it finally escapee a very different kind of contact we may count ourselves extremely fortunate. At present it occupies a doubtful position. The House has separated with a protest on the part of the majority that all the nonsense by which tne session was marked and by which the hopes of progress or prosperity for the country bid fair to be

extinguished, is to be repeated next year. Indeed, according to Sir Robert Stout, the situation is to be aggravated, for, in addition to female suffrage and land nationalisation and all the rest of it, we are to have the abolition of the Upper Chamber. It is to be hoped the prospect of the single tax may conduce to material nourishment and that the delightful anticipation of femala suffrage may prove a sufficient compensation for going supper lass to bed. Bnt a state ct suspense is everywhere ; enterprise and speculation are effectively choked; distrust is strengthened and promoted. There is nothing to attract people to the Colony, but almost everything to drive them away from it. If ever the old proverb, ne tutor ultra crepidam, bad a literal fulfilment we see it now in Mr Pinkerton's return to Dunedin, with the records cf his doings and tbGse of his party at Wellington. Had he been engaged at home in making shoes he would have been honoaiably and usefully employed, and many people might have bee l the better of his work. Bat cobbling, or trying to cobble up there at Wellington on theories that he knew nothing about he made a dismal failure. The result was inevitable waste of time, mischief, and increased evil to the country. The hon Member's reception, we admit, was a fitting one. Who ara more fit to receive any incarnation of stupidity or folly than, our politically aspiring womankind 1 Mr Pinkerton in his political capacity as the pet cf such petticoats has found his proper level.

It would seem evident that the pictures of evictions obang-e and other scenes from the proceedings of coercion tactics. in Ireland shown as illustrations of his lectures

by Mr J. R. Cox, M.P., have produced some effect. At least, if wo miy judge by the gnashing of those well-worn grinders, tbe Orange teeth— particularly the canine ones— such is the case. Our Orange well-wishers are giving plain signs of emotion, and according to thsir custom, endeavoaring to " raise Cain " in their very congenial cause. Indiscriminate vengeance is the chief principle of Orangeism, arid, indeed, its r also n, d'etre. Two hundred and fifty years ago the Catholics of Ulster committed some excesses in an attempt to reciver the homes of which, ami an accompaniment of slaughter, they had bacn robbed. Consequently converted Christiani of the Orange following are justified to-day in saluting with a shower of " kidneys " a body of Catholic school children out for a holiday ntar Belfast, or in assailing with bludgeons a party of Catholic excursionists a*, Cleator Moor. Admitting the justice of the principle alluded to, and acknowledging that the ralson d'etre of Orangism ia one that may have consistent prevalence beyond the bounds of the savage world, we can see the pertinence of a proposal made in cer. tain quaiters that the views exhibited by Mr Cox should be supplemented by pictures, as mentioned, of " (1) The Phoenix Park murders ; (2) the noble woman who held the knives for the murderers ; (3) the extinction of the Joyce fami'y." On the Orange principle a murder in one part of the country, planned no-body knows how, anl, very possibly if not most probably, the outcome of a bogus plot formed by Dublin Caotle to entrap its victims, but accidenlly carried futther than it had been intended, is qaite a sufficient excuse for throwing out to starve upon the road women and children at aa opposite end of the island, and who had never so much as heard of the crime perpetrated. And, by the way, who waa the " noble woman who held the knives for the murderers f " Is this, by chance, a homage paid to the present ambitions of the sex by suggesting that nothing can be done in which a woman has not her part?— for we now hear of this "noble woman" for the first time. And yet this " noble woman " may not be a congenial creation of the Orange imagination. Such a woman, after all, may have baen mixed up in the plot, and we should be sorry to contradict any Orange authority on the matter. Very possibly Orange authorities were mixed up in the original plan, and had a perfect knowledge of everything connected with it. Is not their own organisation the outcome and creature of a similar plan, and has it not all along been supported and encouraged for the purpose of carrying out such a plan f But, with regard to the murder of the Joyces, would it not be necessary to perfect the proposed addition to tbe exhibition by a view of the execution of Miles Joyce, who, quite on the Orange principle, was hanged for the murder, although he was completely innocent of it and had known nothing about it? We admit, after all, that the

proposal ia question might be usefully adopted by Mr Cox, if he desired to make an exhaustive illustration of Irish affairs, and to show how a pretence of guilt anywhere has been syetmatically st izod on to carry out government by vengeance. Meantime, it is a wholetome sign that the gnashing of the Orange tucks is taking place. It proves that the sight of the treatment inflicted on the Irish people is producing, as it must among any humane and civilised community, a good effect and re-wakening sympathy.

M. ANI.TOLR LEROY-BEA.uiiT.Ktr who, in the Revue THE TESTIMOXY des Deux Mo tides for July 15, publishes another OF science, article on the Jews, gives us some details that go

far to assert the authority of the Mosaic writings We qaote them as follows :— lt has been observed ia certain coun rin that the Jews appear to possess an immunity in face of certain infectious diseases. The fact has been so often proved that it is difficult |to deny it. These immunities appear to us to depend above all on the observances of the law, particularly on the rules relating to corporal purity and purity of nourishment. The Law has for Judah a prophylactic value. Certain moderns reduce morality to the level of a sort of hygiene. The Law, given in the midst of lightnings on Mount Sinai, did not do th is ; but in prastice the Lkw ani the Rabbinical code arrive almost at the same end as the positive morality. Judaism has placed the Law at the service of hygiene ; It has made piety tarn to the profit of health. The minute rules of the Lair oa the flesh of animals destined as the food of man had long appeared puerile. And now, after three thousand years, our physiologists are come to avenge the Bible. The Thora has science for it. One would say that the editor of the Pentateuch had foreshadowed M. Pasteur. ' Moses,' said a Polish Jew, ' had discovered the trichinae ; that is wby he forbade pork.' The fact is that most of the animals declared impure by Leviticus are forbidden to-day for a number of diseases, — notably diseases of the Bkin. " We might almost maintain,' ■aid a doctor to the writtr, < that the legislator of the Hebrews was Acquainted with tuberculosis, bo many precautions docs he takt against It. He bad divined, thirty centuries before us, that phthisis could be transferred from the lower animals to man.'* If the abandonment of the practices of the Law had not been the condition of the expansion of Christianity, it might be regretted that the controversies of the primitive Church on ritual observances bad not ended in the triumph of the Law and the Judoao-Christians. Certain English or American hjgienists bavt demanded that the civil administration should impose on all butcheries at least a partial adoption of Israelitish customs. Progress for us Christians wonld be, in such a matter, to return, after two thousand years, to the practices of the ancient Hebrews. — So far M- Leroy-Btaulieu, But if we add to this testimony of science the witness borne recently by archoe^logy that tbe accounts given in the Pentateuch of the destruction of cities are true, the remains of the walls destroyed being moreover such as to make miracnlous assistance in the fall almost palpable, we cannot fail to perc ive that valuable light is thrown on the nature of the objections that ara advanced against the inspiration of the Mosaic records.

We reproduce elsewhere the speeches made by THE BIGHT Messrs Dillon and O'Brien on their late release

SPIBIT.

from their long term of vindictive imprisonment.

What we particularly note in these speeches and are glad to note, is the kindliness of the spirit by which, they are distinguished. Like a speech made by Sir Thomas Esmonde, during the recent election for Carlow, and which we als"> reproduced, their tone is conciliating and charitable, and characteristic of the true patriotism that is not diverted from its object by any side issues, however exciting or however beguiling. There is no expression of bitterness towards Mr Parnell made from beginning to end of either of these speeches. His leadership is declared, quietly and respectfully, but firmly, to be henceforth impossible, but do hint is given as to any contempt for his services in the pa6t. This was the key to take from the first. Had Mr Parnell's leaderthip be?n renounced at once on the revelation of his guilt by the whole uDited party, and in a similar manner, all the evil that has resulted would have been avoided. It is difficult to see how men with &ny knowledge of the world could still have retained a belief in his innocence. Young Mr Gray of the Freeman's Journal, indeed, or other ingenuous youths may consistently have done so, and we may accept as quite sincere and satisfactory Mr Gray's explanation that it was the form of marriage with Mrs O'Shea that finally undeceived him. Under the circumstances of the times, however, ingenuous youth is comparatively rare, and beyond the period of youth ingenuousness hardly exists — that is so far as it includes simplicity of miad and a disposition to believe what is good rather than what is evil. Oa the other band it is difficult to explain how men could fail to perceive that, in making little of the past services of Mr Parnell and minimising the lilict of his loss to tbe party, they were exposing themselves to ridicule and distrust. Who but they had made much of Mr Parnell ; who but they, up to the very last, had proclaimed the impossibility of his fall ? Either, then, they were making professions that they knew to

be false or they were ignorant of Mr Parnell's worthlessaees, a condition utterly out of keeping with their position or the duties required of them. Oa neither horn of the dilemma is it creditable to them to rest. Mr Parnell's fault was quite sufficient to form a cause for the rej action of bis leadership, even had his services deserved the unstiatei encomiums that were woat to ba pronounced upon them by the whole party, and we. for our part, have seen as yet no reason to doubt the justice of the praises alluded to. If other men are now fit to take up the leadership and to conduct tho cause to success, let it not be forgotten that they are so, because they have been trained in the school in which Mr Paroell led the way. We repeat then, that we were particularly pleased to note the tone of the speeches to which we have referred. We may rationally accept it as an earnest of a return to a better state of things, and as a harbinger of that reunion, without which Home Rule is impossible, and, indeed, we would almost say, undesirable.

Asa striking sign of the times, and unfortunately mobe tbaces an earnest of what we have to expect, we may quote OF the BIG that choice made the other day by a body of our GOOBE. working men of a peripatetic freethought lecturer

as a proper person to represent them in Parliament, The pressing needs of the times demind as statesmen men of experience, of practical Haas, and whose views are useful if common place: Choice, however, pitches on a wiseacre whose chief recommendation is that he has not any belief in a devil, and knows nothing at all about a God. Application is made to Sir Robert Stout for his approval and he gives it, with as much of a blessing as he feels himself in a position to bestow. But, indeed, the pity of it. Here is a man of undoubted talent, who could, if he would, do good work for the country, and earn the gratitude of all of us by promoting our common interests, but who obstinately runs his head into a maze of absurdities and seems bent on leaving behind him the reputation of one whose life ia wasted in the pursuit of extravagance. It is a long time since we read " Gu'liver's Travels," and we have not now a copy of the bsok at hand to refresh our memory, but does not the adventnrer tell us of a certain country where the efforts of philosophers were bent on extracting sunbeams from cucumbers ? Whether it is Gulliver or somebody else who tells us of this, the task wall represents that to which Sir Robert Stout has davoted bis intellect. Wherever there ia a queer job to be performed or undertaken, Sir Robert is in the thick of it, or at the head of those engaged in it. Bat what do this body of workingmen to whom we allude expect to gain by returning to Parliament a gentleman whose occupation has been necessarily that of abstract speculation, rather than those common calculations respecting bread and butter with which our working men are really concerned ? Will it pay them to see their families suffer want before their eyes, so long as the devil is kept from popping up again, — at least 8j far as a more or less eloquent disclaimer of his existence can prevent him ; or so long as a knowledge of God bacames more hazy ? Is it of more importance to them that the theory of equality should be defined for tbe world in general, than that in particular their wives aod children should be comfortably clothe! and fed ? And, by the way, speaking of the theory of equality, let us propose to Sir Robert Stout the example of another philosopher who seems to have understood the very essence of equality, and knew how it must be secured, if it was to have any value at all, that namely of a certain pundit of the Revolution, who saw into the very heart of the cucumber and knew how the sunbeams must be disposed there if any good was to be got by their extraction. Ho declared and proposed to have it decreed, that equality among men must be that of the mind. Everything short of that, he said must prove a failure, in which, indeed, he does not seem to have been much mistaken. If Sir Robert Stout would iefrain from all other investigations or exhortations until he had discovered the secret of how this ciuld be enforced, he might possibly avoid doins* a great deal of mischief. Iq any case the success obtained by him in the end would be quite as marked as any he will now obtain. Sir Robert, however, does not even confine himself to cucumbers in his attempt to extract sunbeamß. He seems to think they are to ba had out of anything and everything. No one can hold up any lump of a stone to him but he will give his word that it it full of sweetness and light. Sir Robert quite as a matter of course gives bis blessing to tbe choice of the working men of whom we have s x>ken. But what can possibly come of all this but an aggravation of the existing evils ? That in all probability ia what we must expect;

It is not generally known that England has followed the lead of most Continental Powers in establishing a regularly-organised military pigeon intelligence department. For some time past a number of carrier pigeoas have been located at Eastney Barracks, and are in regular trainiDg by a staff under the direction of Cap am Britten. The birds are usually taken out to sea in one of the gunboats or other vessels going abroad, and released at a given distanca from land with messages to the authorities. Some of the birds are highly trained, aod have proved a great service in communicating the whereabouts of vessels. A number of birds will be utilised during the naval manoeuvres to convey intelligence between the fleets and the shore.