EN PASSANT.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume IV, Issue 849, 23 January 1883, Page 2

EN PASSANT.

The great war correspondent Archibald Forbes has paid Ashburton a visit, and if this toivn is large enough to remain in his memory he will recollect it as a place where he was less appreciated than anywhere else during his lecturing tour. Our town hall is not a very gigantic building, and yet it was not half full on either of the two nighls during which Mr Forbes occupied it. Nor can it be said by way of excuse that we were allowed to entertain an angel unawares. Huge posters had heralded his approach, and a pamphlet containing the history of his life from his cradle to his present exalted position was industriously circulated; but still the public refused to come. Now, this does not seem at first sight to be an enviable position for a community that flatters itself that it is intelligent to hold, and it behoves us to try and find some reason for this neglect of one that the world considers great. We may account for the small attendance at the lecture on what is rather quaintly termed “the inner life ” of a war correspondent, by the fact that the public does not care twopence about who prepares the nevys for them, • so long as they get their morning paper at the

breakfast table. But when Mr Forbes was announced to discourse on the Kings and Princes he had met, one would certainly have fancied that the very title would be enough to dr..w a crowded house. That witty physician of early days, Francois Rabelais, narrates how Pantagruel and his entourage came to the island of Papimanie, and how they were welcomed with acclamation and feasted to their heart’s content, not because they were great men, but because they had seen a great man. The crowd rushed about wildly shouting “They have seen him ! they have seen him ! O happy men ! O most happy,” and the schoolboys were flogged in order that they might remember the auspicious day. And this was written some three hundred years before it entered the brrin of Thackeray to write a series of papers to prove that all the world were snobs. It is all very well to say contemptuously that a cat may look at a King —and to speak truth Mr Forbes does not on the whole seem to have had much more privilege accorded to him than that “ harmless, necessary ” animal—but there arc very few people who, it they possessed the proverbial cat, would not treasure it as something of inestimable value. Let the Ashburton people, then, to quote the great Artemus, “ lay the flattering function to their soul,” that it was because they did not believe in snobbery, and because they cared nothing to hear about such people as Kings and Princes that they robbed themselves of the pleasure of listening to two excellent lectures. It was a noble sacrifice to principle which will no doubt meet with its reward hereafter.

The reports of the meetings of Church Synods, although probably interesting to those immediately concerned, are not very lively reading to the generality of people. We make no question that these meetings do much good work, and that they are absolutely necessary ; but it is not easy to see why such a subject as the propriety of legalising marriage with a deceased wife’s sister should be discussed.' Yet this matter has been brought before the Presbyterian Synods more than once, and it would appear that much difficulty is experienced in coming to a decision, one party maintaining that such marriages are sanctioned by the Bible, while the other is equally certain that they are forbidden. Thus the conscientious layman is left in doubt as to whether he will be sinning against the canons of Holy Church' in wedding his sister-in-law, and the resnl* will possibly be that he will follow his own desire in the matter, and will rest satisfied with the permission to break through the prohibited degrees which Parliament has given him. The history of this marriage with a deceased wife’s sister business is a curious one. For many years in England a Bill was brought before the Houee of Commons with the object of legalising such marriages, but the question was viewed with indifference. At last, however, an agitation was got up, more than one silly novel was written to show that women were suffering a great grievance, and their champion in the House, Sir Thomas Chambers, had at last the satisfaction of seeing his Bill carried. But the measure got no further, the Lords resolutely refusing to pass it. In fact, what may be called the intelligence of the Upper House—namely, the bishops and the law Lords—have set their face against any amendment being made in our marriage laws. The former object on religious grounds, while the latter can discern the possibility of very awkward complications arising in the future from the union of a man with his deceased wife’s sister. New Zealand legislators are, however, less squeamish, and now the ladies of this colony are permitted to enter into the bonds of holy matrimony with the widowers of their late sisters, and if they continue their agitatiog long enough, no doubt in the future they will be allowed to marry thei r grandfathers or any other of the relatives enumerated in the list at the end of the Prayer-book. We speak of the ladies in this connection advisedly, as we do not think that men care very much about the question. At any rate it would be perhaps wise if Church Synods were in future to leave such matters alone, especially as it seems that the only result of interference is a great quantity of talk from which nothing comes.