SAVAGE AND NEWSPAPERS

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 2282, 16 November 1889, Page 3

SAVAGE AND NEWSPAPERS

When savage people first coma In o-rn-taot with tkewbl'ee, none of the wonders that they soe Ib regarded with more tvaplcion than Urge sheets of paper, Tbo native !i apt to regard p*per as a Bort of cloth, »nd tbe faot th«t it tearß easily and !■ worthless for most of the purposes to wbloh o'oth la put oonvlnooa him that It fi a friod. One or two Congo travellers have told of the disgust with whloh the natives at first regarded p»p<*r. The Congo tribes, by the way, are on the look out for sharpers, and It Is pretty hard work for anybody to tell tbem a bad quality of cutlery or olotb. Savages Boon find, however, that paper la not intended to aerve the purposes of c'oth, Then they cease to kokupon it ts a fraui, bat they do not think it ranks high among tbo white man's manufactures, cr.d they have little nae for it. A while »go Mr Lumhol z w»s travelling la the Interior of Queensland, Australia, where he met many natives who had sever seen a white man bef kt. One day a crowd of natives were m the white xnan'i camp carefully Inspecting the explorer and his baggage, when a newspaper happened to drop out of bis pocket. The natives unfolded It and spread it out on the ground. They deoldcd that It mast bs an article of wearing apparol, and one of them tried It on. He wrapped It around his shoulders like a shawl, and ■at down on lha ground arranging hit covering this way and that, and watohr Ing the facet of the crowd to see what they thought of his elegant garment, covered as it was with many thouiauda of •nrlous marks. Prssently, however, an aooideot happened. While the savage was rearranging his shawl and trytag to bring the corners together It? front of him, the garment began to tear at the nape of h : s neck. A howl from the crowd brought attention to the disaster. The blsnket, ov whatever It was, was evidently made of the poorest material The savage took hti covering eff, examined the m'sohlef ha bad wrought, made tbe tear a little longer, tnd then with his fiager poked a hole throogh the paper: That settled tho fao; that the artole was worthless, The newspaper suddenly lost all Interest (or the natives, who tnrned their attention to less destructible cbjeo'a.