Ways of Living.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 405, 11 February 1904, Page 7

Ways of Living.

A GOOD TBENCHEBMAN. SEN a volume published in the early part dip of laat century, we recently came 3|g across an article on the well-known Beefsteak Club, which was a meeting place of men of wit and learning. One of most popular of its members was a former Duke of Norfolk, who, if the writer is to be believed, must have been the champion beef-eater of the association. He writes: | —'As soon as the clock strikes five a curtain draws up, discovering the kitchen, in which the cooks are dimly seen plying their j several offices, through a sort of grating, with this appropriate motto from Macbeth inscribed over it : 'lf it were done, when 'tis done, then 'twere-well it were done quickly.' 'But the steaks themselves—they were of the highest order, and I can never forget the good will with which they were devoured. In this reppact no one surpassed the Duke of Norfolk. He was 'totus in illis.' Ejes, hands, moutb, were all intensely exercised; not a faculty played the deserter. His appetite literally grew by what it fed on. Two or three succeeding steaks, fragrant from the gridiron, rapidly vanished. In my simplicity, I thought that his labours were over. I was deceived, for I observed him rubbing a clean plate with a shalot, to prepare for the reception of another. Like the Epic. 'Apause of ten minutes ensued, and his Grace rested upon his knife and fork; but it was only a pause, and I found there was

good reason for it. Like the epic, a rump of beef has a beginning, a middle, and an end. - The palate of an experienced beefateaker can discern all its progressive varieties, from the first cut to the last, and he is a mere tyro at the business who does not know tbat towards the middle there lurks a fifth essence, the perfect ideal of tenderness and flavour. For this cut the Duke had wiselj tarried, and for this he re-collected his forceß. At last he desisted, but more, I thought, from fatigue than satiety. I need not hint that powerful irrigations of port encouraged and relieved at intervals the organs engaged in thiß severe duty. A member who sat next to me hinted, with regard to the Duke of Norfolk, that it waß Mb custom,, on a beef-steak day, to eat a preJiminary dish of fish in his own especial box at the Piazza, and then adjourn time enough for the beef-steaks. He added, also, and I heartily concurred in h»B remark, that a mere dish of fiah could make no difference to the iron digestion of his .Grace than a tenpenny nail, more or lets, in that of an ostrich. After dinner the Duke was ceremoniously ushered to the chair, and invested with an orange coloured ribbon, to which a silver medal, in the form of a gridiron, was appended. I was astonished to see how little effect the sturdy port wins of the sooiety produced on his constitution, for the same abhorrence of a vaccuuim, which had die-

poaedhim to do each ample justice to his dinner, showed itself no/lesa in hia nnflinching devotion to theTwttle. 'Jam Satib/ *lt sometimes happened, at the ofase of the evening, that the Duke, without exhibiting any symptom of inebriety, became immoveable in hia oKiuf; as if deprived of all muscularvolition. He would then request the bell to be rung three times. This wsb a signal for bringing in a kind of eaw litter, foor tqui-distant belfe, fastened together by a transverse one, which four domestics placed under him, and thus removed his* enormous bulk, with a gentle Bwiogisg motion, up to hia apartment. Upon these occasions the Bake would Bay nothing, but the whole thing.was managed with great system and in perfect silence.' * ,

THE CHRISTIANS OF UGANDA^; Mr Stanley truly says that the story he tells of the revolution wbioh dethroned Mwanga, the King of Uganda, would have' •iindled' Livingstone. Even Haggardian romance Rales its ineffectual fires by the Bide of a narrative showing how the seeds sown by a couple of devoted missionaries have accomplished more than even England would have cared to undertake Mwangi, who lately ruled over an enormous territory, and boasted that all the kings ef the earth were but leather and prunella In comparison, thought so little of the Christian converts in his dominions that he meditated wiping them out for the mere fun of the thing. But the worm turned, and this despised fraction, allying itself with other malcontents, drove forth Mwanga into the^wilderness, and elected another king to reign in his stead. Afterwards, however, there was strife among the victors, and the. Christians, in their turn, had to depart- None the less it is a most noteworthy incident that they should have made the Cross triumphant;, if only for a time, in the realms of heathendom, Missionary enterprise in Africa cannot fail to take great encouragement from this proof that the tenets it implants go much farther than Bkin de6p. That sarcasm used to be levelled at-the selfsacrificing men who made Unganda the centre of their religious propaganda. It was affirmed that that the natives merely followed Royal fashion; when King Mtesa became a Christian, so did they; out when King Mwanga reverted to Mahomedanism, they were certain, it was predicted, to make the same change. Mr Stanley's narrative proves that this was not the case j Christians they remained in spite of a most bitter perseoution, nor did tbey rise in rebellion until compelled to do so in self-defence. Canon Taylor will have to modify his hypothesis that Mahomedanism is the only faith adapted to gain ground in Central Afrio. Christianity, it is clear, has quite equal force of propagation when rightly guided.