TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 11502, 7 February 1903, Page 6

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

There will be many in Jft*. > An Zealand -who remember W*. Australian plwurare the einging °*Jr:V, Singer. Anne* Beaumont. Aftett ■' nraeical career extending*™ , forty ye*M, the veteran Ai-toOian U«* bade farewell to the concert «Ug» m »T bourne bet Sattirday night, 01 no leu a pe«on than Madame 3&aj. - Apart from th« claina of mont upon the friendship o colonial . audieno«, there is still much to edmi"; a. wh the case with Sim. B««w, i»J« art «& which he «« the wxce the y~« bare left him. »I? Mr Beaumont w* bom a" EngW forty «ince hem»d« his fiwt appearw*"/* the colonial .tase. He renwnedtothW, 8. Lyeter, who brtmgbt ha«*out. *gj 1863 until 1880, and .hared eil ** trinmphs of the palmy daye of ope»U > A«tralia. & wntta, » » fjg ' .ay*, one of the popular idola of the «^.Vg 6 nd held kb own Pf j \ L aU the celebrities with whom jft-*g!£jgi|

ill-starred Urna di Munfea, to whose Marguerite—and what a Marguerite!—he played Faust. Among his other contemporaries was an American named Squires, of whom an amusing story is told. Writing in the early sixties to a (riend in San Francisco, Squires mentioned that he liked Australia well enough, but the people were "so blasted English." The letter found its way into a San Francisco paper, and thence "back to Australia, and when Mr Squires had next to face a Melbourne audience he realised that he had made himself exceedingly unpopular. "As aoon as his head appeared round the wings, Tjben he was going on for his first enXtaxix, a perfect storm of hoots and yells burst forth, and when the unhappy tenor advanced to the footlights and opened his j mouth to sing the outcry was redoubled. Every time that Squires made a fresh attempt the audience howled him down, and ft, last the uproar became deafening." Finally Mr Lystor managed to secure a hearing and poured oil on the troubled waters by 'explaining that the letter had been a private one, and that it really contained nothing disparaging to the Australian people. On tho contrary, the reference to England ought to be regarded in the light D f » compliment. "The fickle multitude were so much impressed by this dexterous argument that their denunciations were converted into applause, and Mr Squires was compensated by a closing ovation of unusual warmth." Mr Armee Beaumont owes his partial, now all but total, blindness to a shooting accident in 1867. He was qUail-shooting with Lyeter, when the latter accidentally discharged his gun, the shot striking Mr Beaumont in the face ana completely destroying the sight of one eye and seriously impairing the other. He never let the injury hinder his work, and as soon as he recovered he mado his reappearance, receiving a tremendous welcome. In all he has sung in seventy-six operas, besides retiearsing six others in which he never appeared. Among the latter was " Lohengrin." He had rehearsed the name part up to mid-day of the date of production, and then fell ill, the part being token by a colleague who had not had a single rehearsal.

'IThe main sewer of SydAn Excursion ney does not strike one in a Sewer, as exactly tlie place in which to Bpend a plealutfa a-3ternoon, yet a Sydney newspaper ■n<LTi _«eiD-B to have .-oroughly enjoyed suoh an experience. The first requisite for the enjoyment of a sewer excursion, it appears, is fine weather, for rain means storm-water, and Storm-water in a eeweir is a very real danger to a sewer-man. When it rains he stays above ground, and even when ; t is fine, and the men are below, there is always am extra man above, ready to give wartth-g of a sudden squall. Another measure of precaution is afforded by the system of lifting -nan-boles. There must always be .four men above ground, in od-d-two to the weather man. These four work in pairs, Id-tLng and closing dawn man-holes, and as soon as the sewer-men, who work in threes, have passed one manhole, it is dosed down, and the next one down stream opened iramcdtately, so that there shall always be ready communication. The I reporter adkmts that the first sensation of xnarehing knee-deep in a swiftly moving grey stream, and heariwg th& roar of city life ovei-iead, was uncanny, and the strange-1 ntss was accentuated by the dim light cast by the candle each man of the {party carried. The surpirisinig thing was that there •was little unpleasant smell., A sewer suggests awful pas-uhdHtiesi in the way of smells, but a good modem sewer is really less offensive thum a dirty backyaad. Another thing wot) that there were no rats to be seen. The sewer-ret has the reputation of being the most savage of his race, and hlocd-curd-ing stories have been told of sewer-men being killed and half-eaten by them. There is some truth inHhese tales, for iih» inspector and foraaan who aeoomgpanied tbt* Sydney excursionist remembered the cose of, a man being gnawed to death by rats in one of the smaller London Sewers. But the hard, sinoc-Jh concrete facing of the modenv sewer gives no -ootbold for nails.' Co-itrary to what one would expect, ill-health never afflicts the iswer-men who work underground. "Account far it as you may," said the Sydney inspector, "thidt. is the fact. They are even less susceptiMe to cold than the men on top. It is the same affl over the warid where the sewers are modem. You'll seldom find an underground man willing to change with a section man on top." Other reasons far this preference are that as soon as their work is completed the men can go home. In rainy weather they do not go down, and tihey only work five nights per week. "And •then, greatest attraction of «li, there is always the chance of the silt giving up its vo-uahles. All kinds of coins and email articles of jewellery sire found in the sewer—brooches, rings, scarf pins, sometimes even watches and chains." "I knew a man who found a valuable set cf teeth once," interposed tho foreman. "The owner adhreitt-sed, and the man returned them said got the reword." Thctre is a suggestion that the sewer hides many a crime iv the fwetnaa-'a emphatic remark: This is a most immoral city." The ama- . tew sewer-man's excursion stopped at a point where, with th* sewer deepening and dipping, the so. could be heard roaring at the outfall

Many of the best and Hymns and most popular hymns in Thtir Authors, the* language have some etory attached to them. A recently-published volume, "Famous Hymns and their Authors," by Mr F. A. Jones, contain* much interesting information which may not perhaps be generally known regarding the origin of these hymns. "Now Thank we all our God," which was sung in St. Paul's Cathedral at the recent , Thanksgiving Service, is a translation of a German hymn composed by Martin Rinkart during the Thirty Years' War. when ha was shut up in Eilenburg with a crowd of refugees. "Pestilence broke out: they died by hundreds. Except Rinkart, all the clergy perished, and he continued to read the Burial Service over the victims till he, too, fell exhausted." The hymn was probably inspired by the hope that peace was near at hand. The tune to which the words are sung was composed as far back as 1649 by Johonn Cruger. "Onward, Christian soldiers," one of the most popular of present-day hymns, was written by the Rev. S.Barinj Gould to give the children of his village church a marching song to enliven the long walk from the church to the place of a school feast. It was not till latex, however, that the tune with which this hymn is always associated was composed by Sullivan. One of Mr Jones's stories relates how, when a certain vicar would not permit a cross to be carried in front of the choir during the procession up the aisle, the choirmaster retaliated by altering the first verse of "Onward, Christian •oidierfl." and getting his choir to sing "Marching as to wax, With the cross of Jesus, Left behind the door!" The beautiful hymn. "Abide with me," was written by Mx Lyte, after saying farewell to the , c«-g»gati« wbicfc b* wm

The tune so well-known in connection with this hymn was a happy inspiration which came to Dr. Monk while he was helping to edit "Hymns Ancient and Modern." Mr Chatterton wrote "Come unto -Me, ye weary," after an illness of many weeks, when his hand still trembled so that he held the pen with difficulty. "It is," be wrote to Mr Jones, "a curious fact that most of my best known hymns were written whensl was suffering from some bodily ailment/* "Lead kindly light" echoes the loneliness of its author, Cardinal Newman, at the time the hymn was written. He had fallen ill while travelling through Italy, and for three weeks remained on a bed of sickness, with so other friend than his servant.