A MODERN TYRANNY.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 19, 17 October 1907, Page 3

A MODERN TYRANNY.

Humanity has set up many a formidable fetish in its tiino, and not ieast among those in o.xistonco to-day (writes Lady Onslow in an English paper) is tho fetish wa call "change. ; Whether an infant recovors from tho measles, a young woman indulges in a fit of tho .blues] or a middle-aged'man orcaks his Iteart ovci tho loss of his wife, it is just the samo—the tho universal panacea insisted oil by all the world is chango. One is not permitted to hardon tho heart in silonce, bearing tho burden fatq has decreod without bowing down to this latter-day tyranny. "Constant change ot scono," softly purrs tho specialist. "Change of air," advises the family physician.' "A chango to the seaside," authoritatively remarks the trained nurse. "Now, you must have a change I - shriek all the relatives in loud and unanimous chorus'. And if only foi tho sako of peace wo obey, cvon when inclination and. common sense insistently call ror rest, quiescence, and homo. How often may unhappy invalids lib seen, helpless and weary, bust-led about (with tho best intentions) from one hoalth (?) resort,to another, eventually dying, poor lonely aliens, in strange caravanserais in foreign lands, bccauso, forsooth, we must all grovel to this fetish .of change. That occasional change of scone is both wholesome and agreeable no one can deny, though it is not, as' hundreds of peoplo really., believe, absolutely necessary to existence. lif we want to lind very old people, nonagenarians and the liko, whero do we search for them P Not among the restless, energetic cosmopolitan business people, not in the ranks of the artisans ever on the move in search, of higher Wages; but■rather in the now half-deserted villages, where linger still a few survivors of fast vanishing rural types ; old-fashioned small yeoman farmers,- agricultural laborers by profession, mori .who have spent long livc3 in tho samc parish, ploughing the same fields, walking the same lanes, drinking their beer at tho samo inns,. unmindful and undesirous of going elsowliere. Wo exclaim in pity and astonishment whon some ancient village dame tells us she has never seen a railway train, never been as far nipy'from her birthplace as the county town some 10 miles away; but it is quito possible the venerable lady has enjoyed her own share of happiness and acquired a thorough'knowledge of her own'little bit of tho world and its occupants, more valuable, perhaps; than the very superficial 'acquaintanceship with men and matters more travelled humanity picks up as it rushes too and fro. In some men, 110 doubt, occurs a strain of nomadic instinct, come down from a tentdwolling ancestry. Diroctly in, opposition 10 this, we find in' other 1 peoples—notably 111 those of Coltic origin—a love of home, passionate and unreasoning, a clinging to the old roof tree, the old acres,, such as wrings such wails of woo and lamentation from the Irish emigrant who turns his steps towards the newer .world over the seas —and which irresistibly draws tho newly rich all the way back to his birthplace (spito of the contiguity of humble relatives and the tenacity of rural memory) to enjoy the gold hardly acquired in some Antipodean colony. There are natures to whom change of any kind is grateful, on whoin it acts as a fillip,-an unfailing pick-me-up, who would, assert with Cowper, "Variety is the spice of life." But these are- not- the thorough characters who' accomplish great things, showing rather a volatile, childish disposition akin to the Athenians of St.' Paul's day, always rushing after "some now thing."Now that locomotion is so easy, facilities for'changing our mi sen scene so numerous, wo therein almost defeat our own ends and many to- whom incessant movement has become the normal condition of lift, might discover in the novelty of spending a week or Wo at home—if they; have a; home, and not ouly a depot-for keeping "importable goods and chattels —"quite a pleasant change."