TOPICS OF THE TIME.

Hastings Standard, Issue 45, 18 June 1896, Page 2

TOPICS OF THE TIME.

A •WF.LL-jNFOKMKii Englishman who has been a resident in the Transvaal for fourteen years writes to a friend in England:— •'Nothing is ordered in the English market for the Government tlu!t can ijo procured anywhere else. As one result, there was that loss of life on the Xatal railway at the <>11(1 of is'.),'; through those matchbox Transvaal railway carriages, made in Holland, and again the other day i)i •Johaiinesbury through that foreignmade rubbish which is now the only dynamite allowed in the country. Hugh.-!i people cannot realise that the great ma <s of the Boors do not judge English-lighting power* by what England, as papers f -< y ' might have done." or 'could have done,' but by what England actually did do, and ihe ciinsei{Hence was that ad tlu: Nov.- Vea.i 1 the i'.oers turned out jre-r a- English sportsmen woidd do to shoot partridges, feeling that to shoot the English was a far easier job than shooting Kaffirs. 1 must say that the way Jameson's men fought has been an eye-opener to the Boers ; i have heard more than one say ho never thought Englishmen could fight like (hat. Von see practically 110 one amongst the Doors knows anything of Waterloo, or Balaclava, or Inkermann, hut every child in the Transvaal knows all about Majuba." Kabuatakian extremists aro (says the W ookly Scotsman) at the present moment hard pressed on all sides. It is bad enough that an Edinburgh club should have sanctioned Sunday golfing, and that respectable people should allow their daughters to indulge in Sunday cycling. Those aro tilings that aro already accomplished facts, and it is tho rule with your orthodox Sabbatarian that lie says as little as possible about accomplished facts. J hit another support of the Sabbatarian platform has boon knocked away by the Glasgow Town Council. This body authorised the opening of the public baths for a few hours on Sunday forenoons. The friends of the proposal were no doubt inspired by the belief that cleanliness is next to godliness ; and in their materialistic matter-of-fact way tlioy interpreted this to moan that a Sunday bath is the next best thing to a visit to church. But in Glasgow, as in Edinburgh, the Sabbatarian spirit is strong, and the motion was not adopted without a protest and a division. One member protested in the name of the servants at the baths ; another municipal moralist declared that he did not wish to give people ail opportunity for staying away from clmrch. The supporters of the motion argued that there aro many poor folk who find it difficult and inconvenient to bathe on any other day, and that even if people do remain away from church it is better they should do so clean than dirty. Happily this charitable view prevailed, though the recommendation to open baths was only carried by a majority of 27 against 20 votes. Of course this decision of the Corporation of Glasgow will bo hailed as another act of Sabbath desecration, as an encouragement of Sunday labour, and as the thin end of the wedge of " the Continental Sunday."

Thesk arguments have all done service of old, and will, no doubt, be heard as often as occasion for them arises. It is not easy to argue with Sabbatarian bigotry of the extreme kind. Yet it ought to be obvious that the minister's man is as truly engaged in Sunday labor as the officials of the museums and picture galleries which sire now open in London. Of course it may be held that the work of the minister's man is sanctified, just as a certain minister of Portobello has held that the Sunday cab of the church elder is sanctified, and not to be compared with the ungodly cab of the ordinary tripper. Hut the distinction is assuredly a very fine one. As to the objections to the opening of public baths on Sunday, is it not the case that in private houses the morning bath is indulged in on that day as on others by many orthodox ministers and elders ? And may not a poor man do in public what a rich man does in private ?