SURVIVAL AND CHANGE

Hokitika Guardian, 24 November 1923, Page 4

SURVIVAL AND CHANGE

(Sydney Herald.l liy a curious coincidence, the past week has furnished no less than throe quaint legal decisions illustrative of the longevity of “Old Father Antic, tiie Lav.” Also, it has been witness of the surprising way in which his thunderbolts, su long quiescent, may suddenly crash out of a clear sky upon the unsuspecting mortal who has placed himself within the focus of their stroke. Tin- decisions referred to were as varied in their venue as in the muine of the circumstances which invoked them. The first awarded a line of sixty pounds to a woman in New Jersey who was convicted of being “a common scold,” under an old am! almost forgotten colonial statute. This seems a fairly substantial penalty for the exercise oi a railing tongue. But we learn that, tbe offender being incorrigible, ii was indicted in lieu of a seat upon the ‘ ducking-stool.” an effective machine which appears to have fallen into desuetude even in tho-o New England .States whose drastic methods of preserving the public morals originally went considerably beyond those id the puritan Old England upon which they were based. By the second decision a hardened criminal in our own Australian Victoria was fined fit-' -hilling- for I titling ;. load of firewood on Sunday; .1 va.iaHon. ■•nnuii-'iiduhl,- Units leniency, of ike punishment award, oil —if we may rely upon the law tepnits of the nursery to the man in the moon for : lie same olleic T lie offender in this ease was prosecuted under an Act of Charles H., and the )eenliar inti list we must feel ill the miscreant and Ills eiim- is certainly heights Ill'll by the incongruity of tlie association which i: leve.ds between the slrnitlmed statute ami the morals of the monarch who is nominally responsible. for it. The last of the decisions referred to is perhaps the queerest of the three, and it is not surprising to find that ,it comes I tom England. where such “divot shuts of the law” may l,c looked for at almost any time with i otiiidonce. The defendant in this ease was charged with unlawfully listening by night, under wails, windows, and eaves io hearken niter discourse, and the t culler to frame slaudcis and mi-elnevnits tales” all itt-

dicLmciijt- so loosely worued chat it would 'Ci m possible fat the ie.i-t ingenious lawyei to shag his client to safety through its verbal meshes. But the prisoner was found guilty, and was “bound uver tc he of good Behaviour” and to keep. | iv.-.umablv. for the iT.turo. the tot ionwool of oil refill lies:- within hi:; ears, and the fingei of t celt urnii v iq on Id- lips. While the second oi tin* ce-e- mention'd is dr-.tinetly >-i i i generis, the other two appear to he bound by ao rtain relationship, the common scold ami the framer of slanders Icing put two species of that great genus whose works have wrought, more havoc to the bill molly of Die world than almost any oilier, and of which, if we may believe -lie tint Inn it.ics are unanimous upon the point and ungallaut. ike fair sex have a practical monopoly. From Xaiiuppc - and probably long before that thrill, voiced shrew had lev.! lied to te-t the Foeratiau temper—to the am m vinous Xev Jersey lady of to-day. the I mgue of the si-old and the slanderer ha - harried mortality, and always—or nearly always it. has been spoken of as a pttteIv feminine attribute. This is an illumine smely. v. inch only requires nttenl imi to be draw n tv it to have it ended. Woman herself, advantaged as she i to-day with power- and pri\ ileg".unknown to her predecessors, may safely bi> relied tin >n to give sltori sluifi to an invidious distiimtion wd’iib s'"o seems to have acquired so unfairly. .Many and eiirioti' are these tiinuuu--1 its ami survival-.; am a.e they by any mean.- cotilined to the law. In all derailments <:• <i • ■ 1 :• i'! affairs the < top nit*, a* tncxpln *'*i■ - .Lieut >■. 1 h<* Igin".:. i- ■ • • >!- b ih,. ,u,.gcny 11 iuTmoj: ...id ~ vanished -.ieiiiiicaiice a- the t ri-eolout ed pole that marks the h.trber':, .hap. or the tho-e gill halls also the (inn, i.f ,he pool roan's hauks i . So cm, lantlv do we meet with ih.in tli. 1 : we quite fail to note their quaint te-s ~| theii incongruity . just as tin resident u! Sydney who pas-cs liie Bit I. .street facade of

the General IVM (Mice every dev n| his life '.'ill be entire!;,- oblivious to ibe 1 ocnli.ir ab-urditie.s of tin- covings immediately above hi- bed. Aeaii. bovwliich the Hvcgiiition of the:" survivals any c:caic in ike mind of the observant student if stick things, they have .mol her and a larger merit, am! one which is nil the more valuable in that II ho!) s to combat that wors.liip of aiiti(|uit v for ant i.(i•:i' - sake w bii'li is ■ I harmful and pc x a lent a been icry veil in ilieir wax : but the bilge majority of these moss-chid i.ji... < f the j a-i -eive, but to prove hew tin in All tiinni'.di liistoiv we find me lover til past pel iod- extolling tie virtues c.l tlie vanished years, and holding them up in loud and fatuous i:r,!iipg,'ison with those of his own. to the ii.vaiiablo discredit of the latter. It is a doubly fuoli-di liabir, ,I'or it is io-l only lixelcis to vail u[nn I'rox idenre to ‘Avi'ii back the univoi-e and give u- yesttudny." it i.s ns certain as anything can be that such a lestorniien would shuck with disenmfoit and di--encliaiitment nobody more forcibly Ilian the viy poisons who so persistently petition for if. The present times in ly have, their faults; indeed, it is icriaiu 1 that they are still far enough limn grace. But in all things human! 1 a i inn in social progress as in material, they are cm Ids ahead oven of the days of Diiken-. We may have lost the stage coach and All I’iekxxick; but we have lost those tilings, no less, that made possible the Marsimlsea and Mr Splicers. It may lie taken as sigiiiiionit of the cbaiig" that lias o'erspre.nl tlie woi Id. and typical of it. too, that though ibe scold is will, us yet. tlie ducking-stool has vanished into limbo.