TOPICS OF TALK.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume V, Issue 278, 3 July 1874, Page 3

TOPICS OF TALK.

A Gooi deal of nonsense has been . written and spoken based iipon Mr.' Hislop's report of the Industrial School—more upbn that 'part giving a comparison between the different number of visits paid by ministers of different denominations on . week days for the purpose of imparting religious instruction. The figures show that practically the Protestant clergy did not pretend to teach the children at all, but the "Roman Catho-

. lie clergyman. (Mr. Crowley) made it , his business or was deputed to instruct the children of Catholic parents. If this was not the case—if the Catholic ~ Bishop did not take'steps to 'have the children of his Church religiously in-, structed, he would neglect to do so knowing that they would otherwise get no special religious instruction at all, , for the officers of the Institution are Protestants, and the report tells lis, " In the absence of clergymen the teacher devotes himself to the instruction ofihe Protestant children,"—that is, .on the Thursday afternoon specially set apart for religious instruction. "We should like to know what| possible ; good <could como of a string of parsons —say an Episcopalian, a Presbyterian, , ay,;\resleyania a' Corigrgga•tiorialist, &c.j &c.- J -stalldng out, dawlike;',to the rookery above Caversham . to divide these small phildren—ranging from baby hood to perhaps, -in an extreme case, twelve years'old-*—there, each in his division,' to tell them some Bible story with due parsonical threeheaded digestand explanation. Such simpJe; instruction surely comes far rbore forcibly and truly ■from the teacher and Mr. and Mrs, Britton, who are not. speptrous objects to be looked at with awe ahd'wandeivbut who, from their everyday kindnesses, have endeared themselves to the heart of each little one under their"charge. When we saw the report in question we breathed the more freely to think that the most'useful institution, we have in the Province (the Industrial School) , was spared the infliction of sectarian division and incredible creeds.

"It is noticeable how the adyocaltes of cremation as opposed to. ordinary ~ burial shirk the idea of burning' thetn- .. » selves or, more truly, each:other.i So long as the question is confined to the ■carcase of an animal, as in the cases ' experimented on by Sir henry Thompson, or to'the remains of a.tbeoretical grandmother—no one grudges; the w6lf the elderly morsel in the.tale of Ked Riding Hood—the project is enticing. It would do away with these nasty cemeteries. We .could have all their beauty (we refer not to Naseby or to the cross roads near .Welshman's 1 Gully) without their suspicious unpleasantness. ' Looked at in that light we are all agreed. The Canterbury Provincial Council got so far on Th ursday last as to debate a motion by JMr. ■ Andrews, " That the tithe had arrived when cremation: 'or. the.burning of human bodies, should take,place,.in order to prevent the pollution of the ground, the streams, and the air which results , from burying such bodies ; and that a sum be placed on the Estimates for the purpose of establishing the most approved system of cremation." Sir Cracroft Wilson seconded the motion with great pleasure. A short discussion took place, during which no positive objection was made to cremation, ■ but the general opinion was that the time.had not yet arrived for bringing it into operation,' so Mr. Andrews'! mo r < tion was postponed.- 1 It will be seen we are getting beyond theory when a discussion such as that takes place in : a representative chamber. How Canterbury folks would have jumped if, in their morning papers of the 27th in at., they had seen that Mr. Andrews had been successful, and that hereafter theirbodieSihad been given over to the burning—in the present. Sir Henry Thompson's approved process, which is - " no,doubt,.toin the motion,is a 'sort of magical conjurmg- affair. tically; writing from memory of the inventor's' essays on ,the subject, :the processiis■ as follows :— I The remains are to be duly followed by sorrowing friends, mutes, &c., to the church or cemetery, where all the religious services desired are to begone through. Then the coffin, almost of itself, slides into an aperture. Hokus-pokus—ten minutes interval—andl at the other end of tie apparatus, twoftp three pounds of to the kept bottled, f or vases, the suggestion, by way of essay, of the enor lidfSvvaste, agricultural! speaking, c«\tle present system, vmiapst sentiment of vasing—we do not like to speak of bottling—is a mere popularity catch, , and that our ashes are to be spread, as the great reformers, to the tvinds and vapours under the whole heavens —typical, we suppose, of the «cieritist idea of human perfectability to be derived from a commingling of faces. If it were riot for the question of our own burnirig : —if we could only l<eep it, as we said at the outset, to the theoretical grandmother—it would be all right. Crematidn would be a certainty ; an accomplished fact. Fortunately, owing to the expense of the process to produce , the smokeless and Bootless combustion/cremation will, for years to come, be a luxury attaching to populous towns, to be commanded only by the wealthy. Oh, ye Gods ! Fancy it having come to this. Civilisation must be exhausted indeed when it is a luxury to be burnt. The tales of the Hugenot persecutions will fall very baldly on 'the young of the next generation wlio have burnt their own parents. Not the least necessary of the sug-

gestions made by Dr. Coughtrey, in his report to the Superintendent on the sanitary state of the town of Cromwell, was that each house, where, from so many causes, water was impure, should be provided with a cheap filtering apparatus. He suggests such a one:—■" Take a small, clean barrel or box that will contain water : make a hole in one side -of it three or four inches in diameter. 'Get'two layers of clean white flannel, of a size and shape a little larger than the hole ; lay between them several- small pieces of charcoal. The latter should be animal ; failing which, vegetable charcoal from wood possessing the least amount of resin or gum. Then tack these layers of flannel and contained charcoal over the hole in such a way that the water must permeate through the flannel and the charcoal as it passes out of the barrel or box. Affix to this a guiding spout, and place any clean tub or earthenware jar below to catch the filtered water. 'J lie filtering trough should have a moveable lid. This simple .filtering trough could readily be made by the merest tyro in carpentry. It should often be cleansed, and the flannel and charcoal replaced as often as required. , It is not intended to supersede the ordinary patent earthenware filters, but it might; be used along with them." As to the charcoal necessary,' we will add : Take a singit sheep's head (wool might prove objectionable) and make it contribute for once to confused drinlcinq. Burn it in a red ash fire or stove, and use .the ashes for the layer betweem the flanriels.—This year, owing to the dryness of climate and the severe frosts, the springs which hardly fail in sum-' , mer are almost dry and putrid in this district.. ,

There being a dearth of stirring •news, this week we have room for a little avowed rubbish. we intend to try our prentice, hand at; sensational story reviewing, and select for our effort a remarkable six-column novel-entitled— THE WRECK OF THE FIREFLY. • . G. F. TALBOT.

—published (we hope it is original—if not, it is not acknowledged) by the ' Otago Witness' in its issue of last week. !Por pathos, probability,: high moral tone, and conciseness of narrative to suit the plot, this sliort nofellette must be,accorded a palm of preeminence. It is written, too, with a religious tone. It commences on a. Sunday evening, under the auspices of the church bell. It introduces next the house of Consul Lafosse, the villain of the piece, at whose windows "glances are cast like stone?, they were so hard and unkind—such stones as the Jews of old might have! cast upon an outlawed sinner." The heroine is then brought on the scene, the object of these glances, "of clear, transparent complexion, 'of which; you could hardly say whether it were fair or dark ; eyes large, and dark, and brilliant," &c. Then, again, the church bell is heard, and, as its echoes die away, there totters past the window behind which Helen Dumford sat, her father. " Just as the- bell from the grey old tower was tolling out its last rapid, urgent strokes an old man, grey and feeble, came slowly past the house; he was leaning on the a'm of a young and pretty golden-hairec girlintroduced for the golden h. ir; we never hear more of her).—He turned neither to the right nor to tie left, but, with eyes fixed upon •vacancy, went by in a feeble, halting (way; Helen hid her face in her hands, and moaned bitterly.- It was her father who had gone by—a few weeks ago a hale, cheery old seaman ; now a broken, dying old man. And'she,'his daughter, was the cause of it. • She had broken his heart." Now we' have a toneh which would rejoice Ouida's heart: " Just then the lamplighter on his rounds touched the lamp outside the Consul's house with his fiery wand, and the light sprang—(probably a burlesque upon Tennyson's ' Hojy Grail ') —into the dark room, gleaming upon Helen's pale face and shining in the glittering eyes of Lafosse}.' Ilr'it was, this dark saturnine, tall and swai handsome too, with a small, compact," iron-looking head, black hair and moustache just touched with - grey." This Lafosse was not her husband. She had been in love with a young sailor who was drowned at sea, and then had been induced to marry a creditor of her father's, a merchant named Walter Short. She left him soon after, and Lafosse was employed as a go-between. The upshot of this was that Helen " consented to elope with Lafosse; she would afford to her husband and his advisers every opportunity of proving her guilt and obtaining his release. from the bonds that were now shameful to him; but she allowed to Lafosse no further advantage. When the divorce was obtained then she would marry him : till then she would live in his house, but he must be away from it." The divorce was-obtained, and also what l.afosse did not bargain for, £I,OOO damages. He accordingly refused to marry the divorced wife, our author stating that by so acting he would not have to pay the line Helen, accordingly, in desperation leaves the house, in the night, goes down to the sea, meditates suicide till saved by an old boatman of the name of Blake, who takes her to his house for the night and gives her shelter, telling his sick wife that his nephew had come home with him. A storm arose that night. H»len's father, who, a few lines back, was tottering by, eyes fixed on vacancy, u dying man. is now sufficiently energetic to cow Lafosse, who dared not meet him, anticipating personal chastisement. Blake, meanwhile, too is called out to help to save life, and Mrs. 8., hearing her suppositious nephew still snoring, addresses

her thus: "Snoring here while men are stirring and lives are being lost and saved. : Here lad, I've brought thy waterproof things; get up and take thy place." The s.s. Eirefly, meanwhile, a Government ship on which, after all, the old love Harry, supposed to be drowned, was lieutenant,' was in a fair way of being wrecked. "The Firefly coming ashore! . That was Harry's .ship. . Helen's mind was made up.in a moment. She crept from her warm bed, clad her delicate limbs in the rough blue trousers and pea-jacket, that-lay upon the bed. The garments fitted marvellously well," &c. . . .

"Another hand for the life - boat, shouted Blake, and a slim, slight young fellow took his place at the boat's side." The life-boat was presently " scudding along with close-reefed mainsail and a rag of a foresail sweeping out towards the Firefly." On nearing the ship a big wave washed the girl over, and " the wave had licked up a life." >But, no ; six stout hands hauled the dripping figure into the ship, the boat, meanwhile, pushing on to ships in more pressing need of assistance. The lieutenant ordered " the lad to be taken to his cabin. The steamer's engines were useless, as the fires had been let down, and it was a race whether steam could be got up before the anchor gave way." Then comes the recognition—the wife of one man, the promised wife of another, turns to her first flame. "O, Harry, she cried, it is a blessing- to have seen you. ;■ Now I can die in peace : —(the religious element again.) You are not, very angry.' lam not so bad as they say I am." Then .follows the reconciliation, interrupted by the giving way :of; the anchor' and the apparent immediate destruction of the ship. A rocket from the shore, carrying a line, enables' all hands .to leave save two. •The commander' had last of all to go in the cradle ashore, .: He took the fainting form of Helen in his arms, and gave the rope the warning shake, : and the cradle started on its journey with its double burden. -What a dilemma, if they.reach land, for our novelistone late husband and two affianced ones. The mast stump to which the rope was . fixed conveniently broke—the cable came home with a run, but the cradle was empty. " When morning broke the sea had gone down, and hissing wavelets were coursing over the yelhrw sands, and the bodies of Harry and Helen came ashore locked in each others arms. And they were buried. . . ." Now for the end of the villain : "Lafosse came there one night and looked gloomily at the newly-turned sods. 'And that is all the change out of 10,000 dollars,' he said with a groan, and straightway went home and hanged himself in the darkened room." The second villain of the story, after being threatened with delirium tremens, is left with the prospect of being the nest representative for the borough, and, one of the first batch of new baronets. What amazing nonsense it all is. How, utterly unworthy of being circulated in the news columns of any paper. Anything -more. weak, more wretched, or more immoral we have not com across for a very long time. If the readers of the ' Witness ' /Can appreciate the " Wreck of . the Firefly," it says very little for the standard of , thought or morality in our young Province.