The Nelson Evening Mail. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 4, 1868.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume III, Issue 53, 4 March 1868, Page 2

The Nelson Evening Mail. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 4, 1868.

One of the most singular among the national weaknesses of Englishmen, is that inscrutable impulse which leads Smith, of London, to carve his name on the Pyramids ; and induces Brooks of Sheffield, to leave his address in full on the top of the most inaccessible mountains. Why Englishmen, above all nations, should have this strange propensity, it is difficult to say. It is not, let us hope, that they are vainer of themselves than other people, or' so unfamiliar with foreign scenes as to be unable to resist .the temptation of letting all the world know where they have travelled. Alphonse, of Paris, on those rare occasions when he condescends to view the world beyond the Barrieres, is certainly not less impressed with the idea of his own superiority. He will chatter ten times as much of a trip round the Lake of G-eneva, as the Briton who has mounted Chimborazo, or visited Little Thibet. He will carry all Prance in his portmanteau, and be at least as diffusive of his nation , as arrogant, and as insular as any Euglishman. Yet there is this excuse for him, that he does not come of a travelling people. Every league from France is to him a step farther from the centre of civilisation. The Englishman, on the other hand, is a migratory animal, whose race occupies the four corners of the earth, to whom no land is strange, and from whom no wonders of art or nature are hidden. He goes everywhere, yet everywhere he goes he carries about with him one mysterious aud unaccountable passion. He must write, or carve, or whittle his name on ail prominent places. Nothing is sacred from his profaning hand. The chair of St. Peter — the walls of Shakespere's bedroom — the tomb of Eloise — the pillars of Stonehenge — the nose of the Sphynx — nothing is too rare or too holy for the Briton's sacrilegious penknife. The great wall of China is scored with the names of the intrusive Anglo-Saxon 'barbarian.' On the topmost stone of the biggest Pyramid appears that mystic hieroglyphic — John Thompson. We are told that among the flowing tracery of the Taj Mehal may be detected, pleasingly entwined with verses from the Koran and floral devices, the familiar patronymic — Jones. The rocks of Niagara tell of the visits of Robinson ; and the summit of the Righi confesses to the daring of Smith. In fact, the whole face of the earth is being rapidly converted into oue universal London Directory. In the colonies, as we have no venerable relics of the past to be desecrated by profane hands, the popular mania develops itself in another, and, if it be possible, a still more objectionable form. Vacant spaces on the buildings of our towns and public thoroughfares are frequently covered with inscriptions, all offensive, and many of them positively obscene in their tendency, whilst in more than one. instance the names of private individuals, holding respectable positions in society, are found placed in moßt injuriously significative proximity. We had occasion, some time since, to direct attention to a most glaring illustration of this detestable practice in one of the most frequented thoroughfares of this city, and it would be no difficult task to point out others equally offensive to decency, for the practice would appear to be

on the increase. We are told that the police authorities are quite alive to the frequent occurrence of this nuisance, and have used every effort, but as yet unsuccessfully, to discover the perpetrators of these outrages, the coutinuance of which will soon render the daily perambulation of our streets and public roads by our wives and daughters, a matter of painful necessity instead of pleasant recreation. There really seems to be no protection against this sort of low scurrility. Tbe creatures who are guilty of it appear to do their work so quietly and mysteriously that their detection is most difficult, and the malicious nature of mauy of these inscriptions, as well as other indications, necessitate the conclusion that they are the work of adult miscreants, and not of thoughtless urchins, whose innate love of mischief is uncontrolled by any respect for decency which may have been instilled into their minds. In spite of this difficulty we shall still entertain hopes that the perpetrators of these dastardly outrages will ere long be discovered and brought to condign punishment.