THE GARDENS OF EUROPE.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 14, 29 April 1871, Page 3

THE GARDENS OF EUROPE.

The “ Weekly Freeman,” an Irish paper, gives the following epitome of a curious little squib just published bv Simpkin and Marshall, entitled “ The Fight at-Dame Europa’s School, showing how the German boy thrashed the French boy ; and how the English boy looked on.” The plan is the simplest you can imagine ; the theme, the greatest of modern times; the style, caustic and simple as a chapter in Gulliver; the moral plaiu and irresistible. Dame Europa has a school attended by boys bad and good, sharp and slow, industrious and idle, peaceable and pugnacious, well-behaved and vulgar. The good old dame chose from the school five monitors, <c who had authority over the rest of the boys, and ketp the unruly ones in order. These five, at the time we are writing, were Louis, William, Aleck, Joseph, and John.” The reader will instantly perceive the five Great Powers of Europe. Their business was to settle all quarrels amicably if they could: but if not to see fair play, and stop the encounter when it had gone far enough. Nothing caused so great a sensation as the dreaded appearance of Louis or John ! and once when a huge fellow named Nicholas trounced a little fellow named Constantine, these two .went in for Constantine, and gave Nicholas a thorough hiding. Nicholas soon after left the school.

“ Each of the upper boys at Dame Europa’s had a little garden of his own in a corner of the playground. The boys took great interest in their gardens, and kept them very neatly. In some were grown flowers and fruit; in others mustard and cress or radishes, which the young cultivators would sell to one another and take into Hall to help down their bread aud scrape at tea time. Every garden had in the middle of it an arbor, fitted up according to the taste and means of its owner. Louis had the prettiest arbor of all, like a grotto in fairy land, full of the most beautiful flowers and ferns, with a vine creeping over the roof, and a little fountain playing inside. John’s garden was pretty enough, and more productive than any, owing its chief beauty, however, to the fact that it was an island, separated from all the rest by a stream, between twenty and thirty feet wide. But his arbor was a mere tool-house, where he shut himself up almost all play time turning at his lathe, or making nets, or sharpeuing knives, or cutting out boats to sail on the river. Still, John was fond of a holiday now and then; and when he was tired of slaving away in 'his own garden he would punt himself across the brook, and pay a visit to his neighbor Lewis, who was always cheerful and hospitable, and glad to see him. Many and many a happy hour did he spend in his friend’s arbor, lying at full length on the soft moss, and eating grapes and drinking lemonade, and thinking how much pleasanter it was over there than in his own close fusty

shop, with its dirt and litter, and its eternal, smell of tar and nets and shavings. Anyhow, thought Johnnie, I make more profit out of my garden than any of the other fellows, so I must put up with a few bad smells. For Dame Europa, by way of encouraging habits of industry, allowed the boys to engage pretty extensively in commercial pursuits, and it was said that Master John, who had been working unusually- hard of late, bad sometimes trebled or quadrupled his half-yearly pocket-money out of the produce of his tool-house and * garden.”

Beside Louis’ garden lay William’s, by far the strongest of all the monitors, William presumed himself to be a very peaceable boy, was very fond of singing psalms, and carried a Testament in his pocket. The other boys regarded him as a bit of a humbug. Heuever looked about his garden, but he coveted two little flower-beds belonging to Louis, and which by right he thought should belong to him. William had a fag named Mark, a sharp shrewd lad, •“ full of deep tricks and dodges, and so cunning that the old dame herself, though she had the eves of a hawk, never could catch him in anything absolutely wrong.” Mark advised William to have a fight with Louis, but the fight must be between them too, because Aleck was jealous, and Joseph was angry because of a previous beating. Mark reminded William that even he remembered him quite a little fellow. “Yes,” replied William, turning up his eyes devoutly, “ it has pleased Providence I should be stout.” The humbug next inquired what Mark thought John would do if he should pick the quarrel. Mark laughed scornfully, and said “ never you mind him. He vVon’t meddle with anybody. He is a deal too busy in that filthy, dirty shop of his, making things to sell to the other boys. Besides, he is never ready.” After this dialogue they parted, Mark running to the pump to wash his hands, “ which no amount of scrubbing would ever make decently clean,” while William entered the playground humming the “ Old Hundredth Psalm.” The casus belli soon rose. A garden became vacant, and William, acting on the suggestion of Mark, offered to his little cousin a new boy. The old Dame said if Louis did not object the new boy might have the garden. “ But I do object, ma’am,” cried Louis. “ I very particularly object. I don’t want to be hemmed in on all sides by William and his cousins. They will be walking through my garden to pay each other visits, and perhaps throwing balls to one another right across my lawn.” William observed (fumbling in his pocket for the Testament, but bringing up instead a baccy pouch and a brandy flask,) “ I never attacked anybody ; I am a peaceably boy.” John suggested to William to withdraw his cousin ; and William did so. But Louis was in a towering passion and demanded that William should promise never to make any sucb underhanded attempts again.” William refused, and Louis challenged him to fight. The contest began, and after the first round William wrote home: “ Dear Mama aided hy Providence, I have hit Louis in the eye. What wonderful events has heaven thus brought about.” He then “sang a hymn and went in for another round.” John had a head fag named Billy, and another, a clever fair-liaired boy named Bobby, who kept his accounts. He counselled these as to what he should do, and they advised him “to give out that he was a neutral.” “ Neutral,” growled John, ‘ I hate neutrals. It seems to me a cold-blooded, cowardly thing to sit by and see two big fellows smash each other all to pieces about nothing at all. They are both in the wrong, and they ought not to fight. Let me 'go in at them.” • Bill and Bobby silenced John by much talk, and at length John said he would help to sponge the boxers and spend eighteen pence in ointment and plaster. This he was allowed to do, but still John “ felt sure that if he had been half so natty and well got up as he used to be, he might have stopped the fight in a moment. For the next half hour he cursed Billy and Bobby and all the other little sneaks who had wormed themselves into favor with him, by teaching him to save money. ‘ Hang the money !’ growled Johnnie to himself; ‘ I’d give up half my shop to get my

old prestige back again.’ But it was too latenow.” The fight continued, and still Louis was beaten. He fought well and nobly, but yielded foot by foot until he was compelled to take refuge in his arbor, from whence he threw stones at bis assailant. John sponged both sides, and sold some stones to Louis to throw at William. Louis asked John to separate them; but John said he couldn’t. At last Dame Europa asked John, .how it came that he had not stepped in and stayed this woeful, useless quarrel, and John explained, “ I was a neutral.”

“Just precisely what you had no business to be,” she returned. “ You were placed in authority in order that you might act, not that you might stand aloof from acting. Any baby can do that. I might as well have made little Georgie here a monitor, if I had meant him to have nothing to do. Neutral, indeed ! Neutral is just a fine name for coward. Besides, there is no such thing. You must take one side or the other, do what you will. Now, which side did you take, I wonder “ ‘ Now, I tell you what it is, John, I have long watched your career with pain, and have seen how you *are content to sacrifice everything—duty, and influence, and honor—*-for the sake of putting by a few paltry shillings. There was a time when, if you so much as held up your finger, the whole school would tremble. Nobody trembles now. Nobody cares one farthing what you think or say. And why ? * Because you have grown a sloven and a screw, and boys despise both the one and the other. You ought to have prevented the fight from the very first. Failing this you ought, in conjunction with the other monitors, to have stepped in the moment the boys had proved Iheir relative strength, and struck a fair balance between them. Instead of doing so you sit coolly in your shop, supplying the means of carrying on the fight, and coining a few wretched coppers out of your schoolfellows’ blows and wounds. You have been a bad friend of both of them. Well, some day, perhaps, you may want friends yourself. When you do, I hope you may find them. Take care that William, the peaceable, unaggressive boy, does not contrive (as I fully believe he will contrive) to get a footing on the river, where he can keep a boat, and then one fine morning take your pretty island by

surprise.’ ” And soon our cynical friend concludes. The defect of his very clever trifle is that he never touches on the result of the humbug’s victory and the defeat of John’s old ally. But all in all it is exceedingly well conceived, and admirably executed.