THIS PASSING SHOW

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8350, 10 February 1913, Page 5

THIS PASSING SHOW

Some little Talk awhile of Mo and Thee There was—and then no more of Thee and Me. Omar Khayyam. It has remained for a woman, of German extraction by her name —to surpass all others in the intimacy with which moderns approach the life of Christ. “Jesus of Nazareth." a poetical drama, in seven scenes, is the title of Alexandra von Herder's drama. It will be interesting to compare this feminine conception of the last days of the Sublime Life, “His meeting with Mary Magdalene, His betrayal His trial before Pilate, and His crucifixion" with Maeterlinck's “Mary Magdalene" which renders a man's -coiiception of that prelude to the world s tragedy. One cannot help feeling that a woman might best realise this tremendous triumph of love over death, of silence and strength in the midst of the bitterness of treachery and ingratitude, because the keystone of it all is love — passionless, profound, reaching its very apotheosis in the obliteration of self, \V lio should come so near realising this as a woman? The lists of new books make most fascinating reading, flavoured with acute longing, certainly. As,-for example, an illustrated edition of “The Pour Gardens," the pictures “done"- by Charles Hobinson. “The Childhood of Animals, by Hr Chalmers Mitchell, _ with its exquisite illustrations, and its wealth of information on the babyhood of animals, is just the book to read to children and enjoy oneself as the autumn fades into winter and those long long evenings in the country house -arrive. Apparently, too, the new volumes of the "Are c IIa" series (Heinemann) will add to its lustre. The volume on “The Art of Egypt is contributed by M. Maspero, whose opportunities as director of the Cairene Museum render him singularly fitted to deal richly and exhaustively with the topic. M. Hieulafoy on "Spanish Art” is said to have contributed a brilliant volume. Interesting to all women, superlatively interesting indeed must ho Dr Saleeby’s last book “vVoinan and Womanhood.' We all Know —more or less—what a fascinating writer the doctor is. and when one reads that tho theory of the book is based upon the simple principle “Woman is nature's supreme organ of tho future," we have a fair idea of what to expect. “London Lavender," B. V. Lucas's # last book, is by no means up to that genially discursive writer's high water mark. Like the curate’s egg, it is only good in places—her© is on©, an impressionistic sketch of a wealthy young man of "no occupation" i '"A curious young man, one of those mixtures of sagacity and apathy, thoughtfulness and blankness which tho idle classes throw up eo easily, and which make an expensive education seem so foolish. His passion is motoring, but he has leanings towards aviation which, however, his wife discourages. He therefore does not fly himself, although, ho has been up as a passenger once or twice, but spends most of his time between Brooklands and Hendon, being convivial with his aviating friends while they are alive, and following them loyally to the grave when they mil- ’ "What is it like in tho air? I once asked him. “Ripping," he said. “But tho sensations ?" I continued. "How do you feel?" - “.Ripping," he said. “And what does tho world look like down below as you rush along?” "Ripping," ho said. Tho white slave traffic has been a prolific topic of late in English and American papers and journals, especially those devoted to women. So it comes about that many of the miserable cases in which innocent girls have been lured away and lost for ever to family and friends are familiar to ua. Curiously enough, a woman friend who has just returned from Home was speaking on this topic to me the other day, and mentioned a case which had come to her personal knowledge through a friend el hers. The doubly pitiful tal© was of two young girls, of twelve and fourteen respectively, who were shopping with their mother in on© of ihe great London department stores. The mother went to pay a bill in on* department, the girls were allowed to go to another to do some shopping. While they waited for their chang© a woman wearing- a nurse’s uniform hurried up with the news that their mother had met with an accident and been taken to a doctor’s or chemist's near by, while she, the nurse, had been sent to take the girls to her in the taxi which was waiting. Without a moment’s hesitation the deeply distressed children hurried away with the “nurse," and from that moment not the slightest clue to their fate has been discovered! When their mother returned to the department she Heard tho story of her own accident and the hurried departure of her daughters. The rest of the frightful tragedy which had overtaken those innocent Soung lives was left to her imagination, n the afternoon of the same day I saw the story in print and realised how much tho National Vigilance Society is doing by drawing attention to tKo methods of these vile decoys, these devils in the semblance of our sex. What a horrible lesson it is that is forced upon mothers and guardians to teach when ignorance becomes a girl's most dangerous enemy. It cannot, perhaps, be too often repeated to an unheeding world of women themselves brought up in a discreet ig-

-norance of every aspect of what has long been referred to as “the social evil," that ignorance and innocence are not interchangeable terms. It is true that the abominable traffickers of women’s honour and young girls’ innocence have not out here reached that devilish art of disguise which renders them so dangerous in 'tho cities of the Old World. Colonial mothers whose daughters leave thenquiet country home to take “billets" in town doubtless warn them against the chance acquaintance of men. against fast or extravagant girls, and other obviously dangerous dallyings. But we have not got to the stage of moral danger in which it is necessary to say “Never stay to help a woman who apparently faints at yonr feet in the street, hut call a policeman immediately.” Yet that is one of the “don’ts” included in a list published iu a special pamphlet of warnings to women and young girls by the National Vigilance Society in London. Fifty thousand copies of the pamphlet are being distributed at railway stations, shops, factories, etc., in Great Britain. —ZEALANDIA.