Random Notes

Southern Cross, Volume 1, Issue 41, 6 January 1894, Page 10

Random Notes

Glad to see''youj ’94. You look -ivell and hearty for so youthful a personage, though a few tears did greet your arrival. Mirth and convivality are proper accompaniments to a friendly greeting, though a headache does at times follow. But who would not submit to a headache for a friend’s sake ? Speaking of conviviality reminds me of the fact that I have been taken to task for introducing that dreadful ditty of the poet Cowley. “ Most shocking!” exclaimed a particular friend. “ How could you furnish such an inducement for folks to indulge in that wicked stuff which steals away their brains P” I fear, madam, that you take my remarks on the subject much too seriously, and seem to forget that not a little latitude is allowed to the poet, whose muse may be jocund,” though his life, as the late Mr Herrick expresses it, is expected to be otherwise ; consequently, I do not think that the rollicking poem transferred from Cowley to my last week’s notes, had much, if any, influence in inciting those in search of pleasure to seek it in that beverage which has been so often *ung by the poets as “ sparkling in the crystal or golden cup,” they all the while contenting themselves with cold tea from cups of common ware. On Saturday evening last I found, and was not a little annoyed to find, that my lofty perch was too far removed to permit of my closely observing the doings of the lieges. I consequently descended as gracefully as circumstances would permit, and mingled with the throng which traversed our main thoroughfare —all, like frugal Mrs Gilpin, “on pleasure bent.” Ho sooner, however, had I joined the surging mass than I repented me of my folly. lam naturally of retiring’ disposition, and meekly submitted to be jostled here and pushed there and jambed tight everywhere, much to my discomfort. The offenders, I regret to say, were not always loafing larrikins, nor yet giggling girls; but staid and sober citizens, who pushed and elbowed their fellow pedestrians in a most enthusiastic manner, reminding me very forcibly of the football field. Cannot our street manners be improved ? His late Worship, Duncan (peace to Iris manes !), endeavoured to improve our manners, but so far his efforts have proved as effectual as Mrs Partington’s attempt to beat back the Atlantic. On such an occasion as Saturday evening last in any large town in the!Old Country, where the foot passengers exceed those on our streets by a hundred to one, there would be seen nothing of this unseemly jostling! Glescae I mentioned lately, and Glescae many years ago adopted a simple and efficacious remedy for the evil I complain of. A placard hearing the legend “ Keep your right hand to the wall,” was exhibited throughout the streets in due prominence. The words, too, became a catch in the Christmas pantomimes, and in a brief space “ the rule of the wall ” reduced confusion to order, and all the lieges learned “ to keep their richt haun tae the wa’.” Since thousands benefited by the rule in the Old Country conld we not apply it to our own tens, and tell off a constable for an evening to see the order obeyed P

The question as to what our growing - lads should read is one of not inconsiderable importance to all po.trexfuniilioriinti who have the welfare of the rising generation at heart. How, no less than in the patriarchal times, may we exclaim that “ of the making of many books there is no end, and we may well assure the patient Job that, though the quantity of the material issued from the press has been greatly augmented since Mu day, we cannot be too sure as to an improvement in the <jnnhfy thereof. What juvenile literature was in the days of the proverbial patriarch we liave no means of judging, being written, as it probably “was, on more perishable material than the records which have survived to these om own

fiu-de-siecle times. “Boys will be boys ” is a platitude not seldom indeed repeated in these days, and I doubt not that Father .Job’s comforters repeated an aphorism in much the same terms, when that venerable parent commented upon the quality of the mental pabulum provided for his offspring in the penny dreadful or shilling shocker of that early postdiluvian era. These remarks, my friendly reader, are suggested by a cursory examination I made lately of several of those delightful literary productions for the youth of our time, obtained in ample quantities by our local literary agents. The titles of some of these delectable and artistic narratives ai’e as attractive as those brilliant and vivid covers with which they are provided. For example : —Here we have in scarlet and yellow the intimation that within we may learn all about “ The Cowai’dly Conduct of the Champion Cheater of the Californian Canons, and the Fierce Fight of the Fleeced Freebooters of the Frosty Forest,” while in a long series of volumes we may read of the “ Delightful Double Dealings of Deadwood Dick ” and his compeers. If we may estimate the demand for literature of this class from the supply of such matei’ial laid in by our respectable booksellei’s (to say nothing of the intimation appearing in the windows of less pretentious establishments —“ Books exchanged hex’e ”) we must conclude that the appetites of our youth is decidedly voracious. I fear me that Scott, Dickens, and the many other names known to fame fail to atti’act readei’S as do these gaudy wares so seductively displayed at temptixxg px-ices. Cheap Jitei’ature is attractive, say the boys, but alas! it is also pernicious. Can nothing be done to improve the taste of the young x’eading’ generation ? ~Were the saxne care exercised by fathers with regard to the mental food of the young members of their households as they exereisein attending to the physical requirements, there would be a decrease in the demand for such wares, and a consequent gain to the mental and moral gtheth of those who hereafter will growth of those who hereafter- will seize the reins, when the hands now controlling them shall have completed their task. Vox.