CURRENT TOPICS

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 474, 24 May 1890, Page 6

CURRENT TOPICS

BY ZARIIEL. WHATawonderful place our prettylittle city is for the show business. Anything for a change seems to be the motto with us, and while legitimate local objects languish for want of support, tho stranger comes in with his show and fills his pockets with the gold which we try to convince our neighbours we do not possess. One comedy company has played a season and gone, and anothe r holds the boards. An evangelist has addressed crowded audiences nightly, and now that he has gone a phrenologist takes up the running, and sighs for tho crowds who listened to the revivalist. Again we have a fortune-teller, while there is in prospect a mammoth circus, which, of course, will be the sensation of tho hour when it comes. These seem to bo only a few ot the thousand and one shows which are constantly on the move, and which, in the course of a year, absorb more money than would pay off the debts of half our local churches.

Whowouldnotbe a revivalist? For weeks past Mr Varley has been the darling of feminine Auckland, and hard indeed has been the lot of brothers, fathers, and cousins who have dared to protest against unlimited Varleyism. Conversation has been pregnant with quotations from his discourses. It has been useless to argue or debate any question from faith to foot ball. Sooner or later some one was certain to up and say, “ Well, Mr Varley was speaking of this very thing the other night, and lie said” That finished it. If you were. wise you retired from the field a 3 soon as possible, and with as little appearance of haste as you could assume. Once I heard an exasperated individual who had no fear in him say, “ Blow Mr Varley.” That man is now a wandering outcast, socially speaking. For days he wandered about in moody grief, and would respond to the greeting of “ chappies ” (no girl ever deigned to nod to him, let alone speak) with something that sounded like an objurgatory sob. Mr Varley’s departure was a relief to him. The going away wa3 the nice part. Such a lot of pretty girls had gathered to see him off. It made me feel quite funny. He was so good to them too. He held their hands so long and seemed as if he squeezed them so tenderly. And they looked up at him with such large admiring eyes that had Zamiel been in his place and had there been a little smaller crowd, who knows what might have occurred ? It is certainly nice to be Mr Varley of London specially in a town so famous for youth and beauty as Auckland.

I am told on excellent authority that not very longago, the inspecting officer employed by the Hospital and Charitable Aid Board made an important discovery. He had on his list of the old men refugees the name of an individual who was presumed not to have a solitary friend in the world, and not a solitary copper wherewithal to bless himself. This individual had been in in the institution, living upon the hardly-earned contributions of the ratepayers for many years, and seeing that tiie cost of maintenance is about 7s 6d per head per week, he had drawn pretty heavily on the bank of sympathetic human nature. Then imagine the feelings of the inspecting officer when he learned that this ancient party actually had to his credit in one of the local banks a sum of £2OO. At all events, he found sufficient assurance of the truthfulness of this to enable him to relieve the ratepayers of partof their burden for the future, by making tho wealthy man of the Refuge pay for his board at the rate of 7s 6d per week. The wonder is that he was let off so easilv. *** * * * *

“Anything wrong with those dogs?” asked the grocery man as a .maiden lady of mature years entered his shop one day this week. The question was asked because two large dogs which accompanied the lady were carefully wrapped up much the same as invalids. The lady shook her head sadly, and looking sympathetically at her canine attendants remarked, “Yes, they have got la grippe bad, and that is the reason why I called. I want a bottle of your besb eucalyptus, as I intend to dose them with it to-night.” As the lady was evidently much in earnest, the grocer merely coughed to smother his laugh, and then with a comic attempt to look serious, guiltily handed over a bottle of “ best extract.” Poor dawgs ! Zamiel could sympathise with a canine afUictod with the terrible la grippe, but how funny they must have looked that night standing in a tub of mustard and hot water with a web cloth tied round thenhead to keep down the fever, and inhaling eucalyptus in doses strong enough to make them sneeze off their muzzles !

The dear little girls—the shorb-petti-coated ones, I mean—appear to be having it all their own way in Queen-street nowadays. Little maidens of from thirteen to fifteen summers, with shapely limbs encased in the tightest of black stockings, and dainty feet in the trimmest of low shoes, parade the “ block ” for hours together in the afternoon, intent on being admired, and, if possible, “ cutting out ” their elder sisters. Children of fourteen, who ought to be playing hide and seek or amusing themselves with the innocent and exciting skipping rope, wander up and down discussing dress, men and morals with the same sav<*e that would have been displayed in their mother’s time at the age of thirty-five. There is something very amusing in the manners and customs of these precocious little madams. They are so self-possessed, so conscious of their charms, and so truly femininely anxious to show them off to the best possible advantage.

Some of them have pretty eyes. How soon they have picked up a knowledge of their deadliness as a weapon when launched against the susceptible male, specially during the period of'hie calf love. And how they pull each other to pieces too. They generally walk in threes. . Follow one set up, and watch by the position of their heads and their gestures how they are “giving it” to the next “three of a kind ” just in front. When they are tired of the block they retire to the rink. It is about the one sensible thing they do. The exercise. is excellent, and, when the girl is good at it, conducive to grace. But there, too, they go on the “ mash ” in the most ridiculous way. What their sisters are about, to allow such goings-on, passes Zamiel’s comprehension. Some of the little misses ought certainly to be thoroughly well spanked, and then only allowed out under surveillance. What they will be like at eighteen, when they are as they are at fourteen, passes compre hension.

* ’ * * » * * ♦ ♦ ♦ m Is swearing a necessity? This query is suggested by the perusal of a paragraph in a Home paper stating that a rather singular

subject for discussion was chosen . by the young men of the Durham University Union the other day. They put it this way : —“ That in the opinion of this House, swearing in ordinary conversation is, in moderation, morally unobjectionable, and has, moreover, a beneficial effect upon the temper.” Those Durham boys appear to be possessed of a good deal of moral courage. Some one unkindly suggests that they must be pretty hard up for adebateable subject. It is interesting to note how this debate progressed. The opening genius maintained that although oaths in form, the ordinary oaths of civilised society were really nothing but convenient and forcible formulae for expressing one's anger or irritation, or for making a statement more emphatic. Words must be judged by the intention of the persons using them. *n■* * * * * * * The orator who seconded the motion wa hardly as moderate as his principal. Ha laid it down emphatically as an axiom that there were “ three alternatives by which a man might got rid of an angry temperby kicking and smashing the. furniture, by snarling at his friends, or by indulging in a small pyrotechnic display of oaths.” Ha put it to the House which was the most satisfactory and-desirable of these methods. I am inclined to side with his opinion in a modest way. It would, I believe, be rather difficult to name a word, not an oath, which would take the place of the big hard D and produce an equally satisfactory result on the temper, when missing collar-buttons, treacherous banana skins, tight boots, and the thousand and one other ills of humanity are tho causes of irritation. In this particular debate, however, the advocates of profanity were compelled to pub up with a defeat, for their motion was rejected by 37 to 19.

Jinks called in to see me the other day, and the conversation turned on football. “ J do not often patronise the football fieldwith my presence,” said Jinks, “ though I take considerable interest in the manly game. But, truth to tell, I find my feelings a bit too strong for me on the occasions when I do watch a match. I do not yell aloud, and call “Go it, reds,’ or ‘Down with it, Bill,’ but I suffer from even a worse form of excitement. I sway backwards and forwards as the ball goes from one side of the field to another, and I have even gone so far as to kick the shins of my neighbours, getting in return a very ugly black eye which I could not explain away to my friends. During 1 another big match, between Auckland and Canterbury, I think, a good deal depended on a place kick which one of our men was taking. As the ball rose I excitedly gripped the leg of a bystander nearly as excited as myself, and as the ball rose his leg rose, till, as it spared over tho bar, I tipped him down the steps of the stand and nearly broke his neck. No, I find it too exciting—for the other men.” *** * * *

Last Saturday I went out to the ground at Epsom myself to see the matches. Like poor Jinks, 1 got somewhat excited, but sat between two friends who managed to keep me pretty well within bounds. Most of the other men present were, however, a good deal more excited than the players, and gave vent to their feelings in yells and groans, and the rallying club cries. That was all very well, but in some there was the suspicion of a desire to indulge in stronger talk, which the authorities should suppress without mercy. Football has always been well patronised by ladies in Auckland, for the simple reason thab they felt well assured they would havo to listen to nothing outrageous ; and if their patronage is to be continued they must still feel quite safe in that respect. There can be no doubt that the patronage of the ladies has a good effect on tho players, and they recognise the fact and act up to it. The male spectators also must remember in their remarks that ladies are present, and must not tell obnoxious referees, “You should referee once more, and then die. In Wellington they would scragg you off the field,” as one young person did the other Saturday.