THISTLEDOWN.

Te Aroha News, Volume XII, Issue 1786, 9 November 1895, Page 2

THISTLEDOWN.

“ A man may je3t and tell the truth.” —Hobace.

Isn’t it time some more decent and healthy mode of administering Oaths was introduced into our Courts ? ' Kissing the book’ in ay "have all the miraculous effects on confirmed liars it is credited with, but I take leave to doubt them while religion is dragged in the mind, not to speak of the risk of the most disgusting and dangerous diseases by the ambiguated custom of offering to the lips of witnessers a Bible —God save the* frnark —beslobbered over by successive generations of drunkards and unfortunate in all stages of disease, docepitude, and filth, What an honour to the book we all profess to revere is the • Court hack whose contact converts an Ananias into a George Washington. And the careful way in which the zealous official sees the witness does not kiss his dirty thumb but the filthier volume. A descendant of the Irish kings was lately suspected of this thumb-regging by a careful constable. At the second effort Mickey kissed the book with a smack like a cow extracting her. hoof from the mud of the Waihi road, a simile for which I am indebted, to a popular fellow journalist with painful experience of that delightful avenue to wealth. Serious by a Jsimple affirmation ought to be sufficient without retaining dangerous and disguesting superstitions. I don’t see the necessity even for 'an affirmation. Let a lie in a Court of Justice be made perjury without any oath or affirmation and truth in the witness box will be just as common or uncommon then as now.

The days of suicide as a fine art are out ef date unless they be restored by the recent decision of an Australian judge. Over there the attempt to commit murder entails the supreme penalty of the law and this ornam mt of the bench sentenced an unsuccessful suicide to death, though pa consideration he let her off on her recognizance. He evidently was of the popular creed of the day and worshipped- Success with a big S and was determined to secure it. Here long ago the late Judge Gillies came to the conclusion that it was illogical to punish the attempt, when success would have severed the criminal from his jurisdiction, a principle, by the way, which would be very popular with abscondii-g bankrupts; there the judge says: ‘lf your hand or nerve fails in self-de-struction, if at the last moment ‘ the native hue of resolution is sicklied o’er by the pale cast of thought ’ I supplement your nerveless arm with the iron will of the public executioueer.” Umbrellas will be more in demand now than ever. Superficial critics swear at the man who on his way to drown himself protects himself from the rain with an umbrella, as they do at the murderer who worries the , jail-surgeon about a fancied cold on the eve of his execution. Those who look deeper will see only the natural produce of men, who wishing to die game, are careful to calculate every eh '-hce. The question of the justifiability or otherwise of suicide has been variously answered. Sc crates dec’ar d i arraaj owardice to abandon the post of duiy committed to your care by God. The Stoics considered that if on a dispassionate view of all his circumstances a man found the coil of life overbalancing the good, he must regard it as a distinct call from God to end his life. Now, when' a man has come to this or any other conclusion, it is painful and humiliating to have to change . his mind. Yet we know that a wetting on the way to a self-determined death or the unexpected coldness of the water into which, with a rash confidence in the soundness of his conclusion, he wades instead of plunging headlong, has often made a would be suicide change his mind. An umbrella then on the road and a hundredweight or so of old iron about the person save him from the reproach of inconsistency. Sei*iously speaking that suicide is both an act of cowardice and a sin, is indisputable on any theory of Christiau ethics, -that it ought to be a crime, is at least doubtful, except in so far as it involves, leaving the suicides dependant to the charity of the public.

One of the most lucrative professions in t ie civilised world is that of guinea-pig men with handles to their names, Ministers, even ordinary members of Parliament have till lately been in strong demand as directors of financial institutions more or less genuine. Lord Augustus Tomnoddy might easily be on the boards of a dozen different companies, and in many, cases even have his qualifying shares found for him. A guinea a sitting gave him a fairly substantial yearly income, earned easily by saying ditto to the managing director; of course no one suspected his lordship to know anything about finance; all he had to do was to trust the ruling Providence of the Institution and pocket the guinea, pot by any means dry, but washed down with the best of liquor, Recent legislation has. however, made things a little harder for directors, pnd the cases of Mr Mundella and Sir James Ferguson have operated as a caution on public men who now_ find_ the'r political prospects liable to serious injury if they indulge too freely .in the New Guinea system. Commencing with the Panama Canal, the last few years have seen ' a series of scandals in France owing to the corrupt connection of public-men with financial frauds. The Chamber of Deputies has at last cut away the root of the matter by deciding that none of its members ‘ may participate in Financial Syndicates.’ Please to note this is Press Association English, as * the Viceroy of Hong Kong ’ in a telegram of the same date is political Geography*according to the Press Association —other legislators might with advantage adopt the drastic methoh of the French Chamber.

Brutal matter of fact and courtly suggestion are nicely contrasted in two successive Constantinople telegrams. ' Turkish warships took the leaders of the Young Turkish party out to sea by night and dropped thorn overboard in the swiftest part of the current.’ How much neater is the following: * Fourteen members of the Sultan’s household, suspected of treason, died the same day, by which the Sultan’s mind was much relieved.’ This is better even than the remark I read some time ago by, I think, an Auckland Minister, that there had been' but one clerical {opponent of Methodist union, and * God had since seen fit to remove him.’ lapyx.