The Daily News WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 17. OLD CUSTOMS DYING.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 81867, 17 October 1906, Page 2

The Daily News WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 17. OLD CUSTOMS DYING.

Cheerful idiots all over the world over have made themselves ridiculous at various limes of tht 1 year and on various occasions, because Uiir.r lest intellectual forefathers were cheerful idiots too. But old eustoms are dy r inj' out. It is a happy circumstance in many cases. In the colonies we siill hive the ridiculous custom, remembered with a shudder by many people who have had the mixed felicity of getting married, known as Lt tin-canning.'' At last a band of hoodiums who indulged in this alleg ed ll fun" have been fined heavily ill Auckland for disturbing a wedding and the wedded. The average person never could see any fun in an noying inoffensive folk whose oni\ ec ceniricity is that taey have just been married,' and it is to be sincerely liopee that the next squad of cheerful idiot who believe banging a kerosene tin o, otherwise making a hideous noise oil a matrimonial occasion will be similarly dealt with.

Next month will occur the anniversary of the death of a Yorkshire genicman by the name of Guido Fawkcs. who. in" the very dim past, tried to blow the British' Parliament sky-high and didn't succeed. Because he did not succeed, cheerful idiots have been celebiaiing his violent death evei sine?. The aveiage boy who burns Guv Fawkes in ciligy on the fifth if November doesn't know (1) wliethei the Briiish Parliament deserved blowing up; (2) that Fawkes was merely the' tool, and that blue-blooded persons who did not get punished weic die principles; (3) that it is a most un-Bnlish thing to go on ptetending to rejoice at the death of a man whose descendants aie highly respeciablc and unknown to the police,

O.N'CE upon a time it was the fashion lo insult all one. friends on St. Valentine's Day. The humor of the aveiage Briton has got die upper hand ai last. He sees the absurdity of sending a colored horror 10 his fiends because his forcftuher who had a great deal more time to be a ciie' 1 - ful idiot did hkewise. May Day soil survives among ihe mentally deficient in the Oid Land and it is then con.-u----dcied the correct thing for painted fools to rush around dealing the pop, ulace blows with a raw bullock-biad-d'--' tied to a stick. Perhaps in time .1 magi-tiaie may have a case of assault by bladder brought before him and he may put a spoke in the wheel of a s,lly custom that is ofien disgus dug as well as senseless and humoureus.

IT is too much I 1 expect that the del ieious colonial institut.on. ihe "surprise parly." will eventually bring ■he surprisers l;e;"o;e die magistrates for hou-e-breaking, or that huni-'ui-is;s in the country will admil thai taking tie gads of the paddock-, from iheir hinges i- seemingly funm. Ihe ciiy funny man who bleaks fire alarms and calls out the fire-brigade is another person who hangs to oldcusomi with fervour. As the peo pies' idea of what is really funny 01 witty or humorous changes, so will tin- customs ihat make persons behave like- lunatics disappear. When "tincanning" gets a decided reverse, as it has done in Auckland, there is hope i\- reform all round.

CHINA TRANSFORMED. In a short article, published in The World's Work and Play, Dr A. W. P. Martin, formerly president of the Imperial University, Pekin, says bewildering- changes have occured within the last few months in Pekin. The streets are being 11 laid in modtini style, broughams are appearing, illicit}- is well-lighted at night, instead of being- left to darkness, as formeily ; policemen uniformed in Western style patrol the stieets, numeiou 1 newspapers have sprung into existence, and are eagcriy read, the cumbrous sysicm of Chinese writing is being rclornn d, and railway now comes right into ihe city, and railway construction on a vast scale is projected, the rails being manufactured at ihe arsenal of Nan Vang, Dr Martin show-J that the feeling against the foreigners is glowing fast, and that there have been numerous outbursts lately. The deeply-routed basis of th- ill-feeling is the objection of the Chinese officials to the system which withdraws foreigners in China from lite jurisdiction of the Chinese law. D- Martin siiows that Japan is primarily icsponsible for die great awakening of China. Tl'i-ie are at present booo Chinese students in Japan. They will shortly return 10 China, and among them China will find cl 1 ill masters for her armies, and teachers in her schools. This writer i' kites a significant incident from l'asiingfu. where Chinese olficiah dumped imo a canal the ulols irom several icmples, which were requited for schoolhouses. And the people manifested no resentment, accepting it as a step in social evolution.