The Daily News WEDNESDAY, JUNE 5th, 1907. "ALL IS VANITY, VANITY!"

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 59, 5 June 1907, Page 2

The Daily News WEDNESDAY, JUNE sth, 1907. "ALL IS VANITY, VANITY!"

\o king was over married iii a registry ollice. It would be more lluui his billet was worth, No exalted personage dare Jive in ordinary unilhiminated life. Jle is expected to make a show. If lie wears a cloth cap un an occasion during which he has the opportunity of wearing- a silk hat the people ihink th<-y are being rubbed. »So lliey are. The people of tin- whwle earih care lor display. The : policeman in corduroys would be ineH'oclive, the judge without the wig not impressive enough, the House of Parliament robbed of its theatricals, a place minttractive to tlie crowd. The people who affect democratic tastes aiv the least democratic when a love for display is considered, ami colonial people dearly love a show. The Governor in a blue shirt and dungaree pants opening Parliament would be the same (iovcrnor, but such a spectacle would horrify even the humblest. observer. Also if the Governor opens the Parliament, this coming session after driving to it in a one-horse buggy, hired from a livery stable, there will bo awful letters in the papers about it.

People are controlled by romance. A soldier out of uniform couldu't possibly be as good a soldier as the same man with heaps of millinery 011 him, the Lord Mayor of a city must not appear except in his chain and ermine cloak, and kings and queens are kings and queens-mostly beeausQ they may if tliey like wear a heap of mineral and jewels on their tired heads. The people, even if they have to pay for it. must have show, it is all very important because it impresses people. Nobody in the wide world depends on his unaided self for the impression he makes on the people he comes in contact with. The savage bedecks himself with feathers and paint. A Xulu warrior, gumringed nud carrying a leopard skin can't fight any better for it, hut it impresses the other fellow. A Red Indian brave must tiud it very hard to | struggle around wearing a headdress three feet high, besides a heap of other paraphernalia. How often do we remark that Mrs or Miss So-and-So is pretty, and discover subsequently that seen in deshabille after she has lit the morning lire it was what she wore that had given us an opinion of her beauty? About three parts of the utterances of public men are pure unadulterated "guff." It is as necessary for public men to talk "guff" as it is for all men to eat food. About three out of four public men will repeal several times a day. every day every week eae!i month and all the year, ".il gives me pleasure to be here." People

like -- impresses them. Seven-en-Ms of the cabled matter about the iat.'ly-euncludcd Imperial Conference were meaningless wonds. just as meanii:g!e-> ah the "gives me pleasure, etc." let i' is part of the system. it can't be helped. It is inevitable and neces-

If we suddenly broke down the conventions. what would happen? Supposing a Minister of the Crown, for instance, attended his seventh meeting during the day and said. "I'm bored to death with the lot of you. I've been worrying around all day telling polite lies and informing the poop!.' I liked being bored to death. As far as I'm concerned, I'm going home. Von can go to Heligoland." Such a Minister wouldn't impress the people favorably. although lie might be telling the truth tor the iiivt time in a year. Consider tie- ordinary banquet to the public man. It is as a general thing a horror. During any evening any public man savs the same things in the same way that most other public men have been saying for hundreds of years. No man in ordinary conversation talks like a public man at a banquet. Why not? localise it isn't impressive, and anyhow a man doesn't wear a quarter-acre shirt front and diamond studs in the street. Wherein, of course, lies the value, of these functions. The poor untutored savage, when he puts his arm* through a pair of missionary's trouser-legs and believes that's the way to wear trousers, is going to impress someone, exactly in the same way that Lady Esmeralda Thonbants de Tally-110 intends to do with her JJnO.OOO diamond tiara. My lady's purpose is precisely the purpose of th" Congo uigger—except that she hasn't eaten a missionary to obtain the tiara.

Tt is inconceivable that a king or president might desire to be less of a theatrical show, but the love of pomp and ceremony is so ingrained in the souls of the people from (lie lowest to (he highest that no great person dares to be natural. As showing how great men feel it their duty to pander to the desire of th? ignorant for the outward and visible sign of authority, there is a record of a new-ly-Hedged Xew Zealand J.P. having appeared at his first morning sitting attired iu complete evening clothes. This suggests a notion. Many people do not give that reverence to J.sP. they of course de.serve. The- policeman impresses by the fact that he wears uniform and very likely has a pair of white gloves in his pocket. The J.P. hasn't even got a wig or a pig-tail or a pair of ear-rings. As it would lead to confusion should •L'sP. appear in full-bottomed wigs a bra-- helmet having a statuette of dustice with her scales might be u-ed. The nation would then accept the finding- of a Gair' of with euii a> natim a;c«-pU without question (he

finding of a jminv who wears the roles anil wig of his olnee ami for whom the eii(»r erie-> "Silence!" How cuiild a j111!i!• pass the deal h--.entence without, a bhi'-k-ei.p? No woman in the gallerv

W'CIM (ailll : t here ittl(t lie 110 sensation. Tlii- 'ii::!i would lir hanged ail the same nl' <■ Si ill I lie tiling tlint remains in Hi'- mii'd tlic hinges! is tlii 1 assumption nl' I Ik' black cap.

"Jllnlf" is one nl mull's most valuable possesion*. I'eople laugh at a liackblochs race meeting if there is 110 pomp anil c-rcaiony. How can a man win a race if lie isn't wearing silk and a cap. rilling Pools ami white pants'; licniinds us (it a licwclumi's remark al such a aieeling two years A competitor in a hack race cant'-reil on (o (lie course, lie was wearing a slop suit of clothes. "That. fellow can't ride." said the iiewclinni. "Ill' isn't even wearing riding pain-.'" Kviilcntiy the ncwchnin belicvcil that hack race* were won by pants. I'omp anil ceremony have 01scnlial iisc.i. The <iovcrnnr's carriage sweeps np to a theatre. The people are oil their own path. The people out of ordinary politeness would slauil aside, lint 1 he lilno uniforms rise into life and I licit' owners issue hoarse sounds. The people feel thai this is not their pa rill. II belongs (« governors. Without the pomp, they'd go on mistaking the world for their joint properly. Nobody thinks of opening a new public building, going ill and "tartin<; work, mid saying nothing more about it, although, as a matter of fact, most New Zealand public buildings arc in use before they are "opened." A special key that will only lie used once, is inserted in a lock previously shot for I he occasion, bv ;i man who would be rather playing bowls or bridge, and the tiling is done to the accompaniment: of "11 nll'awds mo—ah—vewy gweat plcpaw." ete. Of course if. doesn't all'ord him any great pleasure, because lie Ims been opening already- 11

i jop.-lli'd building.-' fnr years, Mlf (tic peo[ite ; ir.' iiiij'!<---,-ed. Tlm'y would ne\"r c«»n'sent to pay the *nl.ti'y ui" a .ni'cal man if 1 ln» great man strolled duwit afler dinner one night and opened the dour j ■while no one was looking.

Kveryoiie likes largvuc.s.s and desires io give everyone elne the that he is a cat above the other fellow, The person who has a farmer relative who is lin the pidilie i'\v \yill always nay '"li' l lhas a 'very huge' farm."' The person whose son is the sole assistant at Somebody's drapery store is bound to ted one that "I'erey is manager of the largest department in the big drapery store of Somebody's.*' It impresses people just the same as a large waieh-cliain impresses the populace eveu if there is no watch attached. If we gave up the

>liani*', this world would he an uncomfortable place. Everybody would be so brutally frank and the erstwhile owner of a coronet would hob-nob with the wieldor of a shovel. Such things can never be. And "why? Simply because the man with the shovel is much mnre impressed with the soronet than is the wearer. The wearer of the pomp isn't its greatest admirer. lie wears it to ' please the masses—and incidentally to subject him. The funeral of a public* man whose body was taken to an ordinary churchyard in a dray wouldn't make anybody weep or bring out thousands of people. Hut spend fifty thousand pounds on it and the wnils arc heartrending and the crowd immense. That'* one of the reasons why cremation can never be popular.