CURRENT TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 160, 15 October 1910, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

A GLANCE AT PORTUGAL. When it is stated that 75 per cent, of the people of the new Republic of Portugal are wholly illiterate the wonder is that the recent revolution was of so mild a character. If the new Government lias been goaded to revolt iby a desire to help the people there is a field for endeavor that is worthy of the greatest work educationists, humanists and reformers can do. The people on the land in Portugal are the backbone of the country. It is from them that the drones have stolen all the honey. These poor folk are" perhaps more primitive than any other European people, and their implements of labor are of such a 'kind as were used a thousand years ago. They toil incessantly for mere existence, their lives are monotonous in the extreme, their food supply is small, their pleasures few, and they are of less consequence than the dogs or horses of the nobility. ' This passage from a recent article in an English paper is indicative of the conditions prevailing:—"All day long, hour after hour, the laborers in the fields sing a monotonous kind of chant in a minor key, only about two lines, repeated over and over again, and it sounds as though there were no real words to it. It reveals pathetically the dull monotony of long toil—of a morrow that will bring no change save death. The peasant is wretchedly poor. His house is a hut of loose stones without cement, plastered over roughly to keep out the wind. Different is the life of the mountain shepherds, who often sleep in the midst of their flocks, with their dogs lying round to keep guard against wolves. Sometimes shepherd sand dogs have a pitched battle with their enemies, the men laying aibout ■ t'hem vigorously with their staves. The Portuguese peasant, especially in the north, has much to commend him. Met on a country road, he looks like a brigand, but he in really friendly and very polite. He will take great pairis to. direct a stranger on his way, and makes his adieu like a courtier." No Government, no church, no philanthropic institution has «ver troubled about these people who are backbone of Portugal, and their condition is an indictment of the system that permitted the amassing of useless wealth to be hidden in buildings. It is apparently that Portugal may be dragged out of the mire of mental decay and hopeless poverty that a few great souls have struck a blow at the hideous regime of wrong, and will induce the overburdened people to understand that they were made by the same Image as the aristocratic filchers who have stolen the work of their hands for generations.

TEETOTALTSM. Few total abstainers from alcohol knowwhy they call themselves "teetotalers," and not everybody understands tihat total abstinence from alcohol was extremel) rare a few decades ago. There is little doubt that drinking anterior to the Victorian era was more general and "heavier" than nowadays. Happily in these enlightened times a person may adpit total abstinence without bein." jeered, at, but certainly in earlier days an ability to consume unnecessary liquid was looked upon as a rather fine accomplishment. The greater necessity for temperance has been brought about by the wonderful progress of commerce and the need for keen brains in competition, the rapidity of action and travel, the use of machinery, the general whirl of things. Insobriety is commoner to the ignorant than to the clever or astute, and it may therefore be assumed that increase of temperance means increase of general education. But this does not explain why total abstainers came to be called "teetotalers." Foreigners who regard campaigns against alcohol as a peculiar phase of the character of "these droll English" on examining the word conclude that it has a reference to tea, and certainly a famous Frenchman has in Gallicising the word tranlated "teetotaler": -'Totaliseur du the," inferring that total abstainers drink tea solely. Some editions of Larousse's famous dictionary give the word "tea-totaler," and the definition explains that the English people of the order of tea-totalers" are not permitted any drink but tea or water. It is probable that the word is ot American origin and has nothing whatever to do with tea. The Rev. Joel Jewell was one of the earliest total abstinence preachers in the United States, and although he was at heart a total abolitionist, he saw that it was impossible tit!™ aU o h l S disci P les prohibition. So he instituted the pledge Snu™ I s l re ? ords marked all moderates k+ ■ (old P ! , ed S e) a nd the whole-souled abstainers T (total). "T total » therefore was coined in America. Another quaint but improbable story asserts that a working man prohibitionist in Lancainr,i; W % S u stut + terer a «'l in admonishing his fellows to abstain from drink > th ™S but a. .-I" lncreas 'ng number of Americans still have the parson's "T" mark against their names, and in Britain nothing but t-total" will do for the sue eessors of the stammering workman