THE WAYS OF THE WORLD.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2257, 22 September 1891, Page 2

THE WAYS OF THE WORLD.

Like Boyle Roche, I smell a rat. I smell it better than the Scotch lassie, but perhaps I would do worse than tell her story. A young Scotchman, bashful, but desperately in love, was paying his addresses to her, and finding that no notice was taken of his visits, he summoned up a sufficient amount of courage to speak his mind thus. u Jean, I was here on Monday night.” “Ay, ye -were that,” replied she. “ An’ I was here on Tuesday night,” “So ye were.” “ An’ I was here Wednesday,” continued the ardent youth. “ Ay, an’ ye were here on Thursday night an’ a’.” “ An’ I was here last night.” “ Well,” she says, “what if ye were V’ “ An’ lam here to-night again.” “ And what about it, even if you cam’ every night!” “What about it, did ye say ? “ Did ye no begin to smell a rat ?” She did not, but he did, and his visits became more like those of an angel than a lover henceforward.

Now the rat I smell is the weather. I see plainly there is something wrong. A few days ago the editor of this paper stated the heat was unseasonable, and ought to bring rain. He, of course, never errs. Rain came, but it was only a few drops, and then we had a nor’-wester from the north-east, winding up a mild summer shower. That would suggest that the earth in its revolutions had gone a couple of points off the track, hence the wind from the wrong point. This is serious, more especially as we are not getting rain.

The question is : Why is this thusness '! What has become of the storms, and the thunder and lightning of former years '( For about three years now we have not been able to get up a good respectable storm, while thunder and lightning have been conspicuous by their absence. lam told that thunder and lightning are caused by electricity in the air, and, if so, where has the electricity gone ? lam of opinion that Professor Mason is at the bottom of the whole thing. He is confining the electricity in the accumulators of his magnetic medicated pads and his electric appliances, and thus depriving the atmosphere of sufficient electricity to get up a decent thunderstorm, and hence the continued drought. For the last fortnight the clerk of the weather appeared to put forth all his energies to supply rain, for every evening the sky was densely overcast with clouds, but he has made a failure of it because he has run short of electricity. This is serious, and ought to be looked to. The ancients used to offer sacrifices when they wanted* rain, and it appears to me that it would be a good thing to follow their example and sacrifice the professor.

I have received a communication from a much-afflicted man. He says : “ I married a young widow, and my father married her step-daughter. My wife became the liiother-iu-law and also the daughter-

in-law of my own father; my wife’s step-1 drughter is my step-mother, and I am the step-father of my mother-in-law. My step-mother, who is the step-daughter of my wife, has a boy ; he is naturally my step-brother, because he is the son of my father and of my step-mother; but, because he is the son of my wife’s stepdaughter, so is my wife the grandmother of the little boy, and I am the grandfather of my step-brother. My wife has also a boy; my step-mother is consequently the step-sister of my boy, >and is also his grandmother, because he is the child of her step-son; and my father is the brother-in-law of my son, because “he has his step-sister for a wife, I am the brother of my own son, who is the son of mv step-mother; I am the brother-in-iaw of my mother, qiy wife is the aunt of her own son, my son is the grandson of my father, and I am my own grandfather.” Now here is a position for a poor devil to get into, and all because he disregarded Mr Weller’s injunction to “Beware of the widows.” This man must wear an electropathic magnetic medicated pad, or else he will lose himself hopelessly in the midst of his relations.

There is in Otago a person for whom I have great respect. Just as everyone is a captain, a colonel, or, a judge in America, so are we all in these colonies descendants of the Plantaganets or the Howards. We are all such wonderful aristocrats, and we give ourselves such tremendous airs, that it is quite refreshing to find a man admitting his humble origin. This is the Rev. Mr Ready, of Dunedini :He;t6ld his own story last week in a lecture at Mosgiel. He was left an orphan at the age of seven years, his father having died through drunkenness, and he commenced* by performing acrobatic feats where the omnibusses used to stop. For this he received a penny, and with it he bought a halfpenny roll and a farthing’s worth of treacle. He shared a part of his repast with some companions, giving them a bite each. For six yearn he, lived in the streets of London, sometimes stealing food when he could not get it honestly, and' he did not think it a crime to steal under such circumstances. At last he was taken intb Muller’s Home, and after escaping twice was apprenticed to a miller, and he continued to improve himself until at last he was ordained a Preacher of the Gospel.

Who could not have respect for a man who has the moral courage to tell his story like this? None but a snob. I quite agree with him, too, that there was neither sin nor shame in a boy situated as he was stealing food. The sin and the shame was on the side of society, in neglecting its duties so far as to allow it to be possible for a child to roam unprotected, In my opinion nine-tenths of the criminals are the product of social mismanagement. If the social system of London had baen based on sound principles it wauld have been impossible for 'Mr Ready to experience such miseries. Who, then, is to blame for crime ? Is the boy, who perforce grows up a thief and knows no other means of earning a livelihood, or the Community which neglects to look after him, to blame for his crimes? Most undoubtedly the community is to blame. Only for having been providentially saved, Mr Ready might have become a hardened criminal, instead of ,a , respectable member of society. Poets are bom, not made, but criminals are made, not bom. Com O’Lanus, K.C.M.G.