TOPICAL READING.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8308, 11 December 1906, Page 4

TOPICAL READING.

The news .of tho death of the Rev. Arthur Nicholls tho husband of Charlotte Bronte, must come as a surpiise to most people. Many who have read "Jane Eyre" probably Jo not know that its author ever married, and some of thase who did know that once, have forgotten it. For thor« nro few living links with the early Victorians. Charlotte Bronte's married life was probably one of the hapDiest times she ever spent, but it Beemed us if Fate, which had teen persistently unkind to her, could not let hor alone.' Mr JNioholls was her father's oarate at Haworth. lie is described by Mrs Uaskell, Charlotte Bronte's biographer, as "a grave, reserved, conscientious man, with a deep sense of'religion, and of his dutes as ouo of its ministers " When Mr Nicholls proposed, Miss Broate went immediately to her father and told him all. Now tha Rov. Patrick Bronte wns aelfish, he was ill at the time, and he always disapproved of marriage. Ho more than disapproved of this one, and fearing the consequence of agitation in his weak state of health, Charlotte promised to give Mr JSllobolia a distinot refusal on the morrow. This Bhe did, and tho lover resigned his curaoy, but her father chauged his mind eventually. Mr Nicholla oame'back, and the twn became engaged,. They were married at Haworth in Juno, 1854. Mrs Nicholls died in March of the following year.

An interesting collection of Parliamentary sketohus has just been re-publisbnd in London. These are contributions to the London Leader in tho jarly fifties by Edward Miohael Whitty, a journalist with an exceptional gift for Parliamentary work, and one of the first men to perceive that something brighter and more interesting could be don* in ".he I J res3 Gallery than mere verbatim reporting. The observations of this clever man of the world on suocess in the* House, and bis hints to new members, are particularly interesting, showing, as they do, that in some vital respects Paiiia-? usenfc has not ohanged since his day. He suggests that candidates for Parliamentary honours should be medically examined. "Mark the men who win in public life, and you will Bee that they are all men of enduring build," he says. "Other kinds of men my write great books, or set ideas in motion, but the men who get on in politics, as in commerce, are men with large heads '(proportionate* to the trunk), thick neoks, and deep chests." Numerous

|Jnßtauoee could be found in oolontal I politics m support of this oontantion. His ndvioe to new members is to give themselves up entirely to the House. Suah devotion ends in the House giving itself to them, while men who don't sit through the debates, who shirk committee work, and who give themselves the airs of persons condescending to be members fail in their politioal careers.

A few years back the head of a manufacturing company wrote to tbo chemistry department of one of the American Teobnioal Schools, offering un important position to "the best mat? in the graduating class" The professor of chemistry wrote baok, "Ibe best maa is a woman"; and the accommodating manufacturer replied, "Send her along." But chemistry experts are but mild tokens of advance in woman's technical capacity, compared with Qiiiih triumphs as the election of Miss Ko-a Ulatch to membership of the American Society of Civil Engineers, or Mrs BBthune's election to the Amerioan Institute of Architects. Since the last oensus returns showed that the United States had not only 100 women arohiteots, but women builders and contractors, masons, ' oarpenters, plasterers, painters, glaziers, and varnishers, plumbers, paper-hangers, and even' women slaters and roofers, it is suggested that a complete structure might be erected in honour of the sex, "by these representatives of its modern ingenuity and activity."

Tea drinking is ou the boom just now, says the London Daily Mail. Not only has the consumption increased in the United Kingdom, but the tea drinking habit is very much on the upward grade on tbe Continent of Europe, in the United States, Australia, and South America; while in Russia the appreciation of Britiub-grown tea is steadily increasing. For the most part the teas oonsume3 are either grown in India or Ceylon, the record price during the past year being 45a for lib of "Pekoe Tips." The habit of drinking tea, in the afternoon js on the increase on the Continent. One of tbe things that Britishers most long for when abroad is a good cup of afternoon tea. , '