TOPICAL READING.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9097, 25 May 1908, Page 4

TOPICAL READING.

DISREGARDED. It is not evcy town in the Dominion / that possesses a museum, and it is ! not every town that would stuff its museum into packing cases as the town of Masterton does. At one time we seemed to be in a fair way to develop something approaching an up-to-date museum, but various circumstances have militated against the laudable efforts of those who have helped in the work of museum ''building." The chief requisite to-day is room. Is there no room anywhere that can be obtained and suitable for the purpose? The apathy of the Trust Lands Trustees in regard to the matter is quite painful, an 1 we may be certain that until someone takes up the question nothing whatever will be done. Perhaps, ten years hence somebody will wake up; but, in the meantime, let it be observed that it is rather more than a pity that all interest should be destroyed in such an important and desirable public institution as a museum.

BY THE MIDDLE OF THE CENTURY. There is something very pleasant about cheerful prophecies. We always like to think well of ourselves, and to believe that we are going to do' better in the future, even if we are paving the way towards deterioration? A gentleman, named William Thum, presumably no relation to Tom Thumb, who delights readers of the "Arena" with the beauty of his language and the ;üblimity of his ideas, adopts the role of p-ophet thusly:—"By the middle of this century our struggle for wealth will no lorger be a matter of lifeconsuming battles. . . . These battles will be displaced by a finer but no less difficult effort, the effort to derive and to receive the confidence and respect of one's fellowmen. Unler these new conditions we shall have time to give more attention to our health, time for a broader and more even development of our minds, time for the bettsr training of our children, and time to spare fcr the happinass of others. These unquestionable gains will result in a stronger individuality." May it all prove to be true !

NOT WHAT SHE OUGHT JO BE. Generally speaking in this life things are not what they seem, unless it happens to be "a blue paper" or a debt, then the' exceptions to the rule are painfully impressed upon one's mind. If' there vvda anything in the Empire that one would have believed to be satisfactory it was the Dreadnought. We were proud of the Dreadnought—we really felt that she was "one of us," but, alas, the latest debates on the Navy Estimates have shown that both our faith and affection were alike misplaced. Lord Tweed-

mouth says that he does not at all encourage the repetition of the construction of the Dreadnought. It was built in thirteen months, and we were very proud of it, but it is an experiment that ought not to be repeated, because the three Temeraires are infinitely better than the Dreadnought, and the three St. Vincents will again be a great advance. "One wonders," says a writer in the "Nineteenth Century," "how such a statement as this will be received by those who were responsible for the Dreadnought. Her design was stated to be the outcome of a careful study of the lessons derived from, the RussoJapanese War, and of the ripe experience of the Naval authorities at the Admiralty, fortified by the 'idvice of a special committee." But there is just one ray' of hope—there is such a thing as human fallibility.

ZOLA AND HIS WORKS. Emile Zola, of giant intellect, was, during his life, the subject of unmerciful criticism at the hands of literary pigmies, tin-pot politicians, and hair-brained Social reformers. He is dead, but the dramatic French will not allow his bones to lie at rest. Some of them would place the dust of Zola in the Pantheon, while others would rather place themselves there than -see the Pantheon, in their opinion, so desecrated. One mayjigree with all, or with or not with any of Zola's views, but there can be no question as to his gen'us. Zola was a genius, and the civilised world re-, garded him in that light; but Frenchmen are apparently in doubt upon the point; they would not be Frenchmen were if otherwise. When the Bill for a grant of 85,000 francs for the removal of Zola's remsins to the Pantheon came up recently in the Chamber of Deputies for discussion, M. Maurice Barrea argued vehemently against it. He held that Zola's works had given the entire world a false impression of French morality, and that if the House consented to the author's enslirinement in the Pantheon it would ratify the libel on its constituents. Great excitement, we read, was displayed by the different parties. As a protest, the Due d,e Montebello, with the assent of all his family, has written to the Government demanding authorisation to remove the remains of his illustrious grandfather, Marshal Lanues, from the Pantheon to the family vault in the Montmartre Cemetery. Confronted with such an unprecedented demand, the Government will probably refuse to recognise any right on the part of the Due de Montebello to withdraw his ancestor's body from the national sepulchre.