THE WEEK THE WORLD AND WELLINGTON.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 3008, 3 October 1908, Page 3

THE WEEK THE WORLD AND WELLINGTON.

(By Frank Morton.)

There lies always at the back of our strivings and calculations a veiled omnipotent menace, an unknown quantity, Death, the terrible X. There is no reckoning with death, and from him no mercy is to be expected. Looking back alcng the ways, one is saddened to see how many good friends and lovers he has snatched away. Before him, we are all equal. But there is a certain daintiness about him, so that he often seems to take the best first. The loved ones—mothers and sisters and dearer than sisters—go, and we hardened sinners are left to trudge on wearily adown the lonely road. I heard a few minutes since that my good friend Adam Cowan had died of pneumonia in Australia. A very short time ago I said good bye' to him at the Opera House here.ij and we spoke cheerfully of our next meeting, jbur next meeting! What a farce it ail seems, sometimes! Among Australian theatrical managers I know, k.,. tiere were two superlatively good: Adam Cowan and Harold Ashton. Cowan has gone into the shadows, and every day from now on he will seem a freind a little vaguer, every diva little less remembered. He was a man honest with his employers and with himself, and (a somewhat more difficult thing in his calling honest with the public. The modern man does not fear Death; but sometimes Death seems-very obscene. One hate:; to think of that obscene devourer lurking amid the roses. And one hates especially to feel the world a little harder and colder as each good fellow goes. There are others coming, eve-y day, and every day some glad young mother croons beside a cradle. But these new arrivals are not of our day and set. They can never catch up. A few years, and our children will think of them, and thsy will think of our children, as we think now of these bright spirits that cheer and succour U3, then*slip away. We are glad for our children's sake, and for theirs; but for us'—there is no comfort. Our friends go, no man knows whither, and we shall follow in our order. There is no halp for it, and no escape; even if we wanted to escape. Mention of the name of Cadbury , ' just now reminds me that there has' always been a very pra.tical side to the Cadbury's philanthropy. 'They have always sought to make their > gifts effective. Their schemes have never been in the clouds. Even in their business dealings they are philanthropists. The great works at Bournville are a model to the world. The housing of the workers has been carried out on a scale of exemplary generosity reacting on the soundeatsenss. Last week the firm gave a further illustration of its : methods here in New Zealand. It 1 offered to supply the various relief stations for shipwrecked men with cocoa and chocolate. This is not at all a small gift, but its value is not the main consideration for us. As an example, this gift may bear good fruit, These relief stations might easily be better equipped than they an>. It is likely that shipwrecked mariners arriving at the stations will be, in the maionty ,of cases, weak and ill-clad. The more generous ' the equipment, the better the hope for these men. The public would I do well to see if something cannut be done to carry on the Cadbury principle. We are getting into a miserahly habit of leavirig all such matters to the Government and the charitable societies. Other firms may profitably follow the Cadbury example. These relief stations may be made havens j . of rest for weary wracked men. This , would be a very good thing, if only ; becaus-3 it would tend directly to heighten interest and sympathy in regard to the seamen. We hear so very much of the glory of our mercantile marine, there is much fiddlefaddle spoken and written about it, that we tend to forget tint the life our seamen lead is generally a life of dogs. I was before the tnasiin a sailing ship once myself, and I know what I write about. Talk about the destruction of intellectuality!— the sailors on many ot oar deep-sea ships have their very soul destroyed. They toil through months of misery at a coolie's wage, in order that our freights may be cheapened and our profits may be sjre. They work all hours in all weatiiers, often at the imminent peril of their lives; and they are wretchedly fed ,and worse than wretchedly housed. I've been in fo'c'stles that a decenc man would be ashamed to bed a pig in.