OUR NATIONAL TRADITION.

Waikato Times, Volume XIX, Issue 1644, 18 January 1883, Page 4

OUR NATIONAL TRADITION.

'Th^lamentcd death of Colonel Balfpur, aud the calm heroism witli which Captain Gill,MrCharrington and Professor Palmer Wetittaatfaords and convincing evidence that any dirges which may have been composed over the decadence of English manhood are, to say the least, premature. What English were once, and have been always,- they are now. The conduct ol those whose names have just been mentioned illustrates not the exception but the rule. • What they did hundieds of others would resolutely do. The young men whose simper and drawl in drawing rooms, and whose apparently effeminate presence is the ornament of Pall Mall, are made of the same stuff as their fore fathers. They can change their toothpicks into bayonets and their crutchsticks into swords, and handle them effectively when the occasion arises. Balfour was the type of a class whose »arne is legion. His constitution was not strong. When he ai lived in Egypt lie was only in indifferent health. He hoon became feebler, and bcfoie the day of Tel-el-Kebir must have had a presentiment that the hand of death was upon him. Yet he went through it all bravely, strongly, eagerly, and when the work was clone returned home, stricken with a mortal disease tranquilly to die. Many more instances of the same sort might be mentioned. One has already heard of half a dozen men who concealed their sulleiing and their weakness— sprained joints, and even broken bones— that they might not be excluded from a share in the honors of the campaign. Theic runs throughout the whole of our national history, with no holution of its continuity, one dingle thread of gold. It is this which holds the centuues together, and which gives unity to the character of the English race. It traverses the darkest and least creditable of our episodes ; it is never lost sight of ; its lustre ib perennially undimmed ; it is as bright now as it was in the days of Agincourt, or Waterloo, or the Crimea, or the Indian Mutiny. The truth is that our Biitish youth are saved from demoialization by the greatness of a tradition whose inspiring ' force has never been perceptibly weakened. The young man ot the period is not an agreeable spectacle to those who, without having lapsed into fogeydom, are youths no longer. His manners are bad ; the monotony of his eonveisation is intolei cable ; he appeals to be without a single intellectual interest in life, to be unable to think for himself, and to have no resource but to fall back upon the commonplaces of the newspapers when they wish to express what they arc pleased to call an opinion. But as it is with the young men in London, so it is with the young men elsew here. It would be impossible to find a more odiously self-conscious and opinionated specimen of juvenile humanity than the average Oxford or Cambridge undergraduate or newly-fledged don. His lnannciisms, his little conceits, his set phrases, the small pedantic formulas in which ho dismisses any subject that may suggest itselt as dinner-table talk, his mixtiueof stale priggishness and boyish impetuosity— these things make him a thoroughly objectionable companion. But it is only a phase of his development, lie can no nioic help it than lie can help falling in love, or having religious doubts, or" than he could, a few years, earlier, avoid the measles, soailet fevci, and other puerile epidemics. That mass of ruddy shapeless pulp, known as a, newly-born baby, is not .an agreeable object ; but the baby developed into the fiee and wholesome boy ; the boy into the priggish or slangy young man ; and the priggish or slangy stripling may ultimately become the sober and sensible man of the woild. Meanwhile, just as the youngsters of Tall Mall aie quite ready to leave a .stall at the ( iaiety, or a cigaiette, lor the Held of battle, and will quit themselves gallantly when thcie, so the academic infant tcrnblv lacks none of the prowess ot his anccstois. He can play ciicket and row, and 1 ido as well ab ever could they, ilis powers of enduiance arc as gie.it, his dicad of danger as little, his spirit of adventure as strong. Morally and physically he is identical with those who were born a couple ot generations ago. INlor is there any trace ol intellectual inferiority. If he is not as elegant, he is a far more scientific .scholar. His (treek and Latin composition gains in virility what it wants in grace. In all other departments of knowledge he is infinitely akead of his picdccessors. Excepting the ofl'ensivoness of his hearing, the J'aliclto of hib voice and of his general strain of convei.sation, hib all devouring egotism, and his (imiUing \vaj&, theie is nothing but good to be said about him. His society is 'in welcome to poisons of maturer yeats ; but th.it is. only for much the same reasons that a tr.u ellcr suffering from small-pox is not an eligible occupant of a laihvny cairiage. The salvation of our youth lies in the unbroken perpetuation of the dominant traits of the English character, These are. the traditions spoken of above, and they exist in this country as they do in no other in the world. It is impossible to walk through a Fionoh street, to enter ji French theatre, or to take up a French newspaper, without being confronted by some iresh evidence of the deterioration of the manhood of the race. The Second Eiupiic not only depressed France, apparently ior ever, in the scale of national greatness, and poisoned the soil m which French statesmanship strikes its roots, but bequeathed a legacy which opeiates as a deadly blight upon the personal character of Frenchmen. 'All the glories of France' commemorated by the Arc de Triomphe are a histoiic memoiy and phrase. The spirit of the successive epoch* in which they were aHiieved does not animate the individual Ciaul now. He is taught and bullied, drilled and cuffed, in his lycect, ; but he carries away from them no overmastering sense of manliness. And so when the time of trial comes he h'mlb his amusements and his luxuries, his scabrous novels and his photographic cuiiosities, essential to him, as he did at Sedan. Englishmen enjoy an immunity from this corruption, because, steeped as they have often seemed to the lips in political selfishness, they have never ceased to take a serious view of life, and to respect the lessons of rough foititude which are pait of the discipline of their youth. There is a public feeling in England of irresistible strength in favor of the performance of duty. It is this which is the supreme conti oiler of our private action, which makes the weak strong and the timid brave. It exists in England as it exists in no other country in the world. It is the national tradition, which is the secret of all our national greatness, and is worth more than our national wealth. Happy the people which possess such a treasure ! happier they in whom, as with us, its vitality is, after the lapse of eighteen centuries, undiminished, and its splendor undimmed !— World.

A youko man in De 3 Moines loved a girl so wildly that he wrote her fifteen letters a day for five weeks. At the cud of that time he was killed with a green tomato. " There !" triumphantly exclaimed a Deadwood editor, as a bullet came through the window and shattered the inkstand, " I knew that new • personal ' column would be a success." -' "It is the first time you ever repulsed me, Edith, andjt shall.be the jlaat," said young De Courcey,'as he rose' haughtily and moved towards the, door. ; '* St^yj") she. cried, piteously, as if her heart would ■bifeak,^' we. .must not part in .ange?,"< { , "Well," hej-ejoined penitently, '"'whatj sh*U I &b-VlA\Oh, Gus, dont blame' i, me," she, explairied; #ifch a perceptible shiver, "Hiy'pe,ck< ( is very senpitij^^il, stood- it. as long $s I could. ii,(^9Jj^ud| Atmi < ni'^)ij;inpae,;|okit A iß so Wlfymi) mk pickpocket Mthe%ue;ind^pendjttt*