A GERMAN VIEW OF PARNELL.

Waikato Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2233, 30 October 1886, Page 2 (Supplement)

A GERMAN VIEW OF PARNELL.

The London correspondent of the " Kolnnche Z^itung," who is, we believe, a personal acquaintance of Mr Parnell, furnishes tlie (Jerman public with a clever study of the Irish leader in black and white. We take the following piragraphs : — " The engine in the shape of a human being which fite has sent into the world to atte.upt the establishment of an lush Patliament is cillcd Chailea Stewart Parnell. All attempts to describe the leader of the Irish paity in any other waymust be futile, as long as no new facts in his inner life are disco\ ered by which the eolouilcos abstiaet of his beinp is brought closer to us. His person and hii influence are among the most difficult problems of contemporary history. After everything that is known about him has been cast into the psychological melting pot, the result consists in nothing but limitations mil negations. Imagination, unwilling to miss the outward attraction in the picture of a mighty man, seeks in \ain for traits which would make him familiar and tangible to his fellow-men la he physically attractive, of pleasant social manneis, or a favonute of women ? Has he the gift of quick liish wit, or is he a prominent artist or scientist ? No thing of the kind. No drawing-room counts him among its visitors, no woman boasts of his favour, no bon mot of his is ever repeated. He is only eloquent in so far that he says exactly what ho wishes to say ; of Irish eloquence, which intoxicates itself by its own flow, and finally squanders its fire in a poetical rocket, not a trace is found in him. By native he is fitted for anything lather than an liish leader, and his very appearance reminds one of the hated Anglo Sa\on oppressor. . . . His icy exterior eo:ie->pond3 with big mental Hf 3. No mortil has ever yet been able to say that he is Parnell's intimate f i lend. Ganibetta was the bosom fnpiid of his companions ; they dined together in shirt-sleeves and had no seciets trom each other. Not so Paiuell. He watches his mind as if it weie <x forties, and no one i 3 allowed to look thiough the windows of his eye 3 His companions are as stiange to him to-day as they wete when they met for the first time. They are uumbeis, powers ; he knows whereto make iis.3 of them in his Parliunentary attack*, and be\ond that all relations are bioUen off. His con-cious or uncon.-cioiu secrecy ha* become his second nature, and his aversion to all social intercourse is carried m) far that even the men of hi^ paityare often ignorant of his private 1 evidence. They aio numbers, and numbeia he intends t lit m to remain, in older that the inachiiic work of his' sy^tiMii may not bo interrupted. In loneliness and silence he goes his way, ci citing aiouud him a deseit, at the idge of which his followers are patiently awaiting his behests. It is said that in his lonesome hours he occupies himself with mechanics, which occupation would be suitable to his apparent want of soul life. The stiange problem admits ot many inteipietations, but there is not one which is altogether satisfactory. There is no doubt that only a man who had put on a threefold armour could fight the battle of patliamentary obstruction to the end — a man who was indifferent to piaise or bliuie, who could with equal coolness defen I himself from the attacks of impoi tunato fiiends and sa\age enemies, who, m shoit, despised despite. It is said that the Jews crucified Christ beoiuse he was n Jew ; pat haps Parnell would long ago have been saciiticed on the altar of changeable Irish public f ivour it he had been a hot blooded Catholic Celt of burning, devoted \ivn-itv "

The Legislative Council ot Cypm^ ha* refused to p.i'-s a Bill ag linst cruelty to animtiN, ou the giound that it would fill theprisjns, and cost the island too much money to keep the prisoneis. Tjik royal vi-iifc to the Edinburgh Exhibition, says the Overland M-iil, was \ cry nearly a failure. For eorne time it wis quite on the cards that the Provost of Inverness would not be present. He was invited, of course ; but when he was told th:it oiHci.il grab was compulsory he shook his head. Tho Provost of Inverness is not the man to support his Queen in any but Highland habiliments. Ho is well known as a "fine figuro of a man" in kilts ; mid kilts he in-i-ted ou wearing*. Piessure, it is uudeisoood, was brought to bear on him from very influential quarters ; but the Provost lemuined firm. He owed the kilt as a duty to the people of Inverness, aid Inverness is the farthest town to the North that Mr Gladstone was ever born at. The P^xhibition Committee knew the affair would be a failure without the Provost of Inverness, bo they wisely gave in. The Provost came down in hit? tartans, and her Majesty was not the only person in Edinburgh on August 18th worth looking 1 at. Progress in* Japa.n\— The country of the Mikado is rapidly pressing to the fiontrankin the inarch of civilisation. Successive reforms have been lapidly and peacefully accomplished, and ust 'e:-*s offices abolished in a manner w'lieh speaks well for the desire of the nation ioi impio\ nn nit. Ti.e Majoi of the Palace, who for ecu tunes has stood between the people and their So\eiei<.Mi, has been swept away ; and the IXiimioa, the horedituy govmnoii ut comities, who as petty piinee* in tho land had fuitned couuption and peip.'Uuited t>ianny, are now a, thing of the pi t. Xot content with se'.ding lv i to lvarope in oidei that their rdiUMtion may be conducted in ,i maniHM- which will ti.insplint our l»e.st institutions to that far counti}', J ipan lias turned her attention to the tiaiuiug of her w onion and the elewition of their sooiil status. Accounts iiie to hand by tho last mail of the opening of a Peeie.sses ttcho >1 by the Empress, who adduced to the assembled pupils and teachcis a few lemaiks which eleaily pioved that the tine secret of " woutin 1 s mission " is undeistood and appieeiated in Court circles in Yeddo. *' I tlmiL" said the Kmpiess, "that upon vomen, whose destiny it is to become the mothers of men, devolves the natural obligations of guiding, assisting, and gning culture to their offspring ' Such a doctrine as this, inculcated into the minds of the rising generation of Japanese women, should go tar to assist th^ efforts of the other sex, and to improve the tone of both,