Current Topics.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXIX, Issue 12, 21 March 1901, Page 1

Current Topics.

Poets frequently wax sentimental about the patter of rain upon the roof or on the swathes of fresh -mown hay. But a few days spent upon a cattle station in Queensland just now, and the sight of the death and desolation that are spread over the grassless wastes, would knock a good deal of the rainsentiment out of their heads. 'Poetry! 1 exclaims a vaquero (cowboy) in a recent story; ' poetry about rain ain't worth a cent. Let a man that's losin' about thirty head a day write about " the patter of the rain-drops on the roof." He'll put beef into it.' The chief trouble about the rain in Queensland and elsewhere is the same as that about wealth — its unequal distribution. It is said that on a wide range of the Peruvian littoral not a drop of rain has ever been known to fall. So at least we are informed by the author of The Peruvian at Nome. Queensland's average ib tolerably high — especially on the northern coast, where it ranges from sixty to seventy inches a year. During iBgB over sixty inches fell in Brisbane. But the plains of the interior are sometimes swept by long and merciless droughts, such as that which has turned great tracts of country during the present summer into wild wastes of dust, covered over with the festering carcases of horses, sheep, and cattle. Over an area of i, 219,600 square miles of Australia the average rainfall is under ten inches annually. In the North Island of New Zealand it ranges from forty to fifty inches ; in the South Island from thirty to forty — Hokitika was sprayed with as many as 124 inches in iBqB. Sierra Leone has a record of 312 inches in one year ; Matoula Gaudalupe (West Indies), 292 inches; Vera Cruz (Mexico), 278 inches. ' The wettest place in England,' says Mulhall, ' is Seathwaite, 145 inches , and in the world Cherrapungi, South Western Assam, where the average for fifteen years is 493 inches, reaching in iSoi up to 905 inches.' This was about the climate for l)e Ouincey, the opium-eater ; for he says in his Confessions : ' I can put up even with rain, provided it rains dogs and cats.'

SLICING Vl' CHINA.

The partition of China may be said to have informally commenced. Russia is tightening her grip on Manchuria, and the other Powers are securing, to the best of their respective abilities, 'spheres of influence.' And all the world and his wife know what that means. Almost two years ago this inevitable ending of the Chinese difficulty was toreseen by a gay rhymer of the Sunday Chronicle, who took down his harp and sang the following strain :—: — It was a battered Chinaman, A worried look he wore, He had been used extensively For wiping up the door : Hiß heart was very heavy, and His bones were very sore. He was a heathen Chinaman. To superstition prone, A poor benighted infidel Who worshipped wood and stone : The joys of Christianity To him were all unknown.

A THIRSTY LAND.

OUR GIRLS : AN OLD TROUBLE.

Gladstone once said to the boys at the Hawarden Grammar School that the true business of such institutions is 'man-making;' Our convent day and boarding schools discharge a corresponding function for a large class of our girls. But, unfortunately, current social standards and the fashion of the time require that a hopelessly undue prominence be given to the ornamental over the useful in the training of our budding [[maidens. The 'isms' are favored; the 'ologies* are patted encouragingly on the back ; fragments of Livy or Uhland or Chateaubriand, and concentrated tabloids in the shape of figures, formuke, and facts from a dozen branches of knowledge, are stuffed into their brain-cells — against time; for it is an age of hurry, and our education methods are doing a frenzied and undignified sprint to keep pace with it. Sufficient time cannot, under present conditions, be given to that all-important factor of intellectual work, assimilation. The whole' process is akin to that which produces in the Strassburg goose the monstrous diseased liver which, under the name of pate de foie gras, finds such favor with the gourmets of Paris. But the ' accomplishments ' are ever set in the forefront. The social circle in which she moves will dance and sing around your brilliant executant or your smart sayer of airy nothings, while, in her presence, her less showy companion must be content with relative neglect, even though she may have in her mind the grace and refinement of a Margaret Roper. The remtfdy for this condition of things lies, in its last resort, with parents. Unfortunately, as a class, they have acquiesced in the pu//led-headed system which savors of the methods of the Circassian house-father who devotes his undivided energy to the cultivation of those physical qualities of his favored daughter which are likely to win most attention on the marriage market. • • • Cardinal Vaughan had the courage to tell the girls of a London convent school that he would very much rather they could cook a good dinner than play on the violin. BrillatSavarin said some wise and many foolish things in his curious book, Physiologic dn Gout. But there isan element of truth in his aphoristic saving : ' The destiny of nations depends upon how they eat. 1 In another place this fin gourmet says: 'The discovery of a new dish contributes more to the happiness of the human race than the discovery of a star.' ' Every nation,' says a recent writer, ' has the government and the cookery which it deserves. Thus, the French are the worst governed and the best fed people in Europe, for the reason that the majority of Frenchmen are perfectly indifferent to politics and keenly interested in food. The English are the worst fed and

And righteous rouls in Christendom Were deeply pained to gaze Upon* such ignorance ; they felt Their duty was to raise That heathen and convert him from The error of his ways. So Briton, Rubs, and Mailyphist Devised a pious plot To lead him to salvation, and They taught him quite a lot. They speedily knocked spots off him, And each retained a spot.

the best governed people in the world, because, with few exceptions, they care a great deal more about the programme of the government than the menu of the cook.' ' The pleasures of the table,' sa>s Max O'Rell in his Jacques Bonhomme, 1 are within the reach of all classes in France. The working people are better off in England than in France, but they are not so well fed or so happy. They spend their money in superfluities instead of spending it in necessaries. The English women of this class go in for a lot of cheap finery ; the French ones go in for sound linen. What the English wot king classes throw away in bones, scraps, and vegetable^ would suffice to nourish a poor French family. I assure you that with .1 \cgct'ib!c -ouup, a stew, some chcjsc or fruit, and good bread, these people dine remarkably well at two or three pence a head.' Dr. Johnson had within his massive, elephantine frame much unconscious food-philosophy of the Brillat-Savarin order. He once declared that a man who could not get his dinner well-cooked was not to be trusted with the more important affairs ot life.

Nearly three years ago Mr. Grace— of New York—a brother of Dr. Grace of Wellington — determined to start an institute for the benefit of those of his workers and their families whose opportunities for advancement were very limited. He mentioned his purpose to one of his workmen, and the latter said to him : 'If you will found a school or an institute where young women can be taught intelligently the duties of a housewife, you will confer a blessing upon them and upon many who may be dependent upon them for comfortable and happy homes.' This was done, and with happy results. Some of our convents have taken serious and systematic steps towards restoring the balance between the ornamental and the useful in the education of our girls, and many of them have steadily insisted on their pupils learning the useful arts of cookery, housekeeping, etc. But the problem seems to have been solved upon a vast scale by some religious communities in Catholic Belgium, who have dotted the country over here and there with Etoles Mhiageres or Schools of Housewifery. The initiative of this important educational reform was taken some few years ago by Father Tern mci man. The schools were inaugurated by private enterprise. They are aided by the State, and supplement the education ot the primary, and to some extent, of the secondary, schools. The course of instruction is comprehensive to a degree. The ornamental is not excluded, but the useful is «-et in the very forefront of the curriculum. A good general education is imparted ; but ' miss in her teens ' is aWo initiated into the mysteries of dressmaking, washing, uoning, cleaning, mending, cooking, needlework, dairying, poultr v-rcirmg, bee-keeping, farm accounts, and — scientific agriculture ! li the young lady his a bent for a commeni.il career, vie is amply p o.ided Witha due ou'fit of speci il knonlcugc io- the desk or woikroom. This is indeed the glonficuion of the use ul. And .ill this, be it noted with board and lodging thrown in — for such an unconsidered trifle as £10 a jear 1

The Belgian schools of Housewifery are an object lesson in educational methods. In the first place, they have dealt what we trust is a serious blow to the lop-sided system which looks merely to the intellectml and ornamental side of a girl's education. The Belgian Sisters fit- the pupil not merely for the drawing room and the soci il circle, but also for the sterner work o ( life— for the due performance of the plain domestic duties which add a charm to the poorer cottage home. But the-e is another aspect in this comparatively iuw departure. The practical curriculum of the Belgian Ecoles Menugjres has opened up a new and vast field for woman's industry. These schools are sending back into the farm houses of that thriving little State an army of highly train' d and economical workers who must be counted with in the already keen competition for the world's market-. A few years ago — we think it was in the beginning of 1 80S —the London School Board began to adopt on a modest scale some ot the methods that had met with such conspicuous success in the rel'gious communities of Belgium. When will these colonies fall into line with a movement which, we hope, is destined to at length effect a much-needed reform in the educational methods novv in vogue in our midst ?

• CI VIS' A\D T!fK ' N.Z. TABLET.'

Through the courtesy of a friend we have discovered that ' Civis ' is still permitted once a week to drag a limited length of tether in the back-block columns of the Otago Daily Times. In last Saturday's issue he objects with watery vehemence to the comment mide in our issue of March 7 on the cruel pol ; cy of 'short rations' adopted as <i military punishment against the Boer women detained in British camps whose husbands, are on commando. Two straightforward courses lay before ' Civis ' in dealing with our remarks upon that unpleasant thf>me\ (1) It was open to him to piove— if he could —that our statement of tne ' short rnion'fact was incorrect. If he could succeed in doing so, our deductions would hive collapsed like the i out ot an old shanty when the \s alls are

blown away. Or (2), admitting the official statement of fact upon which our comment was based, he might have advanced — if he could— cogent reasons for holding that our inferences were unwarranted. Perhips it is unreasonable for us to expect so eminently rational a proceeding from the melancholy jester whose highest arhitv ment is to spot and freckle the bald illiteracy of his ' Notes ' with fossil 'goaks ' of the period of the Old Red Sandstone. At any rate neither of these sensible courses commended itself to ' Civis.' He has boMly run away from the question and from a safe distance of side-issues Hirert-^H rv oofu f of ringc Lril'adc of dug veiuiage against the in edeemable chuckleheadedies, of that b>U,bad man with th_ LuM, bad pcn — the eduor of the N.Z. 1 \BLbT.

The question between ' Civis ' and us regards certain military punisnments. Moreover, it regards these military punishments in circumstances in which they are ordinarily at their worst: (1) in time of war; (2) inflicted in an enemy's country upon people placed under the stern rule of martial law ; and (3) for the purpose — as British newspapers have stated — of compelling the surrender of numbers of male Boers who are still at large with Mausers in their hands and very much de trop upon the veldt. The military punishments inflicted upon the Boer women and children to whom we refer were chiefly two : (1) On a vast scale and over a wide territory they were compelled to witness the burning of their homes and the wholesale plunder or destruction of their property ; (2) they were then interned within the lines of British camps and picked out from among all other women of their nation for a policy of 'treatment ' by short rations. Good old Aulus Gellius tell us in his Nodes Attica* how the ducks of Pontus throve and waxed fat on doses of deadly poison that would kill the king of all the microbes. The crude romancer of the outer sheets of the Otago Daily Times evidently fancies that his readers were all born on the first of April ; for, in effect, he asks them to believe that the officers who — to the disgust of our manly colonial troops — carried out the house-burning business in such a masterly fashion would be likely to make the short-ration policy so uproariously enjoyable that the Boer vrows and their little ones would not alone not suffer any inconvenience thereby, but might even be possibly expected to grow fat upon the process ! Perhaps this is one of ' Civis's ' pleiocene witticisms. If so, it is either very coarse or very cruel. If, however, he desires his vague and wobbly statements to be taken seriously, let him prop them up by an appeal to verified facts. Till such facts are forthcoming we leave him, with Aulus Gellius. to talk to thp marines. It requires little knowledge of military discipline to know that, even at itsbc-t, and where practised upon a fiiend, the military punishment of short rations in war-time is n> jesting matter. As practised on Boer women and their children, it would defe it its purpose it it did not cause some decree of distress. And 'to distress with hunger ' is a definition given in our standard dictionaries of the verb 'to starve.' Nobody who is ever so little acquainted with military life — especially in war-time and in distruts subject to martial law — needs to be reminded of the alttrnatives that are open to hungry women and young girls amidst the perils and temptations of even the best-conducted military camp. If British mothers and daughters had been detained on short rations in the Boer camps with a view to compelling their main relatives in Ladysmith, Kimberley and Mafeking to surrender, we should have heard a fine buzz about it — and \ery nghi'y, too. We entered a protest against General Weyler's adoption, in Cuba, of a system similar to that which is now being followed by British officers in South A'rica. It our m mory serves us right, 'Civis' likewise condt mn> d then a sy-tem which now finds favor in his sight. It evidently does make a difference whose ox is gored.

We raised our voice fagainst the cruel policy of short-rationing Boer women, partly on the general grounds of ordinary humanity, partly on the plea that it is a violation of the recognised usages of civilised warfare. Recent or relatively recent manuals of international law — such as those of Leone Levi, the Manual of Wars on Land, etc. — show that the civilised law of our time is set hard against (r) the looting, plunder, or needless and wanton destruction of the private property of an enemy, and (2) against all cruelty, or the infliction of suffering merely for suffering's sake. (3) International law or civilised custom also provides that noncombatants are to be treated as neutrals ; and 'in actual practice,' says Leone Levi {International Law, 2nd cd., p. 280), ' women and children, the old and the sick, physicians and surgeons, who do not take arms, are not enemies.' (The italics are ours ) Moreover (4), except in the case of difficulties of commissariat, it is against the recognised practice to place prisoners of war upon short food-rations. Now, in South Africa the usages of civilised warfare have been violated (1) by regarding the Boer women and children as enemies, and (2) by according them, in the matter of food, worse treatment than ought to be meted out to able-bodied male Boers taken prisoners upon the field of battle. We ad\ocate humane treatment of women in war. ' Civis ' opposes

I[ » We stand for civilised usage in war. Our little local L .*omwell opposes it. We see, with unfeigned regret, a loss of personal and national honor and the brand of a great disgrace in this deplorable petticoat campaign, against which so many of our colonial troops have entered such manly protests. And because we give frank and outspoken expression to this view, 'Civis' scrambles upon his barrel-end and shrieks aloud that our comment — which he has failed to refute or set aside — \z merely a rabid PYhihitinn of ' hatred against all tlunps British !' It is really about time that * Civis's ' friends should begin look after him.

Consistency is a jewel. But with ' Civis 'it is apparently too precious a jewel for everyday use. We have before us a pile of letters from the front that have appeared in both the Dunedin daily papers, and in a great many other papers published in other parts of New Zealand, and in England, and elsewhere. ' Civis ' is welcome to see these if he choose. A considerable number of them contain the most damaging statements regarding officers and men of the British army in South Africa — statements far more serious than our fair and legitimate comment on the admitted fact of the harsh treatment of the Boer women. Some of these were published in the Dunedin dailies. Reputations are damaged by the news, as well the editorial, columns. And if ' Civis ' were consistent he ought to have had one New Zealand editor or another on the gridiron pretty nearly every week for the past twelve months. But ' Civis, like another great man — Nelson, to wit — has a convenient blind eye for his friends. To the NZ. Tablet he has acted the part of Rabelais' wrinked and withered witches. On the particular point at issue between us he has not made the pretence of reasoning. So much of his ' Note 'as refers directly to it is merely a virulent personal attack — eked out by two serious and palpable misstatements in matters of fact which are a poisoning of the wells : another violation, by the way, of the usages of civilised warfare. ' Civis ' distinctly conveys the impression that we assailed the personal courage of the British army officer and soldier — English, Scottish, and Irish. This is one of the journalistic ' ways that are dark ' and ' tricks that are vain ' for which c Civis ' is ' peculiar.' The impression is wholly false. No fuller and more frequent editorial tributes to their personal grit have appeared in any New Zealand paper than in the columns of the N.Z. Tablet. But we have condemned the admitted incapacity (not the native ' stupidity ' — as ' Civis ' also suggests) of many British officers — which is quite a different thing. And some of these have been relegated to the private life which they are better fitted to adorn than they are to lead brave men upon the field of battle. 4 Civis's ' remark that our words would, in stated circumstances, ( inevitably provoke a breach of the peace ' sounds remarkably like the advice : ' Don't nail his ears to the pump !' At the last elections ' Civis ' appealed to the bigot to aid his party. He must blame himself if people will interpret his screamy ' Note ' of last Saturday as, in tiled, an invocation to the hoodlum. ' Civis's ' attempt to benefit his favorite political party by calling up the red devil of sectarian passion resulted not merely in the defeat, but in complete and disastrous rout, of every candidate whose cause he advocated. We recall with unfeigned pleasure the fact that we rib-roasted ' Civis ' to such good purpose then. The defeated candidates and their friends probably criss-crossed with their own particular rawhides the weals left by our cat-o'-nine-Ui!s. And poor Yonck'b wounds are probably rankling still. The whole tone and temper ot the treatment-^of our remarks by ' Civis,' and all the attendant circumstances of the case, g>ve at least a strong color to the suspicion that there is a connection between his disastrous electioneering campaign and his latest personal onslaught on the editor of the N.Z. Tablet. ' Civis's ' ways are by no means mended. And it seems about as hard for him to conduct even a journalistic campaign according to the usages of civilised literary warfare as it is for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle.

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