Other formats

    Adobe Portable Document Format file (facsimile images)   TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

Typo: A Monthly Newspaper and Literary Review, Volume 2

[trade dispatches]

Some of our friends have noticed the somewhat glaring error of « actinologia » for « actinia, » in the quotation from the Saturday Review on p. 96. Our only excuse is that the error is the reviewer's—(who appears to have been misled by the title of Mr Gosse's book, Actinolo-gia Britannica)—not our own.

At a meeting of the « Canterbury Catholic Literary Society, » held in Christchurch on the 3rd inst., Mr R. Loughnan delivered a lecture on « The Press. » The line taken by the lecturer was entirely favorable. « The history of the The Times, Daily News, Daily Telegraph, &c., » he said, « has been the history of progress and enterprise, not in a literary sense alone, but in the manners and morals of the people…. The press is the guardian and champion of the liberties of the people; it rejoices with them in their triumphs; sorrows with them in their afflictions, sustains them in their adversity, restrains them in their prosperity, and holds up before them the lamp of honest criticism to light them to truth and justice, undeterred by fear and uninfluenced by favor. » The butter is a little thick just about here—reminding one of the toast of « The Press » at the close of a public dinner. Mr Loughnan was somewhat shaky in the historical portion of his address. His authorities must have been long out of date, or he would have known that The English Mercurie is a modern forgery.

We have several times referred to the hollowness of the Victorian « boom » —the inflated prices of land in no way representing value. Matters have now reached a crisis. The same property in some cases is held by speculators six or seven deep, each having paid with paper! One buyer lately forfeited £72,000 cash for the privilege of relinquishing his engagements. The banks now refuse to negociate the speculators' bills—a step they should have taken at the beginning of the mania. The bills afloat for land speculation amount to £85,000,000, to meet which there is only £3,000,000 of cash—a fact which reflects severely on the financial institutions, who are elearly in a great measure responsible. The « prosperity » of the past few months has vanished, as the following extract from the Melbourne Age will shew:— « It must be apparent to to every one that the prevailing depression in general business has reached an acute stage, amounting in some departments of trade to an absolute paralysis of operations. » As a temporary remedy, the Age urges the Government to borrow £5,000,000!

The initials W and E, pp. 108-109, are electrotyped from the same block. Inverted, they become M and B. This cleverly-devised letter was designed by Mr Tuer.

A dose of Mr Pope's Sociology would benefit the writer of the following astounding sentiments, unless, (as we greatly fear) his case is hopeless: « A nation which grows its own food and manufactures for itself is no poorer for the expenditure of wealth on the fighting organization. That wealth is the surplus which the industrial organization creates, and its reproduction in order to maintain an army is actually essential to the industries themselves. It is therefore clear as day that a nation under the regime of Protection is no poorer for the existence of its army. The thread of this theory if followed leads to demonstration, and proves the fallacy of the English economists, who are always crying out about the impending ruin of the great military powers. The financial crash in Russia has been prophesied for many years, but never comes. It is Freetrade countries like Turkey [!] that are in a state of bankruptcy. » It would be difficult to pack a greater number of fallacies into the same compass. According to this theory, Idleness, Waste, Destruction, and Monopoly are the four corner-stones of national prosperity. The extract is from a leader in a West Coast paper, the editor of which was once a member of a New Zealand Ministry. The fact that the administration of the Government has been (and still is to a great extent) in the hands of economic « cranks » goes far to account for « the depression. »

Mr Francis Leith Adams—who is careful to let us know that he is the son of a Professor—writes in the Centennial Magazine on « The Gospel of Realism. » His article is a four-page rhapsody on the « domain of Art » (of course with a large A) in literature. The men who wrote the living books that are among the world's treasures did not trouble their heads much about « Art. » They told their story, and told it simply and directly. To « Art for Art's sake » the present generation owes the lasciviousness of Zola and the inanities and insanities of the Paris Salon. A story with a purpose or well-defined moral is an abomination to Mr Adams. It is not « Art. » « Art » is what represents men and women as « phenomena, » influenced by « streams of tendency. » The critic should try the experiment of writing a book on this system, instead of railing against « popular novelists, » whose works « seli by tens of thousands, » while they « know not what fiction is, let alone what Art is. » Let him see if his work will « take its place with the Art of Homer, of Dante, of Shakespeare, of Milton, of Goethe. » As a preliminary, he would do well to learn to write. Critics, according to a modern authority, are the men who have failed in literature and art. But what of those who fail still more dismally in criticism? What of Mr Francis Leith Adams, who can be guilty of sentences like this: « No; truncated corpses and bodies are good only for manure, and puppets for infants »?

There is in Auckland a professor of mathematics who would do well to confine his teachings to the science with which (presumably) he possesses some acquaintance. In a long letter to an Auckland daily he has chosen to criticise Dr B. W. Richardson's conclusions in a department of chemistry in which the Doctor is an acknowledged specialist, and in matters of hygeine and physiology on which he is the greatest living authority. The decision of the Education Board to make temperance instruction compulsory in the public schools, and their selection of Dr Richardson's well-known educational work as the text-book, have aroused the professor's ire, and his letter on the subject is a sad example of ignorance and intolerance. He maintains that in thus instructing children in practical hygeine, the Board is violating « the spirit » of the Education Act, imposing an intolerable burden, and bringing about the downfall of the whole educational system. No qualified scientific man so far has ventured to question Dr Richardson's conclusions on the chemistry and special physiological effects of alcohol, but the professor characterizes his « production » as « a bad book of a bad class. » More than this, he libels the Doctor by saying that he « owes his present position and popular scientific reputation almost entirely to the fact that he has devoted himself, to his own great pecuniary advantage, to the business of a professional teetotal advocate. » This is absolutely untrue, and the reluctant qualification— « as far as my knowledge goes » —by which the statement is introduced, is an admission that the writer has no facts on which to base so offensive and absurd a charge. The professor's criticisms are as puerile as they are ill-natured—he objects, for instance, to scholars being taught the meanings of the words desiccated and hydrated! Buried in a big daily, this precious production would be forgotten as soon as read; but—will it be credited?—the N. Z. Schoolmaster has disentombed the letter, and spread it over two pages of large type!! The editor owes his readers an apology for reprinting such unmitigated rubbish.