April 15,11907.]
but not yet the time when “ Nature pants, and every stream looks languid." There was energy abroad, yesterday morning, the energy that sets lambs askipping; and Zephyrus passed on the naughty whispered message of that arboreal devil-or is it a Dryad ?-who so long has made it his or her business to tempt little boys to play truant. On such days as these we realize the true sadness of age; its chief tragedy, surely, is that it makes people too old to play truant.
MATTER OF OPINION.
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CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT.
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unsavoury, it seems a little hard to blame | tially elective Legislative Council (such as the Press for prioting what in any onse is relevantly spoken in open court, and dis- ¦ ment.
“Natal” began with) to a responsible parlia- cussed and passed on from mouth to mouth, on the Daily Mail Year Book's statistion, The figures so far given are based in homies as well as in public places. If which are not confirmed by Whitaker, who, civilization should ever emancipate itself for instance, puts the area of Natal (includ- from the fig-leaf modesty that is believed to ing Zululand) at 29,200 square miles; the be really vice culture, it will one day be Daily Mail book sys 35.871. The name more consistent, and admit that naked Natal' was given to the Colony by Vasco truth in a newspaper is no more capable of | DA GAMA, who discovered it on Christmas mischief than the licentious Oriental litera Day, 1497. The bulk of the white popula- ture that is thrust into the hands of Sunday | tion is British, though Boers are numerous. school children. The Rev. Mr. BOWDLER As a Colony, Natıl is two years younger was a much maligned man, It is possible than Hongkong. It has 776 miles of that if Miss NESBITT had been less ignorant, Governm at ruilway open, and there is a less handicapped by the conspiracy that great deal under construction. There is a drapes the limbs of pianos and ignores legislative council as well as a parliaments vital facts, she would have had less painful the former consisting of thirteen members testimony to give. However, all this is at nominated by the Governor. The Legis prezent merely to talk of belling the lative Assembly has 43 members, elected by cat"; the tinie and the courage Rad the 18,944 electors with property qualification. RICHARD who will do it are yet to come. The seat of the Governor will be at Meanwhile, the public should be as indul. Pietermaritzburg, about 54 miles inland. gent as it can be, and not over bastily This city has a corporation and a Mayor. condemn our American contemporaries, in Politics at the time of Sir MATTHEW whose motives there may have been a NATHAN's advent will be found quiet, and mixture not all sordid. It is amusing and trade duit. not uning'ructive to find An esteeniod Japanese contemporary denouncing them in the interests of decency and morals," and saying.
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Better still seems to ns the system in rogue
in Japan, ander which, not only is the curious public excluded from the court room whenever statements offensive to morals or public peace allowed to be printed." are forthcoming, but no mch statements are
Those who know the vernacular newspaper of Japan, and the gratuitous lengths to which it often goes, will thrust tongue in check at that, and suggest the trail of the missionary. In Japan of all countries, where a sort of Edenic innocence prevailed until foreign prudery intervened, such comments are a distinctly retrograde step.
(Daily Press, 11th April.) Scme journalistic hacks, cursed with an unprofessional knack of sincerity, must olten share HAMLET's lament when things seem out of joint—“oh, cursed spite, that ever I was born to set it right." Sometimes people maliciously say of surgeons that they are too fond of cutting and dissecting, and if there be in the world any creatures whom a fellow feeling should make won- drous kind, it is the people mentioned in the first three words of this paragraph. As a rule they do not love the knife; the new paper surgeon would often prefer cases calling for ointments and unguents; as the clown is often a melancholic person, 20 the critic of the breakfast tahle may be naturally indisposed to criticize. But fate has hung a brassplate at his door, and he has to go us he is called. It is nowadays more or less of an open secret, of course, that newspapera are written by flesh and blood creatures of finite capacity; but owing to the old-fashioned fiction of omniscience, their limitational doings are apt to be judged by Olympian standar is. To be silent is forbidden, and to speak is often to cause offence. The American Press is conducted by men on lines that are apparently deemed best in that go-ahead, money-making country, and like the Press in other lands, it gets kicks as well as half. peuce. Lately, in connection with 118
(Daily Press, 12th April.) treatment of the THAW murder trial, it has
So Sir MATHEW NATHAN goes to the guber- had to endure an extraordinary diversity natorial chair at Natal, and the speculators of criticism. President RoosEVELT has and rumour-mongers, who were almost on brought things to a head by ordering the the point of making him Secretary of State Postmaster-General to exclude from the for War, are effectually silenced. As we United States mails all newspapers publish- have not to say "good-bye" just yet, it may ing details of that trial. The demand not be in had taste to ventilate onr little for full reports is undoubted, oven among local grievance, and to express regret that English readers, and it is difficult to settle it should have been thought necessary to just where to draw the line. The journalist make a mystery of the matter. Why his wooing the public is faced with the difficulty Hongkong friends and admirers should have against which OVID warned lovers. He had to wait for the information until our cannot be sure whether
London correspondent could ascertain the mean ден ; whether the arguments for facts and telegraph them, it is not easy to and against a certain course Rre of I see.
It has been amusing to note the sincerity or cant, earnestly meant or ‹ wonderful variety of appointments given to just said for the sake of decorum, Sir MATTHEW NATHAN by the gossips, and It is amusing to note tat
we fear some of them will be disappointed "the dissemination through the meding of the
to find he remains a mere governor, and go s public press, of the details of such susationalt an office worth one thousand pounds criminal cases, is favoured by influential sterling less per annum. bodies of ministers of religion, by the Union according to the Year Book, the Governor's Federation of the Evangelical Ministers of
"
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no
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ces not
HONGKONG GOVERNORS.
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Sir MATTHEW Nathan's MLCCESSOR nt Hongkong, on whom interest will now be centred, is believed to be worthy in all ways, a strong man. Briga lier-General Sir FREDERICK DEALTRY LUGARD, K.C.M.G., C.B, D.8.0., to give him his full title, is just 49 years of age. He was educated at Rossall and Sandhurst and obtained his first commission in May 1878 in the 9th Foot. He was promoted Captain in August 1885; Major in August 1896 and temp. Colonel in 1898, when he went to India, He saw netivo service in Afghanistan 1879. 1880 for which he has a medal. He was in the Soudan Campaign of 1885, was menemi tioned in despatches and recuvad a medal with two clasps and the bronze star. The Burmah Compaign (1886-1887) follow. e4 the Soudan Campaign, and it was in this campaign that Captain LUGARD (us be then W8) won his D. 8. O. He was thrice meu- tioned in dispatches and receivel a médal with two clasps. In February, 1888, he went to Africa again, this time to command an expedition against slave traders on Lake, Nyasa, ani On his recovery he was employed by the was very severely wounded.
British Est African Co. to command the exploration of Sabakhi, and he was administrator of Ugan la from 1889 10 1892. Two years later he was appoint d by the Royal Niger Company to command an expedition to Borgu to negotiate British treaties. On this expelition he was bit by an
arrow and returned in April 1895. In February 1896 he led another expedition across. Kalaharn for the British Charterland Company. On his return he received the appointment of His Majesty's Nigeria and Lagos an:1 Commandant of the High Commissioner of the Hinterland of :
raised. On January 1st, 1900, on the crea- At Hongkong, West Afric in Frontier Force, which he Providence, R. I., and the Hampden Associs salary in 1906 was £6,000, and at Natal it tion of the Protectorate of Northern Nigeria was £5,000. So he pays a cool thousand Colonel Lugard was appointed High Čom- field, Mass. The reason assigned for this a year for his onhanced prestige, While missioner with rank as Brigadier-General Sir FREDERICK resigned this post in in the papers was that Sir FREDERICK had September last year. The explanation given exceeded the pario | of tenure of a Colonial Governorship in Northern Niguri, which is limited to six years, and he did not wish to prolong his service there. The post h vd been no sinecure, for after the occupation of Kano and Sokoto in February and March 1903,
tion of Congregational Clergymen at 8pring.
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singular decision is that the case furnished 'the on the salary topic, it may be noted that greatest moral lesson of the age
the coming Governor, Sir The candid critic is obliged to express D. LuGard had £3,000 as Commissioner FREDERICK disbelief in the suggestion that many people of Northern Nigeria. Col. Sir HENRY E. read such matter as they would a text-book MCCALLUM, who is making way for of ethica. It Favours of the notorious Sir MATTHEW NATHAN, will receive bumbug of some of DE Fox's prefaces. At | the same time it would be unjust to say that such reports are devoured as mere pornography. It were but honest to admit that it attracts by rensou of its human interest, a true story of real life, and granted that it is universal and natural to feel curiosity as to our environment, savoury or
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£6,400 at Ceylon. Sir Matthew NathAN will have just a thousand times more territory to rule over, and a population four times the size, with an import trade of early cleven millions sterling and exports about a quarter of that, and with a revenue of over four millions sterling instead of six hundred thousand. He goes from a par-
lishment of administrative control over were taken for the estab- steps
the whole of the Protectorate which has an area of about 256,400 square miles and a population estimated at about 9,000,000.
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