Brighouse & Rastrick Gazette. — 1893-12-02 (Brighouse, West Yorkshire, England)

PLEASE THE APTISTIC EYE.  MIL W. S. CAINE har a I Mit) bill Or saving rural scenery from the handiwork of the advertiser. It is proposed that all advertisements in the rural districts, except on land where the business advertised happens to be carried on, and on piers, landing-stages, and in railway station, shall be prohibited. Any violation of the enactment is to be visited with the penalty ef a five pounds' fine. A good many advertisA3, we imagine, will cheerfully regard this penalty as a tax; and as Mr. Caine does not apparently propose to make the fines cumulative, the multitude of advertisements may remain unaffected by his proposal. But it is not to be expected that a restriction which is nominally at least so drastic will be accepted without demur. Mr. Caine will find arrayed against him not only the übiquitous advertisers, but also a : good many people who prelit by letting spaces for advertisements. There are plenty of rural districts where this is regarded as a legitimate business, and where it will be difficult to convince a majority of the inhabitants that it is against the public interest to proclaim the virtues of "little liver pills" in the middle of a beautiful view. Mr. Caine's object is praiseworthy enough, but it may be doubted whether he is going the right way to conciliate popular feeling. You may persuade, but you will find it difficult to coerce the community into regarding outdoor advertisements as eyesores. It is far better to proceed by less violent methods. We have received a prospectus of the "National Trust for Places of Historic interest and Natural Beauty." This is projected by a number of well-known people, including Lord Rosebery, Lord Dufferin, the Duke of Westminster, Mr. Bryce, Mr. Leonard Courtney, Mr. ShawLefevre, Sir Frederick Leighton, Mr. G. F. Watts, Professor Huxley, the Master of Balliol, Mrs. Humphry Ward, and Mr. Walter Besant. The primary idea of this Trust is that it sh4ll assume the guardianship of "places of interest and beauty " confided to its care by gift. It is hoped that ultimately there will be funds enough to enable the Trust to purchase historic memorials and spots made interesting by old associations Oi natural charm. With such an enterprise there will be widespread sympathy on the part of cultivated people, and its operations can excite no active hostility in those who are not in the least able to understand why such a fuss should be made about a monument or a waterfall. But to stimulate the sense of beauty is one thing, and to tine insensibility five pounds is another. Mr. Caine will discover, we are afraid, that the 'difference is rather important.  THE vagaries of suicide,whieh have found a 'let in Mr. William Archer, receive a Lis illustration from the death of a young named Henry Howard. Mr. Howard himself from a railway arch at Sheffield. is no explanation of his motive except he had recently become a Socialist (this I to be interesting to the Fabian )ty), and that the "sight of so much rty and suffering which he could not ye preyed upon his mind." Probably this ne of the cases on which Mr. Archer ly relies to sustain his theory that suicide rof the great resources of civilisation. It of course, to treat such an exit from world as Mr. Howard's as an act of , "Poor fellow I is the commonplace ; "his mind must have been unhinged." Archer does not take this view. He Is suicide as a perfectly sane method of ieliverance from the worries or necessities life into which we come involuntarily, from which we hava a perfect right to when and bow we please. The ordinary diaity of death is repugnant to a man of Archer's philosophical deliberation. Why ild a man always wait until he is carried inexpectedly by accidant,war, or disease ? a humiliating to a inacly pride to be at bank and nail nf a ilestinv beyond hit  propt curio man th  I reW  :here