PASSING NOTES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 8449, 23 March 1889, Page 5

PASSING NOTES.

(From tho Otago Witness.)

There are not more sparks than usual flitting about the European powder magazine—of. visible sparks the number is rather less than more, I should fancy—yet in some quarters there seems a disposition to act as though a blow-up were at hand. Austria just notified the trading steamers on the .Danube that they are to hold themselves at the disposal of the War Department. What does this mean ? It has some relation, no doubt, to the obscure revolution going on in Servia, whero King Milan, after divorcing and expelling his wife and quarrelling with his Parliament, has abdicated in favour of his son, a boy 12 years old. This model monarch is no w having his fling somewhere in the South of Europe, spending his money in gambling; ex-Queen Natalie was lately airing. her grievances in Paris. Practically Servia is drifting derelict, and in this condition oilers temptation sore to Russia, who would put a prize crew on board without ceremony were it not for cunctations due to the attitude of Austria, with whom Germany and Italy are in alliance, offensive and defensive. The seizure by Russia of Servia or any other Danubian State would infallibly be treated by Austria as piratical and a casus belli. Meanwhile Queen Natalie is hurrying back to Servia with designs of her own. She is going to look after her boy—what more natural?— and also to administer his affairs till he is old enough to do for himself. Upon this King Milan announces that if his divorced ■wife is allowed to come back he is cominp back as well. A delightful family gathering the Servians have in prospect 1 It is pretty certain that Austria's sudden demand for steamers on the Danube, is not wholly unconnected with the confusion and intrigue dominant in Servia.

Coming to Western Europe, in France the Government is in deep waters, and Bonlanger, as the Man of Destiny, looms bigger and bigger. At Berlin, the young Emperor has just announced, as the result of a series of morning calls on his neighbours, his conviction that " peace is assured." It may be so, but he would say precisely the same thing if aware that war was inevitable. On one point the Emperor told a downright well, a diplomatic fiction. His round of visits, he said, was eminently satisfactory and reassuring. The truth seems to be that at St. Petersburg, -where he attempted tc "bustle the Czar of all the Russias into some grand arrangement," he was politely snubbed; that in Italy, where "with spurs jangling, with sabre clattering, with plumes flying, he undertook to walk in upon the Pope and put him in his right place," he provoked the Holy Father's deep resentment; and that at Vienna, where he " seemed to assume the right of bossing the Austrian Empire," he chilled off men who before he went there were his warm friends. The sentences I have quoted are from an article i>y Mr Frederick Greenwood, late editor of the St. James' Gazette, a journalist singularly well-informed, and much in the confidence of Lord Salisbury. According to Mr Greenwood, the Emperor's round of friendly visits left all parties distinctly less friendly than they were before. He says:—"His Majesty|s assurance that his relations with all foreign nations are peaceable is sufficiently emphatic; of course it is accurate, and of course similar assurances will be heard from similar quarters till the week before the nest war breaks out." This may not be next week, nor the week after ; t but spring is at hand, and the season for campaigning. Wars, like the flowers, have a tendency to break out in the spring.

It will soon be over. That is the only consolatory reflection we have in reading the fulsome twaddle posted out periodically about our new Governor. Once Lord Onslow has arrived—which will be soon now we ■shall see and hear him as he is, and be able to judge whether (as is to be hoped) he has a good action for libel against the correspondents who have been doing the puff preliminary in London for him. The" Onslow items published during the last week have been acutely painful. One correspondent takes the trouble to inform us that Lord Onslow is sending out supplies of lager beer to Government House. The writer is anxious, however, to lessen as far as, possible the paralysing effect of this information. " There need not," he therefore adds, "be any. bad feeling among the^breweis over this, as lager beer is not a New Zealand product, and its consumption is not inconsistent with the consumption of bitter ales." It would be interesting to know the exact capacity of gullet enjoyed by his Lordship and retinue, so that the net loss to the brewers oE New Zealand can be estimated. The only information wo should then thirst for would be as to whether Lord Onslow is bringing shaving soap sufficient to last during his term of office or will supply himself here, and is he or is he not prodigal in the matter of boot laces. How far, it may be asked without unfairness, is Lord Onslow himself responsible for these sadly misdirected attempts to " impress " the colony. Is it all the newspaper correspondents' handiwork, or is a little bit of it his Lordship's. Reflect for a moment, what are the most distinct impressions conveyed so far as to our new Governor. That he is young and bald and dapper; that he can drive four-in-hand ; that his wife likes poodles; that he likes lager beer; that both lilto private theatricals; that his Lordship is to be consigned to the colonies per Cook's tourist agency and brought out on a fixed scale; and that he is not too proud to help a newspaper correspondent on with his overcoat. What we should really like to know is how Lord Onslow will wield the sword which our Sovereign Lady the Queen, &c, &c.; but that detail seems to be forgotten. >.

After all that has gone before, it is not Very surprising to find that even the route by which Earl Onslow chooses to convey himself to the colony is announced with an explanation and apology. The newspaper correspondent quoted above does the thing gracefully as follows: —

It is to be hoped that shareholders will not have a grudge against his Lordship for not proceeding to thu colony by a direct Bteamer. It is probable that the P. and O. route was chosen advisedly, aa the position o£ a Governor thrown into ship-board relations with his future subjects might be a little awkward. How would it be possible to maintain the dignity of the position without giving offence to the unrestrained spirit of ship life ?

It is in its way delicious, this observation as to the position of a Governor thrown into ship-board relations with his futnre subjects. Are we the "subjects" of the gentleman appointed to represent the Colonial Office in New Zealand ? * And how many of us would probably be found passengers on board the particular steamer that Lord Onslow might grace with his presence 1 But this melancholy piece of flunkeyism is unmistakeably the offspring of the correspondent's fancy. Lord Onslow, if questioned upon the subject, •would, without doubt, have said plainly that he was coming via Adelaide and Melbourne in order to see those cities, not in fear lest he should rub shoulders against a future subject on board a direct steamer. The correspondent has not thought of this obvious reason, but has been troubled about many things. He has imagined Lord Onslow struggling painfully against inward qualms lest a subject should discover that he is sometimes sick at sea. He has pictured him battling between dignity and affability when pressed to play quoits upon the quarterdeck, or sing a comic song at a ship's conCert. He has pictured the Governor crossing the lins, and vainly trying to pulverise King Neptune with an official stare. Nay, perhaps he has pictured his Excellency actually writhing beneath the application of the tar brush. By all of which imaginings . the correspondent has written himself down an ass. Men do indeed learn to read each other shrewdly on ship-board ; but the dignity ttiat cannot bo preserved at sea as well as upon land is not worth preserving. A long voyage v/ith a selected assortment of " future subjects" might be an excellent practical tost of the real worth of every colonial Governor.

I confess to considerable sympathy—improper sympathy—with th& ideas of a Miss or Mrs Mary Vandoner, who has been enunciating in a Western Australian journal "A Remedy for Servantgalism." To pick the bones of the matter at once, and waste no time upon amenities (happy word 1), Mary Vandoner's suggestion simply amounts to this—that to obviate the wear and tear and worry entailed upon every mistress of a house by .the miseries of. servantgalism, every man shall be placed in suqh a position that he can do without a servant. But how ? " Why," replies Miss (can it be Miss ?) Mary, without a blush, " Permit him to have two lawful wives" The idea—a trifle startling at first—will perhaps grow in popularity as we get used to it. Hear what Mary Vandoner, the patentee, has to say about her remedy :—

This suggestion will, of course, bo resented by a number of 'the goody-goodies who, on scriptural and other sentimental grounds, will cause similar consternation to that which arose over the fact of a man being permitted to enter

'■ inio the bonds of holy wedlock with the sister of his deceased wife, and which in Englaud today is not even recognised by tho great lawmakers of the House of CotntnoDs ;md House oE Lords! But I have thought well over this subject oS " Servuntgalism" for many years past, and the more I think of ray pl.in for proventing the present wholesale destruction of good wives now going on, the more I am convinced of the sounduess of the state of affairs, in this respect, which existed in the days of Abraham and his grandson Jacob, both of whom wero quite as good as we are, and evinced, in a very practical manner, their belief in women bearing one another's burdens.

That is very nice, Mary, but they cannot, unfortunately, bear one another's children. There is a converse to the medal, and this is exposed with brutal frankness by the Western Australian editor, who gibes at the idea that one helpmeet would always be on duty in kitchen, parlour, or hall when the other was engaged upon family affairs. "It is," he says, "the unexpected that always happens, and assuming the possibility of both ladies of the house being engrossed in nursery cares at one and the same time, She last condition of the man of the house, who for the time being had neither wives nor " servant gal" to depend on, would be worse than the first. This is a practical difficulty that must be solved by those who hold," like Mary Vandoner, that marriage is a failure, but that itcanbe remedied upon thehomceopathic principle of more marriage. Similia similibus curantur.

Commenting on its wonderful list of examination paper blunders collected in American State schools, a few gems from which list I quoted last week, the New York Tribune lays all the blame^on cram and " parrot learning." This seems to me hardly fair. If all children in the schools blundered equally, showed the same propensity to give grotesque answers, to questions put in examination, we might justly infer that the teaching is uniformly bad. But in all likelihood most of the children come out fairly well under examination. In every school there are drones and dullards, and it is the drones and dullards who make sport for examiners. The mistake, as I conceive it, lies in trying to hammer book-learning into heads in which nature had made no provision for its reception. Consider, for example, the evidences of impenetrability afforded by the following answers to questions on arithmetic :—

Substraction is the minuend and the substracted end.

When there are equal numbers it is called multeplication.

A partial product is one of the things you multiply with.

A quotient is a prime facter and is always a number or some part of .a number. A composite number is just the same aa a prime facter.

Brokerage is the allowance for the brakerage and leekerage of bottles.

Insurance is whon you die or burn up your money and the insurance office pays you for it. Exchange in Europe is when you go through London, Paris, and places. When you exchango money all you have t» do is to get the right change. The payment of a note on the back is called an enforcement.

Accurate interest is according to the number of dates, the days, and the interest.

Principal is -not valuable like interest and is never paid.

The rule for proportion is to multiply it by all the terms.

If there are no units in a number you have t« fill it up with all zeros.

Units of any order are expressed by writing in the place of the order.

A pole tax is laid on top of your head. You can find a hypothesis if you have a base perpendicular.

When you multiply two numbers together they had ought to be just equal. The underwriters are the sure parties. A tax on a man is called a poll tax when he has not any property. No man will live long enough to be ensured unless he has great expectation of life.

It would be rash to assume that the authors of these absurdities were natural fools or born idiots. Possibly they are merely the victims of gross ignorance in their elders and betters—the ignorance that supposes education to be synonymous with book learning. Taught tojwork with their hands, the hapless'drones and dullards of our State school systems might make good mechanics and enjoy some measure of self-respect.

"The inability of a large proportion of teachers and school text book writers to put themselves on the children's level in constructing their explanations is one of the most fruitful sources of confusion." So says the Tribune, and its witness is true. A list of words is given which the pupils have learned by rote and which, presumably, the teachers have explained; How efficient the explanation, may be inferred from such answers as these: " Doxology, dropsy in the head;" "Frantic, something up in the garret;" " A phenix is one who sifts ashes;" "Alkalie is acids mixed up;" "A rehearsal is what they have at a funeral." In the following specimens it is amusing to trace the confusion of ideas in the examinee's poor bewildered noddle :—

"Evangelist, one who speaks from his stomach"—(is thinking of a ventriloquist). " Somnambulist is a man that talks when you don't know where he is"—(ventriloquist, again, no doubt).

" Ironical, something very hard "• of course).

' —(from iron,

"Toesiu, something to do with getting drunk "—(" intoxication ? "). "Monastery, a place for monsters"—(intuition this, s.nd native genius). " Termagant, a kind of goose"—(ptarmigan ?). " Teutonic, a very strong sort of spring medicine"—(merely a mistake for " tonic"). " Expostulation is to have the small pox "— (has heard, apparently, of "pustules"). "A turbot is a kind of rhetorical style," (from confusion with " a turgid style"). In the same way we may explain the information that " apullyis a sort of chicken," and that a " raffle is a sort of gun." ■ Unconscious sarcasm lurks in the two following definitions :—

Ventilation is letting in contaminated air.

An incendiary is when you go round preaching and singing hims.

Amongst military and historical and geographical items of interest are the following :

The Crusades were millinery expeditions undertaken by the Christians.

The soldiers marched down the hill pantaloon' after pantaloon.—(Query: Platoon after platoon.)

Joan of Arc was rather pious and very genteel.

Cromwell owed his elevation to his ascent to greatness, and because he was often in the senate and in the field of domestic retirement.

The interior of Africa is principally used for purposes of exploration.

Africa has no interior, and you can't explore it.

The climate of a country is trading with other countries.

Domestic commerce is fishing. Foreign commerce is fishing with a pole.

The most scandalous answer in the whole batch, according to the Tribune, is this: " The United States is most as big as England." Says the editor: " The boys and girls who are getting the kind of education here illustrated are charged with the great responsibility of maintaining the republican form of government. But what is to be thought of the value of a common school system where a scholar solemnly sets down that 'the United States is most as big as England' ?" Most likely the author of this treasonable opinion was a recent importation from the old country. No native American would blunder in that direction.

Councillor Barren's prediction in the City Council that rain would arrive within a fortnight has been but ambiguously fulfilled. Last week we had a few hours of violent rain, hail, and wind—a brief parenthesis of winter in two solid months oE summer drought. We are now drinking, I suppose, the very dregs of the reservoir, and shall presently be reduced to prayers for rain, and potations from the pellucid Leith. Considered as a prophet Councillor Barron is a failure, or worse — like Macbeth's "juggling fiends" he keeps the word of promise to the ear, but breaks it to the hope. "Whcic do you expect the rain to come from 1" asked Ceuncillor Fish, incredulously. " From a place you know very little about I" was the reply; and Mr Fish, recognising its exceeding aptness, and unable at the moment to hit upon anything sufficiently saucy by way of retort, incontinently "shut up." The discomfiture of the scoffer Fish is, of course, some set-oIT to our disappointment under the failure of the Prophet Barron; nevertheless this failure is a very serious fact, and, as Punch phrases it, our divines will soon have to " clap on tho prayer for rain." By way of encouraging them, amidst the sceptical tendencies of the times, I may quote tho opinion of a New South Wales clergyman, uttered, according to the Pall Mall Gazette, in the course of discussions provoked by the recent terrible drought in Australia. Here it is :—

All human beings ore stored with electricity, which is either the vital power or acts intimately iv connection therewith, and there does not seem much stretch oE the imagination required iv believing tU:it fclio body of electricity projected towards the unseen during a fervent and nniversal appeal to the Almighty may fiud its answering force in tho element.l) which, ns wo know, are influenced by electricity, and may suffice in accordance with His law's to product) the desired change iv the 'weather.

i " After this," asks the Pall Mall," who can say that religion and science are in conflict?" Who, indeed 1 But that is a detail. Rain is the essential thing; theories of the how and the whence, whether by science or by religion, matter little—provided we get it. P.S.—(Wednesday: Public holiday; day for laying foundation stone of the Exhibition) —The rain has just come. I had forgotten that we were to have two public holidays this week. In Dunedin it all but invariably rains on a public holiday. OIVIS.