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Otago Witness, Issue 1501, 21 August 1880, Page 17

Passing Notes.

I would like to ask divines of Dr Begg's school, who see the judgment of heaven in every winter storm that wrecka a ship or blows down a railway bridge, what explanation they could suggest of the weather we have been gefcling in Otago of late. Here in 46 deg. south latitude, we have had a winter which would be thought mild in the Mediterranean. The " beautiful snow" has shown itself only on distant hill-tops, and as for rain, there hasn't been enough to keep the suburbs not reached by the city mains supplied with drinking water. It is commonly believed in the North Island that it never rains in Otago. That is quite a mistake. It does rain in Otago, but, as a matter of fact, ii never has this winter — never, that is, hardly ever. Half the time there has been as much summer in the air aa a consumptive patient desires to find at Madeira,. What is the moral meaning of it 'I What have wo done to deserve so much unseasonable suu3lun.o 1 As it is not by any means clear thai we have suddenly grown more virtuous, perhaps .ill this summery softness is only a "visitation" in disguise. An " old identity" friend of mine, Beggite both in race and faith, warns me gloomily that this is so. Plague, pestilence, and famine, it seems, are what it all means. Unseasonable weather is unwholosome weather. Wo are never so well in Otago as -when it is raining cats and dogs. Honce we may expect an epidemic. Failure of crops is the next item in the cheerful programme. The fruit trees, betrayed into too early budding, will be nipped by spring frosts. The cereala won't ripen because a wet and windy summer is tho natural complement of a winter without rigour. So, according to this prophet of evil, thero is anything but a " good time coming." We sire not bound, however, to spoil the good time we are having by believing him. My weathormoralising runs in a different vein. Climate, as Horace remarked a long time ago, makeaj or mars very little in human happiness. Codum non animum mutant gui trans mare currunt. "Fine night, mate," I remarked, ironically perhaps, to a belaled Good Templar found clinging to a lamp-post one bright

taoonlight night some short time ago. "It isn't the night," he hiccupped in reply, "it's the people that's in it." That is exactly the philosophy of it. It isn't the climate, it's the people that's in it. Sunny days and balmy nights are fina weather to be young in, fine weather to make love in, superb weather to marry in. But any weather is fine enough for these purposes. On the other hand, the brightest day that ever dawned is bad weather if jouhave the toothache, or if it is a " bad 4th," or if it is the day on which you discover, like the captain of the Pinafore, that "your daughter to a tar is partial," and has just completed euccessfully her little arrangements for running off with him. "My children, be virtuous and you'll be happy— ram or shine. " These might not be the terms in which you would choose to express yourself under the circumstances, but they contain a very serviceable theory of life for a changeable climate like that of Otago.

There is a touch of Jedburgh justice about j, the recent proceedings of the Harbour Board. Having hanged Pilots Louden and Paton the Board is now reported to be considering the advisability of trying them. As the affair at present Btands one doesn't know whether to admire most the Spartan simplicity of the Board's procedure or its Spartan severity. They heard the accusation, deliberated, ordered the execution. No time was wasted in calling upon the accused for their defence. The crime was probably deemed too heinous to be capable of defence. These pilots, it seems, being ordered by the Harbourmaster to take the barque Van Dieman across the bar, declined to obey. Probably they thought the Van Dieman, in the state of the tide, couldn't be safely taken across the bar. No one, indeed, has asked them what they thought, and the delinquents themselves have not explained. In the latter fact I don't see anything surprising. Pilots, as a rule, are not a voluble tribe. They are grand at screaming " helm's-a-lee " and " mainsail haul," but are not known to have cultivated any other branch of stump oratory, and certainly do not possess any special gift for newspaper correspondence. If they can swear in two or three languages — and most of them can — they can be silent in five or six, I allow that they are often very good at an anchor-watch yarn. By the help of unlimited says I's and says he's, with [auxiliary whisky, a pilot on these occasions is capable of Bomething that even approaches to continuous narrative. But that is exceptional. Out of the company of other sea dogs his qualities are not brilliant, nor his powers of articulate exposition remarkable. That Pilots Loudon and Paton, therefore, have not enlightened the public on the subject of their reasons for declining to take the Van Dieman to sea is not surprising. And their reasons are not hard to guess. They had not forgotten the Benares—

*• * That fatal and perfidious bark, Built in the eclipse and rigged with curses dark— which, for the confusion of Otago pilots, got herself astride the bar, and was thence ignominously hauled back, stern foremost, into the harbour to be unloaded and drydocked. If Messrs Louden and Paton suspected the heavy-draughted Van Dieman oapable of playing them a similar trick, 1 vote their caution in wanting to wait for a better tide more commendable than the rashness of the Harbourmaster who took her across at the cost of an actual bumping. Does the judgment of two pilots of 20 years' standing in the service count for nothing in such matters? Members of the Board will do well' to ruminate that question a little. They have made a fine exhibition of vigour and rigour ; the public would now like to see whether they are capable of a little moderation and justice.

I observe that Mr Jago has been lecturon "The Coming Man," Mr Brunton on "The Future Division of the Land of Israel," and Elder Batt on the " Truth of Mormomism and the advantages of Polygamy." There is a more intimate connection between these three subjects than at first sight appears. The Coming Man at once suggests the Waiting Woman — (capital letters, please ; I don't mean the waitress)— the eligible unmarried young person, of domesticated habits and au affectionate disposition, who has waited and waited for that Coming Man and found that, on the whole, he didn't come. There is, of course, many such a Mariana whose life is but a "lonely moated grange." She only said my life is dreary, He cometh not she said ; She said I am aweary, aweary, I would that I were dead ! And there are thousands of other tender feminine souls, not aweary yet, but who are eager and anxious on the subject of the Coming Man. They want to know whin he is coming, why he hasn't come already, and what he will be like when he does come. Some of these anxious inquirers, no doubt, are enrolled in the Young Women's Christian Association. _ This thought kinder connects itself in my mind with the Young Men's Christian Association. "Why these two associations? Why not amalgamate into the Young Couple's Christian Association 'i I feel it is a great thought, and sines 1880 is Leap Year, I commend it fraternally to the Christian Young Women. Let them use their privilege, and by unanimous resolution invite the Christian Young Men to propose. It ia not good for man to be alone, especially it iVI good for a young man — not even though he is a Christian Young Man. And, if the truth were known, for a Christian Young

Woman to be alone is as bad or even worse. The Christian Young Women ought to look for the Coming Man, it is clear, in the ranks of the Christian Young Men.' And this is where Mr Brunton's lecture comes in. He knows something, it seems, about the Future Divisioc of the Land of Israel. I don't know in the least what it is he does know, but I see he illustrated the subject by plans and diagrams. What I want to ask is whether any arrangement can be made about sections. If so, that might very much influence the other matter. I merely throw out the hint, and in connection therewith draw attention to a very ominous fact. Elder Batt is here, and his mission, strangely enough, comprehends both the marriage question and the question of a Promised Land. Elder Batt can give the most definite inform ation about his Zion, for he has been there, andprobably knows every section in it. What is more, he utters no uncertain sound about the Coming Man. - In fact, that long looked-for loiterer may be said to have Arrived, in the person of Elder Batt himself, for the Elder is prepared to marry, or cause to be married, our whole stock of waiting Marianas, and ship them off to the Land of Promise in a batch ! If this fact doesn't stir to action the young men, Christian and other, who have been shilly-shallying so long, they needn't be surprised if the young women decline to wait for them any longer, and clear for Utah. I can conceive that if ever a women brings herself to believe polygamy tolerable, it will be when she has found monogamy unattainable.

"Wanted a Precentor" is an advertisement never long absent from Otago papers, Its appearance is significant of a state of things not to be matched anywhere else out of Scotland, and peouliar, in this part of the world, to the south end of New Zealand. The Presbyterian of the Colonies has, as a general rule, reoonciled himself to organs. In Otago, the " true blue" still drones his " praise" through his own private and personal set of pipes, and regularly advertises for his precentor, at£3o ayear or thereabouts, to lead him in the delightful exercise, and sustain him therein. Now the Scotch have a singing gift, but it doesn't run in the direction of psalmody. ' They can be light-heeled enoughin areel or strathspey, but, for solid, heavy-footed, dead-march complaining, commend me to a bush congregation engaged in "wreastling" with Martyrdom or the Old Hundred! Of course it sometimes happens that the "Precentor" is himself no better than a blind leader of the blind. This was generally the case with the old "parish clerk" of the English Church, a functionary now, happily, almost as extinct as the Dodo. An extract from Hale's Precedents, giving the reasons for which Thomas Milborne, clerk of the parish of East Ham, was "presented," or complained of, will give a good notion of the precentor system as it used to exist in England :—: —

"For that he singeth the Psalms in the Church with such a jesticulous tone and altitonant voyce, viz., sqeakinge like a gelded pigg, which doth not only interrupt the other voyces, but is altogether dissonant and disagreeing unto any musical harmonic. And he hath been requested by the minister to .leave it, but he doth obstinatelie persist and contynue therein."

Some country subscribers of the Witness will f aucy they recognise this picture. I dare say they do. If the parish clerk has vanished, gone to other lands, they know where his mantle has descended. My advice is, give the precentor three months' notice and send for the kist o' whistles. lam not interested in any American organ agency ; I havn't got an old harmonium that I'm trying to sell ; I hav'nt been tipped by either West or Begg to write this paragraph. Disinterested benevolence is the motive, and a desire to lessen the woes of my fellowcreatures, I want moreover to hear "the pealing organ blow" in the two finest churches in the Colony, Dr Stuart's and Mr Mackie's. In the interests of civilisation, not to mention religion, the barbarous system of precenting ought to be dropped, in the towns at anyrate.

What a world of trouble those scientific fellows take to attain an object, when by a short cut they might arrive at a result so much more easily and quickly. Here is a case in point. Everyone knows that with a view of more correctly.ascertaining the distance of the earth from the sun elaborate observations on the transit of Venus have been taken in various places all over the world, and intricate calculations have been founded on these observations which have taken two years to complete. These calculations have, I believe, knocked an odd two or three millions of miles off the generally received figures, and reduced the distance from ninety-five millions of miles to ninety-two and a-half millions. But by favour of the Editor I am able to make public the following startling announcement;, which ought to be instantly cabled to Europe, and Bhould put a stop to all further trouble as regards calculations of parallax and minute observations of the behaviour of Venus while in the embraces of old Sol. The following letter has been received by the Editor, and so anxious is the writer for publicity that he sent a telegram, as I understand, to know when it was going to be inserted. I am under the deepest obligation to said Editor for permission to make it public, and I hope the name of " Civis " will henceforward be honourably mentioned in connection with the discovery. Here it is verb et lit, ',