RANDOM SHOTS

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVI, Issue 66, 18 March 1905, Page 12

RANDOM SHOTS

BY

Eotne write a neighbour's name to lash; Some write — vain thought — for needful cash. Some write to please the country clash, And raise n din. For mc, an aim I never fash — I write for fan. After the events of the past week or so 1 feel almost constrained to withdraw some of tbe strictures I placed last week upon that war. I don't go back upon my general tiredness of war as a. generality, mind you; I merely feel bound to plead guilty to a certain amount of something very like excitement in regard to the now passing events in the Far East. Besides the incidents of the actuaQ fighting. I was particularly interested in the expressed intention of the Czar's Government to send out half a million troops, by way of reinforcement: s for lii.s defeated gcnevali-isimo. There was something handsome in that lie; it savoured of J'obnd/1 and Munchausen and the great liars of history; it fetched you by its profligate disregard for the preliminaries of probability. 1 cannot suppose that it was meant to convince; the point of it was the autocratic promulgation of it, with the most perfect indifference as to whether anyone believed it or no. The lie of a Czar is by necessity the Fact of his people, and if it happens to get abroad, where people timidly remark that it is just possible that some of the truth has leaked out on the way, is that the fault of a ruler who makes his statements to be held as truths only ■within the limits of his own frontiers? It is too bad that in addition to all his other miseries the poor little Czar should be so sadly misunderstood. Upwards of a year ago I had tilings to say about the Auckland boardinghouse and its strange and wonderful ways. A night or two ago I dianccd to meet a fine old boardinghouse campaigner, and I am bound to say that his views of these institutions left mine relatively favourable and complacent. Since he was plainly speaking by the card, was apparently far from exacting, his experience was large, and his facts were very nearly disgusting, the inference is as obvious as it is unpleasant to admit. As I have said before, a landlady, like anyone else, has a game to play, and a game which pays- We poer men are sadly weak creatures, and our hearts are won even more easily than a shrewd landlady could ever suspect. This is apart, of course, from the main question of being or not being disgusted by the less endurable features of an absolutely mismanaged house. A born landlady (roughly one in two thousand) by the expenditure of an extra sixpence a year will add twenty pounds to her income. But she prefers to save the pence, and if the pounds look after themselves it is in the pockets of a potential boarder, rather than in the ihoard of her careful ladyship. Take, for instance: 1 daily flypaper, Id. (N.B. —worth 1/ a week to the sensitive and irritable boarder); 1 monthly cup of afternoon tea, per year 2d. (N.B Will sometimes bring about a wedding between the eldest Miss Landlady and the youngest Mr Boarder, or at least the winning of tbe latter over as a "permanent" acquisition to the house. There are hundreds of other instances which the imaginative will have already adiuced, but tbese two will serve foT now. ********** I have just read ~a paragraph the contents of which should be of efepecial interest in this unhappy world. I cannot quote the source, but I take it to be American, inasmuch as the writer speaks of a doctor's surgery or consulting room as an "office." Anyhow this doctor, according to his own account, has solved the problem of how to be happy — though married, or in .debt, or in gaol, or undeT any circumstances which may not happen to be productive of the good spirits of the individual. His advice is not complex or lengthy; the gist of it is expressed in the sentence: "Keep the corners of your mouth turned up;" which means what he otherwise expresses as "Smile: keep on smiling: do not stop smiling." He does not mention the 1 somewhat obvious fact that it is better to pursue happiness on these lines in solitude or that otherwise one would be Hable to be impolitely seized and placed in a lunatic asylum. But I Efuppose lie allows for the fact that the smiling process would serve its purpose even amid surroundings so depressing as those. He points out the fact that there need be no inclination to smile for the artificial product is in every way as satisfactory as the spontaneous. Of course, he adduces proofs— and particularly he cites the case of his wife, who, We are given to understand, from being morose, became contented, if not positively elvish. I don't know the wife, bo I can't say. It strikes mc, however, ssa possible theory, that she had a sense of humour, and this husband of hers gave it the full satisfaction for which it may long have been craving. ■l«.ti.intlrfirfirT™tirfi.l. TtTTTTTTTx After discharging my little "shot" at Esperanto last week, I began to be apprehensive lest I should seem to be exaggerating the importance of this ridiculous fad; at least, so far as Auckland is concerned. But during the week I have found good evidence to prove that my instincts on this point were even sounder than my reason. A number of enthusiasts who, I believe, habitually talk Esperanto to each other when only the elect are listening waiter! on the Premier and asked him, as Minister for Education, to see to it that provision be made for the introduction of Esperanto, not only into our University course, but into our primary schools. Of course, I don't object to them interviewing the Premier—that is one of the many things he is here for; and by this time he is quite used to controlling his emotions when le is taken by surprise. What he really ielt and thought I can't say. But what lie said amounted to this—.that the children in our public schools had enough to do already, and he didn't feel inalined to unload another language—and *uch.a language—upon them. I should think not. The primary school syllabus in its-"modern" form as revised by ■Inspector-General Hogben seems to mc Irery nearly a scandal to civilisation 1 -Manure -that nothing short of slavery would Clli ,h, ( , teaclvers or ch .y Jfren to got entiously through the portentous piles of miscellaneous sub-

jects offered for their delectation. Of course, everybody will compromise by doing as much—or as little—as circumstances will allow; and the inspectors will simply have to "strike an average." Now, on top of this monstrous assortment of heterogeneous fragments of learning the Esperantists desire to impose their own particular jargon — a language only just invented, that nobody ever really needed, and that nobody has yet had any time or wish to use for literary purposes. If our boys and girls learnt Finnish they might read the Kalevala in the original, or if they learned Hungarian they might revel in the beauties of Petofi; and so with other strange tongues. But Esperanto hasn't any excuse of that kind for its existence or its study; and 1 sincerely hope that the impulsive gentlemen who waited on Mr Seddon to urge its claims this week won't have any trouble with the next overworked public school teacher or harassed 'Varsity undergrade that they may chance to meet. T«'*l?'t"jt"l"l"l ,, l M J*T Talking about the Premier and his countless deputations, I found rather a "good thing" in the report of that somewhat exciting interview between Mr Beddon and the ladies and gentlemen who did or did not. want to close their shops at six o'clock. One member of tbe deputation described as a "suburban outlitter" remarked that a great deal of his trade was done after six o'clock in the evening, and that there was always a lot of trouble about "trying on" coats I which, of course, had to be done after work hours. Mr Seddon' assumed a contemplative aspect, and sympathetically .isked the plaintiff if any large number of working men here wear tailor-made clothes. The "suburban outfitter" replied with a touch of scorn that 90 per cent, of them do not wear "slops." Once again the eye of the Premier took on a dreamy far off look, as his mind wandered back to the good old days on the wild West Coast, when Crimean shirts, nugget boots and moleskins were "full dress" for the "toniest" sprees of the year. There was a time, he informed his audience, when he himself was quite satisfied -with "slops"—which, some readers of this column may not know are readymade clothes; but on the "diggings" they took what they could get and were thankful. Obviously the Premier, as lie relapsed into silence, was thinking how very much thinge had altered since he was young, with just a suspicion of a hint that perhaps the "bone and sinew" might be getting enervated by luxury, or words to that effect. But the cause of the working man who wears tailor-made coats was safe in the hands of the "suburban outfitter." Kising to the occasion with a sweet and seductive smile, he reminded the Premier that the beneficent care of the Liberal Government had placed our working men in so good a position that they liked to be as well dressed as the Premier himself. Now, I call that very neat; and Mr Seddon, I need hardly say, saw it at oner. Of course I approve of "working men" buying tailor-made coats if they like; I am a working man, and though like the Premier I have been sometimes constrained to fall back on 'slops," I own up that I would rather not. But it seemed to mc a very amusing and instructive little scene—the Right Hon. R. J. Seddon, P.C., L.L-D., contemplating the tailor-made workingman, and thinking with a twinkle in his kindly eye of the old times when he was "Digger IMck" of Kumara. Ah, "Richard John," it* is top true, the times have indeed changed, and we with them. *TTl!xT IyT.Wl yT.W Once again I am reluctantly compelled to take up my parable on the subject of Tar. It isn't its odour that I object to —in fact, it seems to mc rather sanitary than otherwise —but its general stickiness and tenacity; and I am perfectly sure that I have "with mc," as they say in Hie courts, not only all the shopkeepers in Queen-street, but all the unfortunate wayfarers whom Fate has led cityward this week. How the women folk have managed to save their skirts from perdition I can't even imagine; for most of the sidewalks in Queen-street have been in a simply filthy condition of grime and mess for days together. Even a mere man objects to finding large sections of tar pavement adhering to his boots when he reaches the domestic hearth; and what the shopkeepers have to say on the point I can only faintly conjecture, because I haven't had the moral courage to ask. But what T want to know most of all is, why are peaceful citizens, with a prejudice in favour of cleanliness, compelled to submit to thi3 periodical baptism with municipal tar? I have seen pavements tarred in every other town of any size in ffie eolonv. and never, no, never, hnve I seen anything approaching the awful mess with which our streets are annually defiled. In Christchurch ana" Napier, for instance, where some of the streets are tarred .as well, no amount of "floating" or top dressing ever seems to produce the disgraceful results "that everybody has been using nouns and adjectives about in Queen-street this week. It can 5 ? be all due to the Auckland climate; and a sad experience has taught mc that if our City Council knows no more about tar-asphalt than it knows about road construction in general, the sooner it leaves the paths alone altogether the better it will be for everybody concerned. In the Tnenntime, I would like to have a few words with the municipal official responsible for a neat little circular depression in the pavement just outside ray bookseller's shop—a pretty little lake of tar. with iridescent streaks all over, "of thp most artistic," mixed with sand and sawdust to the consistency of treacle about half an inch deep. It is "not Ro deert a.s a well nor so wide as a churehvard." but. as poor "Mercutio" said. " 'twill do." And if my remarks on this aniline dye-pool turned out "calculated to provoke." I would be most happy to see the malefactor who nut it there receive "48 hours hard without the option"—because I am sure no court hore wonld extend the slijrhtpst sympathy at the present momen. to anyone connected, however remotely, with Tar.