RANDOM SHOTS

Auckland Star, Volume XLVI, Issue 223, 18 September 1915, Page 17

RANDOM SHOTS

by zxa

Some write a neighbour's name to lasb. Some write—vnln thought—for needful cash, Some write !., please the ciiiiurt.v clash And raise n din; For mc. an nlin 1 never fash, I write fur fun. — | "Last, loneliest, loveliest," Auckland j i*, rather late in the day. organism, a great carnival, with election of ••queens" and various other tcfctnl doing-, as a means of raising money to swell to the quarter-million mark our war relief j fund. Perhaps Auckland'- tardiness in adopting this form of merrymaking, or money making, may be accounted to her as righteousness. Tbe Otago ti. n Carnival, held in Dunedin, wiw vehemently denounced from the pulpit by the Key. J)r. l.'ibl. as an "org'.'"—"n procedure as i sh.iiiiefiil as would 'be the dancing of n clown on n nett-maile grave in order to raise money f.,T „ headstone to tbe dead man buried beneath it." A correspondent, writing to n Dunmlin pat-t'i". declared tiiat "the Queen Carnival doings were like giving a dunce with a corpse in the house," and doubtless many other '•douce 11, melinit- were scandalised. The "gloomy bigot,-," are not such a nunieroiiK class in Auckland, but we shall doubtless have some of them try-' in.- to spoil sport by inveighing against tl,.- wi.-'.,..!„,■-<- ~f trying to be happy while ivnr i- in progress. 1 remind these Killjoys in i.dvaii. c that A'.cklan.l, i in going nil,, tbe --arrival bu*!ness, has, only followed tbe example ■ >( the most ri a !i-iiiii.i . on niiiiiitv in ' ne Dominion, j Tin I'lie.-i, ol the North mist therefore | be jinlge,| leniently. And if she should rui-e -14o.ii.iii |,v lier "ii.'n Carnival, as Dune,in, did. she will liav, a still better defence to ot.cr. ".Money talk-." "Needs must, when tbe Devil lor the llllill drive-."; but while tins is nn- i double,lll true, it is becoming evident! that there vvns much wisdom in the! "retiring" tactics of the Russians when I press.-,! i„ Poland uud lialieia. Tbe lier minis have just discovered that they have guine.l nothing save a few miles ~f devastated t-rntorv. and they mii-t either now retire or "dig themselves in" for ihe winter if the Russians will permit them. Proverbial wisdom approves the conduct of him who "tights and runs ii»ii>." It may not be magiiili it. but it is tbe true strategy of war. The retreat has est the Hermans much more I bun it bus cost their opponents. Tbe tactics arc in thorough accord with Russian tradition. In "War and Peace" Tolstoy relates a conversation between lleneriil Kutii/.olT and bis advisers as to whether Moscow should be evacuated will,out n buttle. The ollestion. snvs the general, is this: -The salvation of Russia is l„r army. Would it be more to her advantage to risk the loss ~f the army. of Moscow, too. l.y lleeepting buttle, or to alum.lolling Moscow without a hattie." Tl,.- reply is that it is Letter to abandon the city than to lose the army.j So Warsaw and other places have Wll evacuated, pißcticully without v sting! gle. And Ihe Kaiser nnd iii- friends, who have ben Iran .cully jubilating over their "viclories." now find that a few more sue!, victories would spell ruin. _"._•_.■.---- ---1 fancy that Mr. Albert Sanford must late*; news concerning war finance, for s.i id news bus apparently demonstrated what he has i.eeir trying for over twenty veal- '... inipre-s upon a sceptical world, i :'.. the urn lhiessnc-s of gold. Britain nn.l her Allies wish 1., rai-e a loan in the I'liitel Slates, and the hvpricnutei Hung of Aineri.-a threaten t,' boycott the bunks that negoiiate the transaction. What i- the reply of the Allies? They in turn threaten to inundate America with gold: and Inele Sam. who i s popu- ' lurly supposed to worship the "almighty dollar." is slinking in his shoes at the prospect of inning a lot of useless gold shovelled upon him! Acluallv. it is held that a Hood of gold will prove ruinous to America. And Mr. Sanford. viewing the si; nation, may chuckle and say: "I told yon so." All the same. I shrewdly suspect that if a ton or two of I the yellow dirt were .liveried to Auckland, there would be a bit of a scramble for it. _._.___-"___._ The poet is neglected while he lives, but is understood to feel amply rewarded for bis poetic pains by the knowledge! that he will enjoy immortal fame when be is dead. "They will think more of mc lOfl years hence," said Robert Hums on his deathbed. Byron, when in a cynical mood. s : ,i,l that all that was meant by posthumous fame was: — "Tn have, when the ..rlnlnnl Is dust. A inline, a wretched picture nn.l worse bust." Kven these puny consolations seem likely to be denied to the poets of our day, owing to the spread of literary dishonesty, coupled with popular indifference to the claims of the bardic clnn. An instance of this—a delilvernte attempt to rob New Zealand's darling poet, the late Tom Bracken, of his fame—has just come under my notice. In v little American publication called "The Htisiness Philosopher" there appears a poem headed "Not I'nderstood," and subscribed "W. I). Mnhon, in American Federntionist." The pnem is the famous production of Tom Hrncken—word for word, all except the first verse. Here we evidently find the improving hand of "\V. D. Mahon" at work. The verse rends: — •'We move asunder: our paths grow wider; As the season's creep nlong the rears; We mnrvel and we wonder while' life is life. Aud then we co tn sleep. Not understood." The words, it will he seen, are nearly all those of Bracken; hut they have been twisted and rearranged by a man with no sense whatever of metrical melody, nnd they read very much like doubledistilled nonsense. Poor Bracken! It must he very aggravating to his gentle ghost if, revisiting the glimpses of the moon, if should observe how the poet's fame is lieing filched and his noble verses distorted. Not understood in life, ami robbed and defamed after death—it is too bad! I hope "The Business Philosopher," or somebody else, will hunt down \V. D. Mahon and show him up. Another instance of what looks like literary piracy ha? 'horn mentioned to : mc by a friend. ]„ a recent issue of a popular F.n.'.ish magazine h e read an exciting tale of v decent into a volcano in on. of the South Pacific Islands. The story struck him as being strangely j familiar, and, following up a clue, lie j found the story, word for word, in a

I copy of ''The Southern Cross Magazine," I I published in Auckland some fifty years \ ago. Of course this may not be a case ] !of theft; but it looks suspicion*. it. ] seems extremely unlikely that the p-r- j son who wrote the story fifty years ago is still alive and 'bent on making money t from his resurrected work. An acquaint- ! ance of mine had an exasperating experi- j ence of the literary Hun. He bad an 1 article that cost him much labour pub- | li.-h.-d iv a newspaper, receiving no pay- I ment for it. Some months later he found I his article, "lifted" bodily, with one or ' two verbal alterations, and printed in another newspapor, with ,1 lady's name affixed as the writer. She probably got : .1 couple of guineas for thin "original', I article! These are the ethics of author- 1 I j -ship today—rob the living of cash and; 1 the dead of fame. • -_____-_ ..-F-f Aimong t.be tlmil'ling incidents of the ' I (tallip-H fifthtiibjf which an iniudligent 1 censor has al.owe.l to reach the public. 11 i* one that concerns .1 Turkish do'i'key r that had 'its <-ars neatly shaved oil' by r a shell from a British naval I ' r.-.-a!l the ass in Wordsworth's "Peter ' Bell": — i "Aga'n Ihe ass. wlih motion dull, , 1'p.,11 I' c p1v.,1 of hi- skull. 'I'ui-cl munii his long left cur." ) 1 AippaTcnrly thai po>«r quadruped had " list its light ear; but the Turkish ass ■ i- in worse i_ij.li.. for it Imm no ear s I "left" at all. There is some talk in ' 1 Modem eiivles about canonising the ' I earless us,., so t'.uui it may get to Paradise a-loiig with -I,eiah's whale, Noah's 1 d"ie. mid other animals which, _<-c»rd- . ing to the Koran, -are admitted where no woman is allowed to enter. , It is 1 -aid that at present there are' mil roe '' asses in .heaven-(1) Tbe ass on which 1 I Christ rode into Jerusalem: (-!i ; I Bal-aim's ass. which ".-poke with the! 'voice of a man"; (II) the ass of the j 1 I (-ur-t-n of Sbeba. who <-ame to visit Solo- ' I mon and liu-eording to another siory) ! founded the modern nation of Abys- ■ sinia.. Another ass tin-re was tiiat over ' a century ago made a bid for g'iory by drinking a qiiaittity <»I "holy water.'* The .i-iithorities were in doubt as to whether the ass should be given a suiiclitied status fur having acquired ' I .spirituality through the drink, or j whether il should be s!aught.-riil for -1 de-eeration. The matter is still in .us- ' 1 pension, like Mahomet's coflin. • ' *:_:__■__"_■_ itToe heading of tin article in. an English paper reads: — "CAN lIF.RMAXV P.K CIVILISED: r.v Hoi.nnooK jackson." , I fancy the job is too difficult fur a . dozen llolbri*ok Jacksons. Even Wood,- --', tow Wilson is limbing it hard to Impress , upon the Huns the desirableness of pre- , i '.ending to be civilU.-d. 'I =