PERERRANT WIT.

Press, Volume LXV, Issue 13336, 30 January 1909, Page 7

PERERRANT WIT .

"Keb, sir? Keb, sir? Keb, sir?

Barrer, sir?"

The cabman's turn of repartee is notorious. 'Bus-drivers, too, and 'busconductors, have acquired a title to esteem. Tram-conductors and trainguards lack celebrity; and commercial travellers, those comets of trade, have always tho same kind of tale. Evidently more is required for peripatetic wit than motion and vibration. It is likely that we should find the true cause of cabmen's wit in the alertness required by their avocation. "Who can so properly study mankind as a cabman? At every minute he is plucking his marguerite on the pavement : "This fare? *Next fare? Some fare? No fare!" Unless, of course, he goes to sleep on his perch. But this is mere necessary rest —the pause between lightnings; and a cabman asleep is no longer a cabman, he is only a man on a cab.

Given, then, that a cabman or a 'busman has sharp wits, ex labore, they need only to be edged, like a razor, by slight friction—and any customer wiil provide the friction. Some cabmen will say, "Thank you !*' when the motive is weighty; but a cabman has never been found to say, "No, thank you I," I remember studying empirical jphilosophy with a cabman, and paying college, fees for both. For some weeks he carried mc from a commercial point to a point—a moderate shillingsworth. I began with a -shilling. (Scornful silence.) .Eighteenpence. (A grunt.) Two shillings. (No grunt—l had been classified and labelled "mug."') .Haif-a-crown, (ailcnce still.) Throe shil-

lings!—the pursuit />f philosophy is costly; and one worm turned. _ ~ "Isn't that enough? Do you*never say thank you ?" , "No, sir, begging your pardon; never. Not that I ain't obliged to you, though o' course I seen it's a game. But no matter what a. gentleVnan gives mc, ho never gives mc enough." That was tho cabman's ohilosophy— and wo returned to tho shilling fare. The silence of a cabman * is gravid with significance: it may bo felt more deadly than his speech. Women do not seem to" mind it; but few men' can avoid a qualm of humiliated selfesteem. Custom hardens us. to be sure; and, after all, wo are the victors, we retain the casln. Yet the victory tfeeras often dearly purchase-. I would rather hear "Can you spare it?"' than meet the ironic face of a cabman I once knew, whose magnificent contempt of the correct fare could level the tallest hat with the dust.

It is imagination that makes cowards of us all j for conscience is on our side. In the terrible silence you hear all the things tho cabman might havo said. Women lack imagination, it seems— aiid then they are always preoccunied with r-areels. A luggageless woman cabomg (at her own expense) is rare ■ nde-ed.

To illustrate is to repeat, inevitably: we cannot all have endured all things. Vet ..it is related that a chieftain of tho renowned clan Mcintosh once, when on a visit to London, happened to have aii altercation with a cabman on tho perennial subject. At length, exasperated by th«. familiarity and insolence of the- Cockney driver, he exclaimed:

"Do you know, sir, who I am 5 I am Tho Mcintosh."

"Mcintosh!" replied the cabman: you may bo an umbrella for all I care, but you aro going to ray mc mv faro."

That, however, is scarcely subtle. More racy tho cabman who got his shilling, :>ut on a concerned air, arc! asked: "Sure I ain't robbing you, sir? Do you think you'll be- able *to rub along on the other nineteen till Saturday?"

AUSTRALIANS IX NEW ZEALAND

"Every morning, as soon as I get up, 1 flop down on m\- knees on the floor, turn my face N.W. to Australia, and pray, 'Lord, send mc back. Transfer mc back. Lord. Let mc leave this accursed country beforo I die. Send mc back, Lord! Amon.

It was an Australian clerk in Wellington who told mc this. The irreverence may bo characteristic; the sentiment certainly is characteristic. Not of all Australians in New Zealand; but, in greater or lesser degree, of many—and particularly of young Australians, of Australians recently expatriated, of Australians who havo not settled down. When they have settled down, when they can appreciate tho different merit of New Zealand, they merge themselves in the mass, and become as good a New Zealander as the next man. Sir Joseph Ward, the Prime Minister of New Zealand, is an Australian—born (as "Who's Who in New Zealand" declares) 26th April, 1856, at Melbourne, \ ictoria. The fact is not generally known, and certainly is not advertised. In tho ordinary newspaper biographies Sir Joseph begins by being a telegrapnboy at the Bluff. Then by dint of intelligence, energy, and perseverance, .fie works his way up until he is Prime Minister, and gains for New Zealand tho proud title of Dominion. It must have been Australiar_jntelligenco, Australian energy, Australian perseverance, however aided by New Zealand opportunities or "fostered by tho New Zealand climate. But Australia is never mentioned. I am clearly of opinion thnt Sir Joseph Ward would be a less popular New Zealander if there wero insistence on his Australian origin. Thero we have the other side of the prayer of the Wellington clerk. Tho Australian is not particularly liked in New Zealand—not until he has shown that he deserves to be liked, or until hi* has become an indistinguishable Australian, a New Zealander of the mass.

In Australia, we aro apt to find ~S<>w Zealanders—not yet "settled down"—■ a little self-assertive, a little "cocky." That is precisely the complaint moeio of Australians who have recently arrived in New Zealand. "You Australians must not think you can come hero and do as you please," a Dunedin magistrate was reported as saying somo little time ago, to a culprit charged with accosting a lady. "Three months." I imagine that tho sentence, if correctly reported, did not err on the side of lenity because tho offender was an Australian.

Australians, in fact—or some Australians—have borne a hod reputation in New Zealand. Now Zealancl, as a kind of ultimate bourne, has been looked upon as a good place for scalawags, both British aild Australian, to be sent i to, or to retire to; nnd the decent, order-loving New Zealander has been quick to. label black sheep in tho moral flock. Not long „go. "Another Australian in Trouble" was far from an infrequent head-line in tho New Zealand Press. Osually it appeared that the Australian deserved to ho in trouble: nevertheless, it was in the mind of other Australians that New Zealand sub-editors did not greafly endeavour to avoid tho trouble of accentuating tho trouble. I havo not found the New Zealander st-lf-assertivo on his native heath, where, ho knows the lie of the country. Nor in Australia, when he has habituited himself to his iiurrpunding*. New Zealanders have told mc that the similar dictum is true of Australians. So that complaint on both sides appears to bo due to the difficulties of initial ad* justmsnt.

Tho explanation implies a. difference between the typical New Zealander arttire typical Australian. Doubtless thero is a difference. "This would be a fino country if it were peopled with Australians." says one. "It is a kind of exile to live here," says another. I find AY. T. Goodgo's satirical verses' on the New Zealander passed covertly from hand to hand among Australians, who prudently keep their thoughts to themselves.

Again, an Australian club -was formed in Wellington somo time ago. It endured about six months, until State feuds and personal feuds endeel it with eopiewhat less disturbance than occurred tfi tho society upon the Stanislow. But the substance of the chief speech upon the opening night was a severe criticism of New Zealanders. The younger members, as I talked to them, agreed with the speech. Tlie elder members, so far as I found, did not approve it. They owned a elifference between New Zealaneler.s nnd Australians: but they found the difference -tolerable. They had "settled down." '

Their conclusion is mine., after eighteen months of residence. I find New Zealanders different from Australians, yet in the end no less to bo esteemed.

Then, what is tho difference? /Gow shall it bo stated?