OBITER DICTA.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18551, 28 November 1925, Page 16

OBITER DICTA.

♦- — [By K] I should have been depressed by the letter in yesterday's " Press " from the correspondent who says that man cannot avert his destiny by forming Leagues of Nations or Summer Schools had I not previously beeu fortified by some evidence that strongminded optimists think otherwise. Sir James Parr is persuaded that the Enigma of the Universe can be solved and Doom averted, by making the children sing. " The Education Department," he says, ''is goirfg to revolutionise music in the schools." Singing, he added, created a community spirit as nothing else could; and it is " a community spirit" that wc need above all things if wc are to prevent war. No less optimistic than Sir James is the New York Society for the Prevention of Crime, which is so little dismayed by tho concomitants of Prohibition, which seems to have benefited chiefly the undertakers and the motor-car factories, that it is offering " a prize of £SOO for the best plan to reduce crime." I liko to think that of the 560,000 essays which will be sent to the Society one will solve the problem, and it would be pleasant if the winner were Sir James Parr, for if singing will prevent war, it ought at least to reduce the volume of crime in the United States, which costs little more per annum in life and property than the Great War did. In any case the Society's plan will reduce crime by £SOO, for somebody will earn that sum honestly. The winner will be sandbagged at once, of course, and robbed, but this does not affect the point.

The great need of France, however, is Jack Dempsey. France's main concern at present is the setting up of some Government which will removo the horrible feeling of our gallant ally that it may be required to go down into the cellar and bring up a little of the gold which it got out of Jonathan and John Bull. A consequence is that it has sis new Governments a week, and the manner in which the Governments change is thus described in one of the cable messages : Government supporters rose, screaming "Traitor!" M. Painleve declared the statement murderous. The final vote was taken amidst uproarious confusion, deputies shouting challenges and banging their desks. The uproar culminated in numerous bouts of fisticuffs.

M. Briand is in indifferent health, rendering physical, exertion difficult, so his succession to the Premiership is unlikely.

Since Mrs Carpenticr will not allow Georges to make any more public appearances, Dempsey is clearly needed.

Perhaps, however, neither France nor any other country is quite so unhappy as the news would suggest. Every country appears to the others to be a mass of crimes, crises, and scandals, because these are the things that mankind likes to read about and demands to be told of. New Zealand will never " get on the map " by producing the biggest swordfish, the best butter, and the finest geysers. Sir Ernest Benn has been telling the " Newspaper World" that while England believes that America is a welter of lawlessness and bad gin, America believ.es that England is "down and out and done for." , For it reads only of unemployment and Communists and scandalous Court cases. This vexes Sir Ernest Benn, who, however, cannot see a way ont It is too much, he says, to expect an American newspaper to devote its wonderful headlines to "the simple, homely, and unexciting fact that England, notwithstanding its politicians, is still the cleanest, sweetest, and most lovely spot oh earth. Nor are the

London papers likely to get explaining to their readers'mSHl American citizen is the able, generous, and kindly that God ever made. The taSSHI companies could ne?er keep revenues on tho repetition of that the exhilaration of CanadJliSs nearest approach to pore deHrillaßl There are sign?, however, Jhjljflf London newspapers arc expJirittarjlßf "stunt" possibilities of other jhßl§ than crime and trouble. Religjafe!3§f| example, is now being one of the London dailies that snappy explanations by men of what religion means to fiHii arc as strong a eirculation-ljßJ*Sßl| force as cross-word puzzles. Kbr'JHfll Fleet street do the religion csnliMrali It is helpful to the readingpMsii brought into contact with w»imi^|^^| example, was careful to explain naU footnote the meaning of "the YnK&» Birth." Tho eye of the "stQßi*3£| List, turning away from the iiclds in quest of something Yecy'g|&§|| has alighted, too, on music. Iq.ImK!S type, such as it reserves for thft IjjHli X " case, a London daily disptafjugi dispatch from its musical *» at f|i|P Leeds. " Hoist's Sensational SgHpl phony," it said. This is a and allhongh conservative that music could not be made wmߧ| during subject for "stunting," Taßll fer to believe that there is bMHE] which is beyond the range ol ymßfej Mr Chesterton, in the meanUa?ijl£| been writing about " the careMijßp who was after all not so very duBBI '' To-day all our novels aas JnßG| papers will be found numberless allusions to a acter called a cave-man. WfjWHlj to be quite familiar to us, a public character, but as a character. His psychology taken into account in psveholijnHHn tion and psychological PedMjßifißH far as I can understand, his pation ia life was DoC^iag s about, or treating women ll§BHH| with what is, I believe, k**fpii|H| world of film as 'rough never happened to come B|jflSjpraßß| dence for this idea. . .Qb fjNHgHBB mal analogy, it would sewn **rSfflHl morbid modesty and r^ part of tho lady, being knocked down beftyttf 4MHhH9 to be carried off. And I x 94|£3Bh[H can never comprehend why* male was so very ro4e, should have been so Tory mjJMpSfIHH Now, there does happen ■. real evidence of cave, but it «is conee^n9 4 cave-man and his cave, *P^iltffM9H&| ary cave-man and hi* the realist of the >«<*9t« sparks danco in Dajpata brain, he folt the sftqt «t rising within him,* the> ers would be very ones Dagmar only went- off §i* pictures of cows on, jJJkjfrtfflH^^Bß to a patient, 'the of the care-man does not refer water-eolonra; and -febioemt the most minute epeik ©i he did any of .the violent aa M^^^H| If this is tree, we name far the a turn ont thai AeUa ant tion of the Don as s^l ffi|^H mains silent so that to say about him, tj^ f for the latest pojeat '^g^^M