CASUAL COMMENTS

Press, Volume LXV, Issue 19610, 4 May 1929, Page 13

CASUAL COMMENTS

BUBBLES AND BURBLES. (SPBCIAX.LT WXITTBir FOB THB PKJSS3.) [By Leo Fanmisg.] I'm a little of everything, And nothing much; I've heard a tenor sing, Bead aueh and such: Quoted what someone says, Does or intends; Greeted acquaintances, Forgctton friends—"Tha City," by 'Witter Bynu**'.

The other day I was reading again an old book, "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds," which has, of course, a chapter on the "South-Sea Bubble" of 1720, when a tidal wave of get-rich-quickness swept over England and enabled financial quackness to gather in much gold from the public. After giving a list of fantastic schemes for wealth-winning, the author remarks: —

"The most absurd and preposterous of all, and which showed more completely than any other the utter madness of the people was one started by an unknown adventurer, entitled 'A company for carrying on an undertaking of great advantage, but nobody to know what it is.' Were not the fact stated by scores of credible witnesses, it would be impossible to believe that any person could have been duped by such a project. The man oi genius who essayed this bold and successful inroad upon public credulity merely stated in his prospectus that the required capital was half a million in five thousand shares of £IOO each deposit £2 per share. Each subscriber, paying his deposit, would be entitled to £IOQ per annum per share. How this immense profit was to be obtained he did not condescend to inform them at the time, but promised that in a month full particulars should be duly announced and a call made for the remaining £9B of the subscription. Next morning, at 9 o'clock, this great man opened an office in Cornhill. Crowds of people beset his door, and when he shut up at 3 o'clock he found that no less than one thousand shares had been subscribed for, and the deposits paid. He was thus, in five hours, the winner of £2OOO. He was philosopher enough to be contented with his venture, and set off the same evening for the Continent. He was never heard of again." The world has seen plenty of similar bubbles since 1720; this year 1929 has its share of them. •X- -K- -X-

Thinking of modern youthful life as a measure of champagne took me back to banquet scenes of long ago —official or ceremonial affairs where "the bubbly" was abundant. On such occasions a shrewd journalist is on guard against the charges of bubbles; he makes one g'ass carry him through several toasts, so that he will not feel overwhelmed by the burbling and will have his task finished before the last cork pops. Calmly he sits and sees the assembly getting more and more pleased with itself, more and more proud of itself, more satisfied that it is establishing a world's record in eloquence and wit. When the bubbles are at their busiest, the gaseous guests feel that they are making history brilliant. l y —but in the morning the banquet has merged into the haze and raa*e of many banquets, and most of the guests may have only a misty memory of wonderful talk', which the journalist could have boiled into a three-line paragraph. 1 * * *

Consider, too. the less formal feasts of Bohemian artists, poets, and unrecognised young philosophers where the talk is borne on a brown tide of beer, laced with creamy bubbles. The big things they can do; the big things they will do! There is a scoffing at the world's indifference to genius, and hot words are spoken against the cold old world which is to be forced 'nto a better attitude to superhuman talent. As the glow of the bubbles grows upon them, they congratulate one another on their various merits, and predict fame and fortune for one another. In the long run the world sifts them out into successes and failures.

The power of wine to relax the stiffness of a conclave is mentioned in Mr T. Lindsay Buick's book "New Zealand's First War." In 1542, when Maior Bunbury had returned to Auckland from a military expedition to Tauranga, a French frigate anchored in the harbour. The Frenchmen entertained the officers of the Garrison at a dinner, and in the evening the visitors were invited to a ball in the barrack-room. '.'l was greatly amused," wrote the Major, "at the singular effects of champagne at the Frenchmen's dinner partv. None of the officers of my detachment spoke French, and very few of them understood it. A few of the Frenchmen spoke English, the Captain <ind one or two others. The consequence was that the party was somewhat formal and heavy, and on my expressing my regret to him that none of our officers or those of the 96th could speak the French language, he said: 'Wait a bit. you will see how soon they will pick it up and understand one another. All they want is a few bottles of champagne. I have always found it an excellent teacher of languages.' He s: >ke the truth,'' continues the Major, "for almost immediately the prescription took effect, and the whole company seemed to understand one another, and were as garrulous as a flock of geese. Even the reserve of the Captain of the Grenadiers of the 96th, who hates Frenchmen and everything French, forsook him. and he, too, seemed as much excited and as noisy as the rest of the party."

Similar confidence in the power of malted, fermented, or spirituous liquor to help the tongue was expressed by a member of the Canterbury Rugby team which played at New riymouth. The teams were sinking all differences at a smoke-social after the match, tnd it came to the turn of a Taranaki player, one Wi Kama, a big Maori, to speak. He tried tackling the English words high, and he tried them low, but they dodged all round his tongue. After much catch-as-cateh-can, he managed to inform the meeting that he was not yet fluent in English. "Give him some more English beer," was the instantaneous advice of a pakeha. •* * *

Deep in the mind of the average man is a belief that he is more a philosopher than th© average woman is, and he is apt to be annoyed when woman regards his flow of comment as a mere bubbling of talk. Who could not sympathise with the scolding Xanthippe who had to suffer the ab-sent-mindedness of the philosophic Soorates? Edith Wilner has stated a good case for Mrs Socrates in these lines :

If you had worked all day with riverrushes and sand, Scrubbing the atrium, And cleaning between the tile* of the impluviuw, And coaxing fresh air and sunshine through the compluvium, And then * mere man. In the name of Philosophy, Cam* in from the agora, Without even wiping the mud from hie sandal*. And refused to eat his dinner while it was hotr™Perhaps you, too, Would h»ve brightened np the comer whet* you were -•"=« With a few ecintiilatiag teaurhi.