WITHOUT PREJUDICE

Dominion, Volume 18, Issue 105, 29 January 1924, Page 6

WITHOUT PREJUDICE

NOTES AT RANDOM ’

[During the absence on holiday of “T.D.H.” this column will be conducted by “Wi,”l

Tho British Steck Exchange, bavin® responded nobly to the spectacle or. the Labour Premier in a silk hat, might possibly go quite mad if he followed lb up by wearing spats and announcing that ho purchased his pink silk pyjamas in Bond Street.

As an admirer of American efficiency] and progressiveness, I am hurt, grieved and almost in danger of being humbled bv an irate protest signed “C.E.H.F.” He writes:— “Sir, —I am absolutely sick and tired of reading in ‘Without Prejudice’ whether by you or ‘T.D.H.’ coarse sarcasms, insinuation, etc., meant to bo funny, in regard to the United States of America; also careless generalities such declaring the bandit outrage in New York as happening all over the country.’ I was born in New York (I am a British subject), and have lived several years altogether in America. I think a trip through the U.S.A, might benefit you.”

Well, I don’t know. C.E.H.F., aocpsing me of “generalities/ J general*" ises himself when he mentions “sarcasms. insinuations, etc.” Unfortunately for his case Jffie evidence in connection with the one particular item he mentions —the crime wave is dead against him. Tho rtatement that bandit outrages were happening all over the country was made by a reputable American weekly which has an international reputation for its fair presentment of Press and uublic opinion on topics of the day. This journal published extracts from a country-wide poll of the American Press, and without a word of exaggeration I can. say that not a single State in the Union was given a clean bill.

Of course we make fun of America and the Americans just as we make fun of the French, or th_e Bolsheviks, or the Irish, or the British. 1 notice, however, that America is developing a national sensitiveness. The New York Bureau of Motion Picture Censors has begun by condemning films which misrepresent the American citizen and his habits. A farmers’ organisation in conference in Chicago has decided that the film companies have caricatured its membership long enough, end is insisting that the long, lank, strawchewing individual with the bottom of his pants tucked into his boots, and wearing suspenders of wonderful rural design, a goatee beard > and a look of imbecile vacancy, must disappear 1 from the screen. In his place the fanners demand must appear a busi-ness-like, up-to-date person 7ho looks like £5OOO a year, keeps several cars, and runs his farm bv machinery.

In short, my friend. C.E.H.F., mustn’t blame me, or “T.D.H.,” or Major Fitzurse, or Dr. Bumpus. He must blame the American Press and the American movies for an impression which exists in New Zealand that all American professional men, university students, and other intellectuals suspected of burning midnight oil, wear horn spectacles, and all stenographer girls, newsboys, and “belltops,” chew gum. Somebody complained not long ago that the American “stage Englishman” was an insult to the real article. If that is the case, then it is perhaps true that all American intellectuals do not wear horn spectacles, or that all stenographers do not chew gum.

A contributor whose boyhood memories have evidently been stirred by Kipling’s adaptation of “Eenee, meenee, mainee, mo” (printed in this column last week under the heading (my own), “Who’ll Go Hee?” sends me this Heena, deena, din ah dust Cattla wheeler, whila, wust; Spit, spot, must be done, Twidhim, twodlum, tjventy-one, Black, fish, White, trout, ' Heere, horee, you, are, OUT!

There are, of course, many children’s iingles for “counting out” at games. I remember one that used to be very popular in a Lowlands school in Scotland, where I first discovered that the world was a hard, cruel, callous planIt ran:— A-zeentv, teenty, figgerty fell,. Ell, dell, draw ma leg; Hurky, purky, tarry rope, Zam, tarn, touzy Jock. To get the rhvme as spoken you must pronounce Jock as if spelt Joke. In my class at that schoot was a Hockv bully called Allan Mair—his father kept the village “pub,” and was a famous and spectacular chuckerout. Both Allan’s big brothers were employed in the bar. In those days there ’ were no telephones in village “pubs,” and when a customer became obstreperous, one of the Mates would sidle round the end of the bar, seize the offender suddenly by the scuff of his neck and. the slack or his pants, and throw him into the street.

The youngest Mair was a very pow-erfullv-built bov, with a real bulldog face, a ready fist, and a mighty jxior sense of justice. Wlien a game was organised he would gather the competitors around and recite “A-zenty,-teenty, figgerty fell,” pointing, at each, and so arranging the startingpoint that he never “wont hee” himself. On the word “Jockl” he would shoot out a slioiilder-of-mutton band and smack the victim on the chest in a manner indicating that the count was final. I shall never forget the first visit of a mesmerist to the school. He invited a boy to come forward, and Mair, as we all expected, went down from his seat. ’llie result was entirely unexpected. The mesmerist put Mate through the most ludicrous antics, and the whole school rocked and shrieked with laughter. I shall never forgot, also, the rapidity with which we composed our features when Mair came out of his trance. He didn’t find out what he had been doing till long after.

Tin’s is suppose to be the most idiotic “drunken man .story” to date, and tells of an inebriated gentleman who staggers across the street to where a police-man is standing and says: _ “(‘ick) ’xcuse me constabble-sir, but would you kindly in-n-forni me which is the other side of t’street “Over there, where you have just cotne from, of course.” “Constabble-sir, you’re-a gentleman. You’re-a (hie) gentleman! The policeman over there told me this was the other side of the street.” H—M! Strephon kissed me in the spring Robin in the fall, But Colin only looked at me And never kissed at all. Strephon’s kiss was lost in jest, Robin’s lost in play,. But the kiss in Colin’s eyes, Haunts me night; and day. —Sara Teasdale.