WITHOUT PREJUDICE

Dominion, Volume 20, Issue 49, 22 November 1926, Page 8

WITHOUT PREJUDICE

NOTES AT RANBOM

(By

T.D.H.)

The only things that keep Europe s statesmen from having another war seem to be that they haven’t any money to pay for it, and the public is too fed up to fight it.

That gloomy gentleman, Dean Inge, of St. Paul’s'Cathedral, London, gives a further instalment of reasons, this morning for thinking that mankind is on its way to the dogs. Pessimism, is the Dean’s long suit, but it remains an open question whether the world is as bad as he sees it, or whether the reverend gentleman has something wrong with his inside that makes him see it that way. There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so, as Shakespeare observed quite a while ago, and the rest of us are fortunate in not having the same penetrating acumen in detecting the universal rottenness of everything.

The great thing we have to be thankful for about Dean Inge is that he isn’t able to take a tour to Heaven and then come back and tell us what it is like. In his latest review of the situation the Dean has been telling, the medical profession how human beings have degenerated. Nobody lives to be as old as Methusaleh in these days—the issuing of birth certificates, we would observe, is a great handicap against that sort of thing, and. it is only in countries where there is no registrar-general’s office that people can live to be even 150 years of age in this degenerate age. Then our hair comes out, our teeth have to be stopped, we wear spctacles, and have appendixes that are very expensive to chop out.

M. - * In the good old days none of those things happened. Nobody died of appendicitis. People just, died in a natural way, because their time had Come, and there was no undue curiosity as to what part of the works had gone wrong. In Queen Bess’s glorious age the supermen of that heroic period did not go about with gold-filled teeth, but there seemed enough rotten teeth in people’s mouths for the players in the theatre to bring down the house in a roar of laughter bv satirical remarks about the toothache, and the ability of all but those who had it to endure it, etc.., etc. Jokes about the toothache in these davs of filled teeth might be lacking in the same universal appeal.

In a recentlv-published book it was the Empire which was causing Dean Inge concern. The Empire., it seems, is in a very dangerous condition. “The main danger," says the Dean, "is interior to the Empire ” Then, warming up, he proceeds to tell us that “the omens at present are very unfavourable.” Further, “everything points to a coming time of trial for the nation and the Empire. It seems for every reason unlikely that our position as a world Power will endure much longer. Much depends upon the friendliness of the United States, on which we certainly cannot count, though of which we should not despair.”

“If in the future we are attacked. by a European coalition, we may take it, adds Dean Inge, "as probable that the United States will leave us to our fate, unless, indeed, we are invaded, by a black army. There are no occasions of war at present between the British Empire and the United States, since our government invariably gives way. . . • Americans bv insisting upon repayment of the vast debt, incurred for France, to which we rashly put our names, have secured that we shall remain permanently tributary to themselves.

Finally the gloomy cleric informs us that the loyalty of the Dominions is less whole-hearted than an Englishman could wish.” The absence of any real Imperial government is declared an outstanding drawback to the Empire s stability. “The future of Canada is problematical,” he says. Its chief safeguard is that it’s not the mterest of the United States to conquer it. If the British flag was hauled down on tn Nortii American continent, it’s more than possible the nations of Europe enraged bv bloated prosperity and airs of superiority of‘the man who.won the war,’ would combine to draw Shi lock teeth."

Within the last few months a Sergeant Hennessey, of the Sixtiethßn ish Rifles, has faced court-martial because of an apparition he asserts he saw while on guard at the Tower. Mr. Merrill the “Philadelphia Ledger correspondent who recounted the Qu|en Elizabeth story, states that Hennesse was hailed before the court on charges after he had been seen to drive a bayonet into a door, with no apparent reason, while on auuThus he testified in his official statement! “I can’t help it sirs vou believe me or not, but this u what happened. I sometimes take drop of gin on cold nights after I have gone off the watch, but neither on that night nor ever in my life haie I touched a drop while on duty. , not any too light on that parapet, as vou know. The big electric globe at the corner turn is nearly fifty paces from the door where this happened. As I approached the door 1 could > .sworn P I saw something come throng! it- T ran to see what it was. ", el,< it was a woman in a long white thing, but that wasn’t it. It was that her head was cut off from her body and floated above the neck, and it: pas U bloodv and the eyes were sta ... was a most horrid sight have known what to do, I dronned mv gun and crossed myself. °q?rs that is what happened, so help me God, and I am only tel mg it because mv counsel said Imust For mv nart I don’t expect you to beiiexe

W e s r eeirthe tC ap’Smn a £' |» is not related unfortunately.

«Tn a lexicogranliic.nl experience exteminr over thirtv-five years, says Dt VLetellv, editor of the “New Standard Dictionary, “I have, never once been asked for the meaning of anj one of the following terms: Ataraxv, coaxation, colnctntion. dvscolons. exenterntion. formositv. .linniect’tion. iljanne.nt'on, imniarcescible, ludibnndne. . mirifieent, mnlierositv, euirolencv, septemflnous. vertiginous.” It ‘cems that there nre a lo* of perfectly good words going to waste. We must -ndeavoiir to make the acou.aintance of «ome of tn cm mid give a little tone to this column.

Barber: Hair-cut. sir? Customer; Yes. but don’t make jt too short; T don’t want to look effeminate. THE SONG OF THE RIVER. The river’s song was sad before, But hope was in its sorrow: There seemed a note in it that said You might come back to-morrow. But now to-day as I go by, It has no note to cheer me; Its song must be all sadness now, Till vou again are near me. —Richard Le Gallienne in “Munsey s.