WITHOUT PREJUDICE

Dominion, Volume 20, Issue 298, 15 September 1927, Page 8

WITHOUT PREJUDICE

NOTES AT RANDOM

(By

T.D.H.)

Instalment paying, as a sage remarks, makes the months seem shorter and the years longer.

The big financial question in the United States is how much you can charge for admission to a fight and still have the public come.

A lot of people cannot understand why they do not wipe out banditry in China. A message to-day gives an indication of the difficulties in the way. The Christian general, Feng Yn-shi-ang, we are told, set out to bring the Red Spear band of bandits in northern Honan to reason. Before his troops got through they wiped out from 30,000 to aO.OOO persons, and it remains, of course, to be discovered if the job is complete. The message savs the number of slain is “probably exaggerated.” Unfortunately, it is not made clear whether it the 30,000 that is probably exaggerated or tlie 80,000, or both’ figures. It is a pity thev deal so loosely with these details in 'China. The Christian general’s army, after slitting even 30,000 throats, has naturally every reason to feel that it has done a day’s work without having to go round and count up the bag. When thev become really Christianised, the Chinese may be expected to take out a properly equipped division of the census office, with some reliable adding machines, on these occasions.

A massacre of even 30,000 persons is a considerable event, but very small in comparison with mankind’s past achievements. When Jerusalem, in the first centurv of our era, revolted against Roman rule, the citv was beseiged by Titus from April to September 7 in A.D. 70, and the total number of Jews massacred during the siege and in the subsequent sacking of the city is estimated bv the veracious Josephus to have been 1,100,000, and on top of this another 97,000 prisoners were slain._ It is verv doubtful though whether this is the world’s record massacre.

The Jerusalem figures ate small beer beside the total number of scalps taken by the Mongols under the famous lenghis-Khan, who over-ran Asia and part of Europe in the thirteenth cen-v fury. In the twelve years from 1211 to 1223 the armies of ienghis are estimated to have slain 18,470,000 persons. This was an average rate of .1,500,000 killings per annum: During the five years, of the Great War approximately 6,000,000 persons were killed, which also gives an average annual slaughter of 1,500,000. These figures go to show that when it comes down to fundamentals, military science has advanced verv little in' seven centuries in the’ art of blood-letting. lenghis seems to have managed .to end up his twelve-year campaign without being mortgaged up to the United States of the dav at that era—a fact which also goes to show that the political side was more efficient in running a war seven hundred years ago than it is to-day.

With no modern conveniences in the wav of machine-guns, artillery, poison gas, etc., the ancient killings, as Major Fitzurse has pointed out to us, represent an exhibition of sterling patience and persistence. General Manus, of the Roman Army of 102 8.C., it will be remembered, had an engagement with the Teutones and Ambrones at Aix, in Gaul, and left 200,000 of the enemy dead on the field. General Cassius, in the reign of Marcus Aurelius, restored order in Seleneia bv putting 300,000 of the inhabitants to death. In A.D. 277 the Emperor I’robus had a very'emcient general in Gaul who killed 400,000 barbarians invading that country from the north —nobody at that era having thought of the less exhausting expedient of passing an Undesirable Immigrants Act with an education test. Any time was a good time of killing in the old days, and in 40 B.C. Octavianus Caesar, as a mark of respect to the Manes of the late Julius Caesar, invited 300 Roman Senators and other persons of distinction to present themselves for sacrifice. The court etiquette as to accepting, when honoured with an invitation card for a ceremony of this kind, was very strict, and it would have been fatal to the Rornan senators’ future advancement in Hie to have declined to participate. • • •

The British Empire’s biggest massacre, according to the reference books seems to have been the killing. 154 000 Protestants in Ireland during O’Neill’s rebellion of 1641. According to some historians, upwards of 40,000 or 50,000 of the total were killed in the first, three or four days. The situation in Ireland at the period thm seems to have been even more acute than usual.

Exactly what did President Coolidge mean when he uttered lus much-dis-cuTsed 12 words: “I do not choose.to run for President in nineteen A At first glance nearly everybody took 1 that Mr. Coolidge was saying that he would refuse to stand for the Presi denev. Then people began to look at the words, and con them over Ido not choose”—what, hey asked themse’ves does “choose” mean? Choose, according to the dictionary, can riean all sorts of things, and rumour speedFlv flew around that the President had onlv indicated that he would prefer not to stand at the coming election. The result was’that all over the United States politicians turning up the dictionaries to find out what in political firmament. Mr. La r wr ® nce x - “Outa utinsr editor of the New York Out oT” went into the matter very mmnclv, and laid it down that according to the lexicographers choose indicates not gentle inclination, but decisive acHon “The word,” he said, “is derived from the Anglo-Saxon ceosan and th Middle English cheosan or chusen. •Ctese.- .fys Bn>l«s«r Wl>. wavs indicates an act of the willWhen it is used with the infinitive aS an object it means 'to prefer and de cide.’ ’ Mr. Abbott thus reached a very definite conclusion that what Mr. Coolidge said was in sound Saxon Eng fish, “I will not run for President. A. lot of other people in America, however did not appear to feel nearly, so confident about the President’s. meamng as Air. Abbott. It is hard that when “Silent Cal” does talk you can quite make him out.

Orator: “And what do we do? We pursue the shadow, the bubble bursts, fnd leaves but sackcloth and ashes m our empty hands.”

ACHERON. Oh let me write of Acheron, That river out of the black sun, Where hearts no longer feel or break. Or beat for some tall beauty s. sake, But where there delicately glide, Upon that sedgy riverside, Pale, lonely wraiths that once could

In the green meadows there above, Where the long grasses bend ana

swing- . , , There might 1 meet that darksom

Who is the last and fearful friend. Who lavs his hand on you and smiles, And says, “Beloved, ’tis the end! And, oh, the Queen’s Persephone. That sits beside him on his throne, He stole by the Aegean Sea. A flower 'mill flowers all alone? — Richard Le Gallicnne in “Mun-, sev's.”