WITHOUT PREJUDICE

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 223, 21 June 1928, Page 8

WITHOUT PREJUDICE

NOTES AT RANDOM (By T.D.H.) , The only thing more difficult to discover than the secret of perpetual motion is the real cost of Wellington’s hot mix pavements. Moslem religious services are to be reformed so as to render them more attractive, says a news message.— American business efficiency methods are creeping in everywhere.

“Whoso listens on earth to music or song will be deprived above of the joy of hearing the sublime celestial symphonies and melodious accents of the Most High, Mohammed and David, inexpressible in their sovereignty.” . . . so declared- Mohammed, and now the news reports that it is proposed in Turkey to have music in the mosques, and voice production courses for the muezzins who call the faithful together from their minarets. The Prophet also declared that “none lifts up his voice in song, but what Allah sends two devils to set on his shoulders and beat his breast with their hells until he refrains.” Apparently these devils have not been performing their functions of late, and the Turks think it is safe to brighten up their religious services with harmony.

If Turkey brings in all these innovations it remains to be seen what Ibn Saud down in Arabia thinks about it, for he nowadays seems to represent the fundamentalist, anti-evolution section of Mohammedanism. The Turks have back-slid badly for they have banished Sultan and Caliph, unveiled their women, suppressed the dervishes; they have even harmed the fez, and appeared in complete European guise. From this condition of things all pious Islam can only recoil in alarm. In the meantime, the Faithful in Palestine arc being harried and crowded by Christians and Jews; those of Syria are under the heel of the French: those of Mesopotamia have been “sold out” by their emirs to the British authorities. Northern Africa, with its Mussulman millions, is parcelled out among French, Spaniards, Italians and British. Only Arabia under Ibn Saud now remains the real true-blue Mohammedan article. It is not Britain alone that has Prayer Book revisiou troubles in hand.

Our good old friend the “Tailor and Cutter” has been making its round of the portraits at the Royal/ Academy iu London and noting the sort of justice the artists have been doing to the men who tailored their sitters. There are, the' “Tailor and Cutter” finds, “fewer scarecrows this year, less wanton tearing a fashion into tatters, an absence of those glaring errors which reach a point of absurdity. Of the portrait of Sir Frank Benson it is said: —‘This is not modern dress, or even dress at all; it is a series of shreds and patches, rags and tatters, daubs and dabs. What is the art which produces such an effect in place of the habit in which a man lives? It is untidy, careless, myopic; is it dubbed expressionism or futurism? Or shall we call it the art of Petticoat Lane or of the Rag Bag School?’”

Another picture looks as if “the waiter had slopped some sbup down the front of the white waistcoat” The cloth of Mr. Lloyd George’s suit is “somewhat wild and woolly, suggesting the Far-West rather than the West End. His collar is Gladstonian almost, and his tie comes from nowhere but the Latin Quarter. Does not a statesman need his roomy pocket for his pledges? In one portrait only, that of Major B. H. Matheson, is • the “perfect suit” found. . . . One of these days, no doubt, some enterprising tailor will indicate himself by bringing a libel action against the artist who makes a mess of painting the clothes of his customers. It would be an interesting case.

The influence of marriage on a man’s character is attested by a law in Bavaria which forbids unmarried men to carry open knives in place of the big clasp-knife every true Bavarian regards as part of his everyday toilet. The married man may do as he likes, but the bachelor is not permitted to show the veriest glimpse of an open blade unless he wishes police escort to tlie nearest lock-up. Only the married among the gipsies, beggars, tramps, and plate-layers on the railway are treated in the same ignominous fashion. .It is argued that these occupations are not conducive to calmness and sobriety, even among those who have ostensibly settled down. According to the “Frankfurter Zeitung” the courts have decided that a married man, whether a divorced husband or a widower, still retains his knife-carrying privilege—once married, the law holds, he is steadied down for life.

A story with a moral from a Californian paper:—“A novel experiment was tried in Los Angeles the other week. It was in connection with a class in American government; a petition was addressed to the Dean and was taken to 104 students by a committee formed from the American government class. One hundred * and one students signed it, one girl doing so twice in her eagerness to be in the movement. Three who took the trouble to read the petition refused to sign it.” And well they might; for the circular contained the phras: “All who sign this. petition shall be executed on the campus, one week from date.” . . . And that is how many elections are won. .

Sympathetic Old Lady: “And when you went down for the third time the whole of your past life, of course, flashed before your eyes?” Longshore Billy: “I expect it did, mum, but I ’ad ’em shut at the time, so I missed it;” ON A SUDDEN DISTURBANCE. A tumult in the kitchen! Cup and cup Ring out their protest. Glasses jingling wake The silence, and the Dutch clockchokes a tick, The candle flickers, and down droops the wick. The grey cat starts, and stiffly arches up, And wonders wild-eyed at the noise they make. Tumult grows silent. Kettle gently sings, The candle burns with steady flam* and takes The leaping shadows from the wall, and draws Them firm and still. The cat with outstretched paws Purrs by the fender dreaming happy things. Bravely the kettle thrills and bubbling makes A firesong. ’ Glasses gleam; the china winks In llainelight; and the Dutch clock stares and thinks. —y. C. Clinton Baddeley.