LIFE'S FITFUL FEVER.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIV, Issue 150, 21 December 1907, Page 3

LIFE'S FITFUL FEVER.

(By Dr. F. H. Charity.) *"**" In the lovely windows may be 6een 'dolls, sitting at afternoon tea, and bears, almost life-size. For an hour by and by these things will amuse rich people's children, and will then bo tossed aside. In unlovely places a few hundred yards from Lanibton-quay, there aro sad little girls, grimy and tattered. On Christinas Day, in tho ordinary run of time, they will have haidly a piece of bright clean rug to wrap around a stick to make a "dolhc," and there aro little boys, thin and ragged, who may get plenty of benr-baiung, but no bears. There are many calls for funds to bring a .little glatt light into dark homes. Will thu wealthy lend an ear"' " Wellington should^ bo grateful for its penerouo bakers who arc recklessly philanthropic persons. Flour has dropped £5 a ton, and promises to fall more. The takers have, therefore, decided to clock id from the exorbitantly dear loaf in the New \ear, piovided flour does not rise in the meantime. It is a liberal piomise. They might have made many other stipulations, r-uch as: "If the city js not ovci whelmed by a tidal wave, demolished by ail earthquake, or devastated by fire." Some of rho Dominion medals struck for 'the school children should bd given to Wellington's noble aimy of self-baciih'cing horse-feeding bakers.'' One blessing that the test cricket match brought was the elimination of the turbine Maori's records betweeen Wellington and Lyttelton and I/y-ttelton and Wellington. The world was becoming just a vast> clock, with the Maori in the middle beating poor old Father Time • -ill to pieces. Men woke shrieking in their sleep. They fancied that demons vere running them through the heart villi red hot minute and split-second' hands, and searing their skins' all over with 9.55 3-5, 9.55g, and 9.31 4-5 (Heads to Meads). It has not been published ;-ei, but tho latest log of the Maori reads : "Broke all previous records, but "could have bettered the performance by 7 1-5 seconds but for siight atcidentb. The steamer was shifted .001 point exit of her course while a steward was rhawing a cork,, and 3-5 of a second was lost. The steamer regained this 5-o second when 19 passengers had jettioonad their dinners, but lost 2 4-5 second? almost immediately afterwards by .002 gain of cigarette ar-h getting into the is. E. -corner of the captain's starboard eye. Similar mishaps — 13 altogether — made up the total loss c: 7 1-5 seconds. Next trip no corks are to bo drawn, and tho captain is to wear goggles."' Why all 'the uproar about the fiuiifiy": People have been worrying the Agricultural Department, and have sltogrther overlooked the Education Department. " Would this department, which has - cheerfully swallowed the babies, halt at the Mediterranean The ily merely wants education, development on proper lines. It. might be a 'friend if 'kindly taken in hand. At present it lays its eggs in fruit simj*ly because it is a Tory which believes in doing exactly as its ancestors did. Here is*a useful field for the resurrected Liberal and Labour Federation. After this body has liberalised the fly, it should be passed oyer to the Education Department, which will teach it to lay its eggs in mosquitoes, sandflies, and other vermin instead of fruit. Man is the Icing of animals, and when a lowly subject comes to help him he souses it with kerosene and immolates it at the destructor. '.It is too, "too cruel.'" Mr. Massey, Leader of Hi& Majesty's Opposition in the Dominion of New Zealand (Overseas) has either a colossal f-ense of humour or a colossal lack of humour— it is hard to say which. In any case he should be extremely happy, for it is almost as good to have no sense of humour at all as to have sufficient to get enjoyment even in ths dsntist's chair. It is the man with just a dim sense of humour who has sad times in life, and makes dark days tor those about him; he is the person ■who runs to puns. Ml- .Massey, however, does not u&ually commit pun's. Ho commits another sin nearly every time he makes a speech in or out of Parliament. It is : — For tho cause that lacks assistance, For tha wrongs that need resistance, < For the future in the distance. For the good" that we can do. Tina verse was composed by Mr. Ma-s--sey when ho was a* boy. It has been ascribed to others, but, the pride of the authorship belongs to Mr. Massey. • It M-as a happy inspiration, but everybody knows it by heart, and prays that Mr. Massey will commit a fresh poem. Another verse made by Mr. Massey in his teens is: — , .Ez to principles, I glory in hevin' nothin' o' the sort. I ain't a 'Whig, I ain't a Tory; I'm jest a candidate in short. . When he does not quote this one, he cites ,tho' other one. Even a change to a veise in a '"Mother Goose" song would be welcome. It would not matter what it was nor what it meant, so lone: as it is, a change, in epito of a declaration by Mr. Massey: — Change jest for change is like them big hotels, Where they shift plates, and make ye livo on smells. £p?ci3] examination ("Alice in Wonderhnd"), sixth form. H.— R.— Extract from a prize-list. Ono little girl of a dozen summers, v!io had digested the State ?chool syllabus, astronomy, and all. before fho r>h*d her milk teeth, submitted tho follovung essiy:— At. fir<.t. sight it might appear to tho casual mind that Ahcc was merely the victim of a nightmare in the day time, due to the consumption of green gooseberries (Berita Stomikakn) or> unripe apples (Applata Knockoutn). A little research, however, plainly show-s that the marvellous hallucinations suffered by Alice are traceable to no known form of dyspepsia. A y*»ar or two back I tried the Berita Stomikaka and tho Applata Knockouta myself, with unsatisfactory results, both in relation to the phenomena which I had hoped to behold and the aftermath. I then diligently searched the reports of Royal Commissions, tho minutes of meetings of. the Wellington Education Board, Governors' Speeches made at all the openings of Parliament, and all the Budgets and Financial Statement*, but in none of them could I find the least ahred of evidence to ascrjbe Alice's visionary experiences, to indigestion, though I found mention of almost everything else in the world. Moreover, to accept this theory wouM attach too lowly a moral to the tale. It would Bimply be- a warning to girls (and boys, too, presumably) to abstain from green gooseberries and unrips apples. We fBTUSt look for something higher. I have Satisfied myself that "Alice in Wonderland" is an elaborate satire on man and human institutions since the ape age. "Alice in Wonderland" is not a book for children ; it is a classic for the adult mind, after it has been trained in the best schools of ancient and modern thought. In this view I am supported by Mr. W. H. P. Barber, Mr. H. G. Eh, and' Mr. R. M'Kenzie, who says that he has built up a similar classic in his Noxious Weeds Bill.