BY THE WAY.

Evening Star, Issue 8613, 5 September 1891, Page 1 (Supplement)

BY THE WAY.

—let your sense be clear, Nor with a weight of words fatigue the ear. HobaGS. Mr Alfred Saunders, the distinguished author—he wrote a very respectable book indeed about cocks and hens, and a remarkably poor one about horses—rebuked Mr Richardson (the ex-Minister of Lauda) in the House the other day for saying that “this Government was taking the country full gallop to the Devil.” Much struck by the extreme aptness and accuracy of Mr Richardson’s remark, which I had not previously noticed in * Hansard,’ I was making a note of it for future use, when I observed with regret that Mr Saunders bad been brought up standing by an indignant denial that any such words had been used. The reputed user was not la the House, but Messrs Rolieston and Harkness repudiated with becoming horror the notion of the Hon. Mr Richardson making any reference to the Devil. It appeared that the word he did use was “ deficit.” “ Very well,” responded Mr Saunders, “ that makes it worse, as I am far more afraid of a real deficit than I am of a very fictitious Satanic Majesty.” It is about time that New Zealanders agreed upon a common policy with regard to the pronunciation of that word “deficit.” In a country which makes a specialty of those things it is really a discredit t) us that we don’t know how to pronounce them when wo get them. Probably Mr Richardson pronounces it <«na way and Mr Saunders expects to hear it the other hence the confusing of the Devil with the deficit, which leads to hon. members accusing each ether of bad language, and gets the Devil into bad company ; which is unfair. It is obvious that although a deficit may be the Devil, the Davit cannot by any possibility be a deficit. Personally, indeed, I camider him distinctly a surplus ; but that, I recognise, is a mere matter of opinion. * # * *

1 certainly think that, with the present Government in office, it becomes us all at least to be prepared (for tbe next and succeeding thirty-firsts of March) with a distinct policy on the subject of tho pronunciation of the word “deficit.” For obvious reasons this would make a very suitable plank in tbe platform of tbe Liberal party, and would be an acceptable 2Sth (I hope I am accurate) canon of the National Liberal Association, if that organisation has been able to survive the warning of Mr Barnes around the kitchen fire. I humbly suggest that Sir George Grey might bring in a Bill to settle tho point, and I will undertake to use My ’influence with the Legislative Council to induce them—for once—to let a Grey Bill go through. In the meantime, an appeal to Dr Belcher would be the next best thing, and here is the lorm of humble petition I •suggest;—

Meet learned Reclor, tell us true—which is it ? 'Some ot us always talk c( a de-mMt; Tray tell us, to the best of your belief, is it Rightly so called, or should we all say de-ficit

Saunders mistook the word, he says, (or devil; An odd mistake—a V’s not like an F, is it? Pray then, if Webster leaves the oHion level, Ve floit ot De-yir-it choose—not drv-icit. * * * •*

The female franchise question is still to the fore. Notwithstanding the objurgations ■of Mr Fish, the cursory remarks of Mr Buckland, and the subserviency of the Premier, the Bill was carried by a fair majority, and Mr Blake’s most damnatory proposal to postpone its coming into operation until after the next General Election was scoffed out of the House. Members very plainly told Mr Ballance the truth—that he had consented to postpone the operation of the Bill till 1594 so that it should not hava any effect until after the next General Election, in order to soothe the Wounded feelings of the errant Fish. And they said, moreover, that Mr Fish’s opposition emanated from tho fict that he knows full well the Female Franchise Bill will seal his political doom. Men may condone his offences—the better part of creation never will. But I am not quite sure that the Ist June, 1893, the date fixed by the Bill, will secure the desired position. How easy it will be for Ministers to work the oracle so that a dissolution shall take place, and a general election be precipitated just before that date. Giving all due credit to the few honest advocates of this measure, I verily believe that the majority of the members dread the influence of women. You can’t buy a woman’s vote at the price of a pot of beer, you know. Can the same be said of numbers of the “ enlightened ” males who are now entitled to vote, or no ? And echo answers “No ! ” A loud, distinct, very reverberating “ No !" Hence these tears. * * * *

“ Timio Danaos el dona ferentes which, being freely interpreted, means: Beware of your enemies when they offer you gifts. Mr Garncross—doubtlessly stimulated thereto by the aid of subtler brains—has moved and carried an amendment to admit women to seats in Parliament. Now, that this was done with the deliberative design of barking the Bill is as plain as the sun at noonday. It will be as fatal to it as the gift of the wooden horse was to the Trojans ; and the members who supported it are the deadliest and most sneaking enemies of the extension of political privileges to women. “ Deadliest,” because they know how well calculated such a provision is to ensure its defeat in the Council; and “sneaking” for the reason that, whilst not daring openly to resist the popular will, they endeavor, by “ indirect, crooked means,” to stifle it. These persons know very well what they are about, and so, I hope, do the people. And these also shall have their reward—at the next election, Open foes and false friends may at once dictate their political testamentary dispositions, # if * *

If there is one thing which, not to put it offensively, stinks in my nostrils it is a false quotation. And they are so frequent and free. Scarcely ever do I take up a paper without finding some most palpable blonder of this sort. Thus, the other day the Hon. Djwnie Stewart—our own Downie—misquoted the Bible, which it is innocently believed he knows by heart. Speaking on the Land and Income Tax Bill, he told his brother councillors—all apparently as wise as himself—that measures affecting taxation should bo so plainly worded that “ he who runs may read” —an excellent maxim, but a false quotation, Mr Walker jocularly said the Bill was of such a nature that he who reads may run. Now, Mr Walker’s joke was nearer the mark than Downie’s misquotation. If Mr Stewart and his respected co-entities—in-cluding Mr Fulton, who surely ought to have known better—will search the Scriptures they will find that the true quotation is: “ Write the vidon, and make it plain, upon tables, that he may run who nadelh ii," It was a warning to flee from wrath ; not, as Mr Stewart and others seem to suppose, a direction to make things “understanded of the common people.” Surely a Fourth Standard scholar But I forgot; the Bible is expurgated from our schools. The Bible and Shakespeare are. the two chief sufferers from these errors. But, strangely enough, Milton, whose magnificent epic is, with most people, merely a shelf ornament, is repeatedly misquoted by speakers and writers, who have not the faintest notion of the ot their strange perversions of the original. To wit: “Fresh fields and pastures new is a perpetual cause of offence.” Do they who use such nonsensical tautology know the difference (?) between a “field” and a “pasture”; and can they suppose that any sensible being—leave alone a poet —ever wrote such rubbish ? This continually misquoted Hue is from Milton’s ‘Lyoidas.’ It is the last line, in fact, and it runs thus

To-morrow to fresh woods and pastures new. But this perversity of quotation certainly appears to commend itself to the halfeducated mind. I once heard a public orator declaim thus; “As the wise King Solomon said, Go to the ass, thou sluggard," etc, And so say all of ns. # * * *

Fish on Sounders is rather a good line. Our parliamentarians seem to be going in for natural history o! a more or less congenial type. Last week, daring the Brycean episode, Mr Hogg remarked that the Opposition party were "unlike the sensitive phut, in that their bristles rose-—” "Like a hog,” interjected the Clutha phenomenon, who has narrowly escaped

being a humorist. Now Mr Fish Is going to take up the cause of the oppressed fishermen, who object to being deprived of their “ rights ” by restrictions as to the catching and purveying of halfgrwwn flounders. They aver that these fish have increased in numbers through the destruction of their young. Perhaps so. One is now prepared to hear, if not to believe, any absurdity whenever “ the craft is in danger.” Chacun a sou gout, Each to his taste; but for my own part I object to baby meat of any sort, fish or flesh. The sizs of many of the wretched flounders exposed for sale affords convincing proof that restriction as to size is necessary. However, the fisherman’s champion will no doubt to convince his brother legislators that to interfere with fish-catching is an unwarrantable interference with local industry. And the British public will smile and heed not, though if some abstruse political question or incomprehensible and empirical political “fad” were at issue they would protest most vigorously. So we must even let the fishermen pursue their wonted sport to the bitter end, when—-please the gods !—there will not be any Fish at all. For which let us return thanks.

An audacious rustic, who rejoices in the name of Dugald Ferguson, has desecrated the Book of Job by turning it into rhyme. 1 have not seen the thing, and I don’t wish to. Tho unpardonable impudence of attempting to reduce that sublime Biblical poem into jingling verse is simply “ Piodigious !” as Dominie Sampson would have phrased it. But idiotic as such an outrage seems, our Dugald is not first in the field. I remember that io my young days 1 was compelled by brutal moral force (and there is such a thing) to read a version of Job in rhyme as perpetrated by no less a personage than Sir John Doan Paul, a pious but fraudulent banker (of the firm of Strachan, Bates, and Paul), for which I bated him, and oaly felt consoled for the affliction he had caused my youthful soul when he was transported for forgery and kindred peccadilloes to Western Aus tralia. I don’t wish any personal harm to Dugald, but the fate of Sir John Paul should be an emphatic warning against perpetrating such rhyming enormities ! Nemo,